V – “Pound of Flesh” (1.06 ) – review

• Tweet
• Pin It

Anna introduces her pilot program to invite select groups of humans to stay on each of the 29 spaceships, Ryan must deal with the fact that Valerie’s pregnancy is wildly accelerated, Tyler learns a secret about his mom, and one of the team makes a sacrifice to save Ryan.

The second episode after V‘s long break is not short on plot-building, and despite a foreseen escape (Ryan) and “Fifth Column” sacrifice (Georgie), I found the episode to be quite enjoyable. Father Jack and Chad’s new relationship could lead to secrets being leaked off the Visitor’s ship directly to the Fifth Column on Earth, while Ryan’s new knowledge of the Fifth Column being aboard the Visitor ships could prove useful later on.    

I like the fact that the writers are trying to do something with Tyler’s character; him just being a V lover is a bit too predictable. Ryan’s pregnancy cover-up can only go so much further, since Valerie is more than suspicious. Seeing the baby move in her belly was quite interesting, and I am sure everyone is waiting to see how this child is going to look, including me. Anna’s observation of the Fifth Column’s message and her delight over the possibility of using it as a trap was most chilling. Most of the time the villain loses their cool when something like this happens, but not cold-blooded Anna–kudos to the writers on that one.

My major concern with this episode is that I still do not have a deep attachment to any of the characters at this point. I like what the writers are doing with reinventing the series, but the characters are starting to come off as paper cut-outs. Anna’s character, at least, is nailed down; everyone knew that her role was the deal maker or breaker on this series, and it is working.  Great!!!  Everyone else–step it up. We are now at rolling into episode seven, and for me, at least, these characters are going to need a bit more dimension if I am going to feel their hope and desperation.  The audience must be willing to stand behind the heroes till victory or defeat. Right now all I can think about is how creepy Anna is and that I don’t really care what happens on Earth.

Because of my ambivalence for the characters, while this episode started the plot elements of an obvious war on the horizon, I am not really not ready to choose a side in said upcoming war. I think strides were made this episode to plant some characterization seeds, but it took us a bit to get to this point. The writers need to let these characters enter our hearts and make them race as they fight to save Earth. The only thing I see right now is a successful villain, and that the writers want to make sure we get to see a V baby. I still believe as a remakes go, things are going in the right direction plotwise, but somehow we are losing the resonance of these characters to all the media hype, and one reptilian baby.