Follow Up – V
V – ABC – 8:00/7:00pm Tuesday – USA / Nine – 8:30pm Sunday – AUS
Back in November when V debuted I had a couple of quibbles with the show but I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to give V “the benefit of the doubt”. I thought there was so much good stuff on offer that even if the show didn’t ‘gel properly’ that everything should be able to come together to create a great series.
Yeah, so I was kind of wrong about that. To be fair I did also say that V “tries to cram so much into the pilot that you kind of wonder where else these stories can go”. As the remainder of the first half of the series played out we got our answer: nowhere. What appeared on the surface like a smart, high budget, sci-fi series turned out to be an overly glossy, fluffy, snooze-fest.
The special effects are still good by television standards but the characters are about as interesting as tofu. Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet on Lost) is the only half-worthwhile character while the rest of them range from dicky to bland to Scott Wolf. Scott Wolf as a reporter spends most of his time giving ridiculous news reports. He doesn’t get to have much of a character trait besides ‘being gullible’ as he’s always reporting about how amazing these Visitors from outer space are, but then to add a bit of depth to his emotional range he gets to flash his “I’m not so sure” eyes and that’s his work done for another week.
The biggest problem with V is that it follows these supposed worldwide events and yet feels like only five people on the entire planet actually care about what’s going on. There’s no sense that these are epic events with worldwide consequences. If the general public aren’t ignoring the aliens they’re falling in love with the aliens – as demonstrated by doofus Tyler who’s romantic relationship with an alien is odd at best and downright creepy at worst. We do all remember the aliens are lizard people under the skin, right?
Even after the first four episodes it’s hard to get any kind of grasp on V because it’s about as solid as jelly. As long as we ignore some fairly gaping plot holes, and put up with a drowsy cast and forgettable storylines then V can pass as okay television. However, if you actually pay attention to the things that, you know, make up a television show and not just a pretty display of colours, then V crumbles into a heap on blithering nonsense. I can recommend the pilot because it’s a lot more enjoyable than the equally mediocre FlashForward, but I can’t recommend much beyond that because the show is so bland you’ll just end getting distracted by something more exciting and with better characters like, say, a fishbowl or a lavalamp.
