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'V' Season 2, Episode 1 Recap (Season Premiere)
by Brad Trechak, posted Jan 5th 2011 1:15AM
['V' - 'Red Rain']Welcome to what is likely the final season of this series. This is a shame, because 'V' showed some promise in tonight's premiere. The show has an excellent premise and a kick-ass cast, but given ABC's treatment, unless it gets some major ratings, it's likely a goner.
At least we finally got to see what the aliens look like under their fake skin, literally down to the bone. While it's a fairly radical change to our invading lizards due to improvements in technology (definitely no devil tails in the last batch), it is reminiscent of their original visage from the '80s (which goes along with the retro casting of this season). They just need the whiplash tongue and the rat-eating to make it complete.
It's cool how sci-fi shows hire people from other, previous sci-fi/fantasy shows. We have Elizabeth Mitchell from 'Lost,' Morena Baccarin from 'Firefly,' Laura Vandervoort from 'Smallville' and now Bret Harrison from 'Reaper.' Of course, we also now have callbacks to the original '80s series with Jane Badler, plus an upcoming appearance by (spoiler alert) Marc Singer. It's like they know it's the last season and they're pulling out all the stops.
At least this episode gave the Visitors a little motivation for their subtle takeover of the world: breeding. While this concept has been used before, it's nice that they stepped away from the reasoning from the original series: food. Which option is more palatable, being the Visitors' sex slave or their dinner?
It's a little confusing as to why they don't use their firepower to simply rape the citizens of Earth. Perhaps it's something to do with their culture. While the show does only employ a relatively small cast, it seems a little too coincidental that Erica's pregnancy was experimented upon all those years ago. I suppose next we'll find out that Tyler's father is a V himself (which wouldn't surprise me at this rate).
Who else noticed the MacBook Pro with a sticker on the Apple logo? Steve Jobs is one of the major shareholders of Disney that owns ABC. What's up with the sticker?
The Fifth Column recruitment process does need work. It's difficult to keep membership up when you threaten non-joiners with death. Chad Decker seems like a full-fledged member now. Decker seems as much a coward as an opportunist.
That Laura Vandervoort has got quite a ... view from her room. We'll leave it at that. Leave it to Anna to actually want her underage daughter to get pregnant by a teenage boy.
There was a lot of parent/child relationship drama in this episode. Anna kidnapped Ryan's daughter (and why she didn't just kill Ryan I'll never figure out) and kills her own children upon learning they might be retarded. Oh, and she used her daughter as a sex toy. There was the usual drama between Erica and Tyler and there was the final scene when we met Anna's mother (yay, Jane Badler). I can't wait for the explanation of why Anna needs to travel with her mom. Is she that insecure?
The problem with this show (and with many other supernatural or science fiction dramas before it) is that it doesn't seem to have plot direction. They seem to be making up the rules as they go along (see 'The X-Files' for a good example of this). This show probably would have lasted longer on one of the premium cable networks. But this season still might surprise people and lead to more. It's not dead yet. Let's see where it goes.
'V' airs Tuesdays at 9PM EST on ABC.
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