Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Stegall
V
“Serpent’s Tooth”
ABC 9PM, Tuesdays
Written by Gregg Hurwitz
Directed by Steve Shill
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
“It’s Earth, or nothing!” —Diana
You’d think that, in nearly thirty (or is it seventy) years, we’d have learned something about launching a resistance movement. Last night’s episode of V brought back even more clearly than ever the fact that this series started out, in 1984, as a series about the Nazi resistance of World War II. That’s right, Word War II. Creator Kenneth Johnson wanted to make a show about those brave French, Dutch, etc. underground fighters who fought against the Nazi occupation. But then came Star Wars, and the network decided it wanted to cash in on the movie’s popularity with some aliens and space ships and brave freedom fighters, so hey presto, the World War II era story morphed into a futuristic alien invasion story. Even then, in 1984, the Resistance seemed very old-fashioned, very out of date, with their simplistic plots, poor communications, and utter lack of discipline or security. They were like the Keystone Kops version of the Resistance. Now, thirty years after the original V failed, the tactics used by the Resistance are, once again, throwbacks to the outdated models of the Second World War. You’d think that the Cold War, Vietnam, and above all al-Qaeda would have taught us that there are more effective ways of crafting a wave of resistance and terror than meeting in church basements.
“He said I inspired him!” —Father Jack
A suicide bomber makes his last confession to Father Jack, telling him that his sermons against the V have inspired him to do something about it. Seconds later, he is detonating a bomb that kills himself and several human bystanders at a V clinic. Father Jack is horrified to learn that his words have actually had an effect, possibly even the effect he subconsciously intended. Of course he is covered in guilt and remorse, whether justified or not. This whole theme played out in unintentionally creepy ways, given our latest national convulsion over “hate speech” and “political discourse”. Once again, we are surprised to find that people actually listen to what we say. Father Jack takes upon himself an undeserved guilt, as if seeking martyrdom. In fact, he came across as a man seeking a way out, an excuse to quit this wobbly resistance and get back to saving souls.
Father Jack: I gave a sermon…
Chad: We don’t always know the impact we will have.
I love it that a journalist, of all people, is chastising a priest about inflammatory speech. Pot, kettle, black.
“We’re talking about lives!” —Erica
Our resistance fighters don’t seem to understand the stakes involved in their own war. They’re fighting to save billions, but by golly they’re not going to accept any human casualties. What part of “war” does Erica not understand? One of the reasons World War II succeeded in stopping the Nazis is that the people fighting Hitler grimly accepted that some of the folks on their side would die. The choice is never between a dirty war and a clean war; it’s between a dirty war and a dirtier war. Erica’s objection to the sacrifice of “innocent civilians” smacks of so deep a level of naiveté it renders her unfit for command. A commander, especially one heading an asymmetrical war, must be willing to make sacrifices, to order people to kill, to accept the “collateral damage” consequent on any violent act. If Erica is unwilling to do this, she should step aside. But the writers are unwilling to make the hard choices, unwilling to show us someone ruthless enough to get the job done, so they paint her as a sweet, caring mom who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Frankly, what this Resistance needs is Sarah Connor, not Erica Evans.
“What were you really doing?” —Erica
Called to the scene of the crime, Erica plays her usual game with her own FBI: she seems to go along, to forward the mission, but is secretly playing against it. Nor is she the only one; her “partner”, a disguised V named Malik (Rekha Sharma, Battlestar Galactica) passes vital evidence to Anna’s aide, Marcus. Both the V and Erica are racing to find out whodunit before the official enquiry does, and for essentially the same reason: to find out about the network behind this suicide bomber. Yet even then, her motives are ambiguous; her local cell is unsure it wants to affiliate with this shadowy global conspiracy. Yes, the conspiracy is able to orchestrate suicide bombs in each of the 29 cities where the V have ships, but Erica’s cell is more concerned with their own issues than in hooking up in a global conspiracy. In this regard, they may finally be making their way out of the 20th century and into the 21st; if nothing else, al Qaeda has shown the world that a loose affiliation of independent cells is more effective than the tightly braided hierarchy of, say, Cold War spy networks. And in any case, who would want to affiliate with “resistance fighters” so inept that they leave behind an unburned, unshredded copy of a map to their warehouse? But then, they are probably just right for Erica, who allows the partner she knows is a V to get the drop on her in a moving car. Is there a dumber FBI agent on television?
“Are you sure you want to go down this path?” —Sidney
Tonight’s episode of V was supposed to show us something new about Tyler’s DNA, but all we really got was his mom snatching a dab of bloodied tissue off his face and submitting it for analysis. She didn’t even get the results back. But then, the less we hear of him, the better I’m pleased; the best part of tonight’s show was the relative lack of Tyler. The conception and execution of this character is so fundamentally flawed that there’s no redeeming it. The writers need to either kill him off or re-tool him. If they want him to be a traitor, let him become Anna’s aide. But no, clearly they are hoping to write a redemption scene somewhere down the line, so they can’t let him become too bad. Until then, he is merely wishy-washy and whiny, a waste of onscreen time.
“Why are you putting skin on the baby?” —Joshua
This line gets my personal award for one of the funniest lines ever. Ever. And it’s an example of why this show is not working. It’s hilarious, both in concept and execution. But it’s played straight. It’s campy, it’s cheesy, it’s perfect for popcorn entertainment, it comes right out of the Syfy school of writing. Anna decides to have Ryan’s baby lizard daughter “dressed” in a human baby suit, in order to allow her to “fit in” on Earth. Then she doesn’t give the baby to Ryan. And she tries to stimulate paternal feelings in him—that’s paternal feelings towards a lizard in a baby suit from a lizard also wearing a human suit. We’re supposed to take this whole scene seriously. Then we get the scene I’ve been waiting for since this series debuted: Anna eats a live rat. Then she regurgitates it to feed the baby. I should have been shrieking with delight at this scene, but it fell flat because everyone took it too sincerely. When a geek (in the traditional carny sense) scene like this fails to amuse, they’re definitely doing it wrong. It’s scenes like this that convince me the producers don’t know where they’re going with this show. Even replacing Scott Peters with Scott Rosenbaum isn’t helping—the show is still either too cheesy or not cheesy enough, too broad or too narrow in its scope.
“Do I have a soul?” —Ryan
This show started out focusing on themes of parent/child rivalry, and continues to hit those ideas hard. But this episode begins to concentrate closely on a more spiritual idea: the human soul. Explicitly linking the concept of human emotion to the soul, the writers walk us through some sophomore-level meanderings on the nature of the soul, whether it can be corrupted or destroyed, whether non-humans can have one. These discussions were not nearly as deep as the writers think they were, but in a show about rat-eating aliens, I don’t expect much intellectual depth. Anna thinks that humans can be controlled by their emotions, and her mother Diana tells her the soul is the root of emotions. Anna decides to use them as a weapon. Suddenly, this canny and ruthless commander is unnerved by the concept of happiness. Father Jack is persuaded that Ryan can only find his soul through suffering. Diana warns Anna that breeding lizards to humans will only result in hybrids whose emotions will cause them to rebel against their queen. It’s as confusing an intellectual construct as I’ve ever found. The writers have confused complexity with confusion, and are loading this show with the latter.
“You can have my bliss.” —Anna
If the writers want to talk about what it takes to win a war against soulless monsters, if they want to talk about what it means to fight to remain human in inhuman circumstances, if they want to see how grief and suffering can bring out both the worst and the best in humans, they should be watching The Walking Dead. Compared to that smartly written show, this one is amateur hour.
V unloaded 10% of its audience from last week, dropping to a 1.9 rating among adults, for a total of 5.76 million viewers. Its numbers last season should have forced ABC to cancel it, and I can only speculate on why it was brought back. I suspect it is because ABC could not admit to itself that it had failed so badly on two new science fiction shows (counting FlashForward) after succeeding so spectacularly with Lost. Or else it really wanted something to follow No Ordinary Family, in which case its decision has probably killed both shows. Either way, I believe this show is doomed. Even if the producers finally decided to commit to the cheese and make this show the parody it should be, even if they fill our screens now with lizard skin, live mouse appetizers, and human/lizard babies, it’s too late to win back an audience that fell asleep watching it weeks ago.