V - Season 2 (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Hewell]

To be fair, NCIS: LA *is* pretty awesome fun

Are you a 58 year old woman in St. Petersburg, Florida?

 

[Tony J Case]

Well, I just finished watching this weeks episode, and holy smokes did it make the jump from Simply Bad past Laughably Bad straight into What The Fuck. Seriously, making war on the human soul? You've got to be kidding me.


And what the hell - why do the visitors call themselves Vs? Diana, locked in the basement with her Giant Corn Husk for 15 years refers to their race as Vs. Sure she's been on earth before, but why the hell use a name that's just now been associated with them? Or were they called V's 30 years previous, too?


Oh, and I loved how our resistance group - the ones who have been sitting around in a basement for months now - had the fact that some other people had managed to organize a globally networked resistance and totally showed them up. Okay, the methods they use - the suicide bombings - not a good idea, but the fact that they were actually able to do SOMETHING while our heroes haven't accomplished jack shit speaks volumes.


Oh, and the line that went something like ". . . when the humans set off the first atomic bomb. . ."


Wait a second - *The* first atomic bomb? Dude, you have spaceships that travel faster than light, glowing marbles of pure energy, and spray on skin - surely ours can't be *THE* first atomic bomb. And they must have some hella good sensors, being able to see that first detonation from the OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE, in and amidst all the light generated from our sun.


And if they're impressed by an atomic bomb, just wait until they find out we're working on a Solaranite Bomb. They'll lose their freakin' minds!


And holy crap - what's up with the really crappy effects? That rat eating scene looks like total and complete ass! When a 30 year old sequence (which - while cool at the time - wasn't all that great to begin with) blows away your effort, something is really, really wrong. Seriously - it looked like a bad video game cut scene.


We should start a deadpool, gambling on how many episodes this thing will last before the Mercy Killing.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

I like to think the crappy effects are a nod to the original series.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I think you're looking for things to gripe about, Tony. The real name for the Visitors is probably some sort of reptilian hiss that they can't make with their human skins on. I don't think the show did or intended to state that the Manhattan Project was the first atomic explosion anywhere, just the first human atom bomb. As for this being better than what we saw this week, in an apples-to-apples comparison not accounting for the decades of advancement, I can just say that I disagree completely.

 

[Will_B]

I remember the old effect was just a balloon on the V's neck and a plastic tail in her mouth. Not very good. The new effect wasn't any good either, but was at least more of a bad "I Am Legend" effect than a bad balloon effect.


The soul element is just the show grasping for a way to raise the stakes, when so far they haven't showed that the V's presence is really having any negative effect on anyone (other than some needle poking to the live-aboards). Yeah there's the implication that down the road there will be bad things, but, that's not very dramatic (to say that dramatic things will happen later). The exposition in this episode was excessive.


I am sad to see a pattern emerging for actresses who came from Firefly: Summer Glau next played an emotionless Terminator robot (except for that one time when she became emotional when her chip was damaged and she thought she was the human she was based on). Morena next played an emotionless V (except for that one time when she became emotional when her skin effected her and the emotion of having her eggs burned up overwhelmed her).


It is really a shame that Morena's character is by design so limited. At least Summer Glau got to be humorous sometimes, as a Terminator.


I'm tired of this show. And I wish Terminator had been renewed.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

I'm still waiting on Morena to show up on "Chuck".

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

This is the first year I have watched the show. I was one of the fans of the original and the thought of redoing the show was always questionable to me.I started watching season 2 for Diana more than anything and from seeing a few episodes now, I can say, she does steal the show.


The main problem I see with the show are the characters. They are all wooden and not very well written. The Actors, whom I have seen in other things and liked are horrible and uniteresting here.Scott Wolf's character is a bore as well as the Priest. Morena sounds like she is reading her lines from a tele-prompter with her monotone delivery.

I saw the new showrunner at a convention recently and he didn't even know what the red dust from the original mini-series was which leads me to believe he has not done his research.

It shows.

They should have continued this show from the original series.

 

[mattCR]

Let's capture the human soul! OMG.. who wrote this?!?!? I am now -out-. I cannot believe super-scientific alien visitors with advanced technology are now hung up on this... the moment it was brought up, I thought Oh, this is just a device, it'll be solved quickly.. now I realize this is insane. I'm out. I'll let others tell me how this improves or if it does.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I've always wondered about the soul. Who knew you could just strip a person's skin, flesh and bones away, and whatever's left just before they die is the soul. If I had the time an energy, I'd make a Stupid TV Moments clip and include that segment in it. I, however, am not out. As long as I maintain the ability to ignore certain things, I'm able to tolerate -- and even enjoy -- it.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Originally Posted by Mikah Cerucco

I've always wondered about the soul. Who knew you could just strip a person's skin, flesh and bones away, and whatever's left just before they die is the soul.

The notion goes back at least a century (and probably further). This isn't the first time it's been used metaphorically. It was referenced in the first season of Breaking Bad, and it's the meaning behind the title of the film 21 Grams.

 

[DaveF]

I've watched two of the new episodes. I think I"m caught up, but might be one behind still.


The second half of the season has brought a new urgency and somewhat tighter story. It's still filled with silliness, bad CG sets, and the angriest group of unemotional aliens I've seen since Tuvok, but we continue to watch. My wife is particularly annoyed by the sloppiness of the V's emotion-free existence being portrayed with passionate fury by Ana. I've given up on writers and actors knowing how to do cool logic; only Spock and Data got it right. Since then unemotional is always conflated with a general pissiness towards life. (sigh)


On the plus side, the conversation about "soul" between the good Father and Ryan was one of the best TV-sci-fi conversations on the matter I've heard in a while. It actually rang true and was neither universalist nonsense nor materialist dogma. It felt like a real conversation and emotionally true. I'm intrigued by Ana's plan to identify, quantify, and nullify the soul. My wife, though finds this plotline a terrible idea and doesn't care for it a bit. I think she's forever scarred by too many bad sci-fi TV shows attempts at the same issue. But for now, I'm amused and it seems a reasonable thread for this show.

 

[Patrick Sun]

All that skinning action filled my "24" torture pr0n scenes quota.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Michael Reuben

I've always wondered about the soul. Who knew you could just strip a person's skin, flesh and bones away, and whatever's left just before they die is the soul.

The notion goes back at least a century (and probably further). This isn't the first time it's been used metaphorically. It was referenced in the first season of Breaking Bad, and it's the meaning behind the title of the film 21 Grams.

[/QUOTE]


Except in those cases, you're talking about humans muse about other humans and try to place themselves in the context of the universe and whether or not there is a god. The statement being made in V is almost laughable. It is as though an entire, space-faring race with advanced technology had never, at any point, pondered "why do we exist", and so baffled by this self introspection, when they hear about another race thinking about it, they determine it must be a real, plyable thing, and they have to rip hundres of thousands of people apart to sort it out.


But it's also that this comes on the heals of an agent, who is being tortured, who renounces that "you'll never break me" and the like.. ok, if the "V" are so puzzled about where human will has come from, wouldn't anecdotal evidence tell them they should have found some sort of organ or box inside of them that creates the same?


I love the way in Season 1, they show us this amazing scanner that can locate aneurisms before they will happen.. and yet, here, they are ready to strip humans apart to find something they can't locate, but are fixated that it must be real.


And what happened with the red rain? Did we just forget everything about that?


I was laughing so damn hard about the "we'll need a few hundred thousand subjects" to rip apart and try and locate their soul???? How the hell did these guys invent advanced space craft, interstellar travel, super technology, and they can't recognize primative mythos if it jumps up and bytes them in the ass?


I could buy a group of guys on a show like Grey's Anatomy sitting around and saying "do you think, if you lose this part of the brain, you lose what makes up your soul? what makes you you?" It's people pondering questions about their existance. But an advanced alien race obsessed with how to find it.. and even if "it" were real, and they could only find it by tearing people apart, then what good is it? It's the same as saying "we have to kill them.."


One of the most laughable, badly scripted moments I have ever seen in any show"

 

[Michael Reuben]

Originally Posted by mattCR

And what happened with the red rain? Did we just forget everything about that?

It was mentioned in the meeting between Chad and Anna, but it's looking more and more like a pretext for a phony cliffhanger to end season 1.

 

[TonyD]

There seems to be two topics being posted into on the show.

 

[Tony J Case]

Remember when V was about aliens eating humans and starfighter chases through the grand canyon and gun battles with lasers going Pwew-Pwew and doomsday devices and megacool alien bases and an effective resistance that fought back with bombs and guns and actually did stuff? The soul? Are you out of your fucking MINDS?!?

Originally Posted by mattCR

Let's capture the human soul! OMG.. who wrote this?!?!? I am now -out-. I cannot believe super-scientific alien visitors with advanced technology are now hung up on this... the moment it was brought up, I thought Oh, this is just a device, it'll be solved quickly.. now I realize this is insane. I'm out. I'll let others tell me how this improves or if it does.

This!


Lets see, they can travel across the galaxy, manipulate DNA, map the human body and cure brain anurisms - but they cant pick up a fucking book and read about the soul? No, they have to put 16,000 people into The Chrome Tickling Machine to find out where the soul exists? Who fuckin' wrote this? Christ - why do I not have their jobs?


I loved the Magic Knocking Out Tree. That was sweet, sweet action, right there I tells you.


So they torture Agent Whatshername to find out about one homeless girl, throwing away the biggest resource they've stumbled into yet. Nope, not gonna study her, not going to get more information out of her - just gonna torture her to death. And for what? Sure they saved the girl, but they didn't stop the kidnappings, they dont know who's next on the list, they dont know WHY the kidnappings are happening. Nope, just gonna return her to momma and tell her it was all a bad dream!


And why would peeling off the human casing kill them? It's not the Vee's actual skin or anything - it's a damn spray on tan!


And didn't anyone find it just plain wrong that nobody - not even the man of god - raised one single objection to torturing another sentient being to death? The only debate was if she was more use to them alive for scientific purposes or that they could get more information from her. And these are the good guys?


Oh, and speaking of the DNA - Science Boy says that the missing bits will be filled in later. If the kid had huge freakin' parts of his DNA missing, he would BE FUCKING DEAD BECAUSE HIS CELLULAR PROCESSES WOULD NOT FUCKING WORK!!! I swear to god, each week this show is turning into Plan 9 From Outer Space!


God, I wish this show followed the adventures of the other resistance cell, the one that actually did stuff and was organized. . . .

 

[Michael Reuben]

Originally Posted by TonyD

There seems to be two topics being posted into on the show.

Some season 2 posts were going into the season 1 thread. I moved them all here.

 

[Vaughan Odendaal]

God, I wish this show followed the adventures of the other resistance cell, the one that actually did stuff and was organized. . . .

Any complaints you have about this show seem tame, like REALLY tame compared to 'The Cape'.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Mikah Cerucco

It is as though an entire, space-faring race with advanced technology had never, at any point, pondered "why do we exist", and so baffled by this self introspection, when they hear about another race thinking about it, they determine it must be a real, plyable thing, and they have to rip hundres of thousands of people apart to sort it out.

I think this is exactly what it is. Considering that the Vs are an emotionless, cultureless species with a top down propagation system in which the Queen is the only truely autonomous member, is it really so impossible to believe that they've never pondered "why do we exist"? The Queen exists to serve her people. The people exist to serve their Queen. The idea of a War of the Worlds with philosophical corruption instead of viral corruption is actually very fascinating to me.

 

[KevinGress]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

I agree with you to an extent on this one. Certainly Father Jack should have had a serious issue about it, especially since he asserted to Ryan that Vs have souls just the same as humans. On the other hand, war is hell.

Actually, what he said was that Ryan had a soul because of who/what he'd become (Ryan directly asked him "Do I have a soul?"). It's unclear if the Father believes the Vs have souls in general, but he should still oppose it on moral grounds.