Wednesday, November 4, 2009

'V' Series Premiere - What did you think?


I just finished watching the pilot episode of 'V' which aired last night, and my first thought was - 'Awesome!!' It was nice to FINALLY see the show that ABC has been hyping up for WEEKS. I'm definitely going to stick with it through the duration of it's first chunk (which I'll explain below), but here are my overall thoughts:

1) They packed a TON of information into that first hour. The pilot definitely had me at the edge of my seat (couch) for the entire first hour, but are they really going to be able to keep that up? I mean they introduced the V's, explained their characteristics, showed multiple plotlines amongst the humans, revealed the big secret about the V's, AND managed to uncover some V's amongst the people we previously thought were humans! All in an hour!

2) I can see myself getting sick of the storyline with Juliet's son pretty quickly. (DAMMIT, did I really just call her Juliet? I realized this about 30 seconds into typing this paragraph and once I realized it I figured I might as well just leave it in because approx. 50% of my 10-person readership will understand my mistake...haha). Anyways, ERICA'S son is quickly becoming obsessed with the 'V's and I totally understand why this makes for an intriguing plot line (i.e. mother vs. aliens + alien bff son) but I just worry that it'll annoy me if they drag on the mother/son conflict for too long. Now if they get him over to 'the resistance' side quickly, I can totally get behind that.

3) Anna totally gives me the heebyjeebys - in the best possible way. I'm psyched for where they can take her character.

4) Not loving Scott Wolf's character (Chad) just yet, but I really hope they go somewhere good because I think his inside eye into the V's could be really helpful - especially since he's already starting to doubt/question them.

5) The Erica-Dale storyline. LOVED that Dale was a V!! That's huge and I think that's going to be really really interesting in the coming weeks.

6) Elizabeth Mitchell. Sigh. I love you Juliet and I'm pretty sure you're dead on LOST, but Damon did promise that you'll be back on the show in some capacity (flashbacks maybe?), and it's nice to see you on here for now! And speaking of LOST.. V is certainly nowhere close to LOST in comparison, but this is looking pretty promising if they can keep things up....which brings me to my last point...

7) The formatting - ABC is apparently splitting V up into two chunks. They will air 4 episodes now and wait until March to air the other 9. ABC claims the reason for this is the Winter Olympics - now this makes sense to me, BUT my real question is, did the writers craft the show around this break also? If so, this could work very very well. My biggest concern about the show is it being just that - a tv show. V seems like the type of concept that could work brilliantly in either a movie or a miniseries but I worry about dragging it out over several seasons of TV. If they package it into miniseries, though, it has the potential to keep up the pace (maybe not as fast as the pilot, of course) and keep things interesting. Of course, other shows have tried to do 'segments' (like Heroes) and it has not always panned out. If, on the other hand, they are NOT syncing the storyline to the way the show is going to the air (and instead just leaving a gaping several month hole in the middle) then I'm pretty sure V will tank. No one wants to re-live the middle of the season break that LOST took in Season 3 because it was disastrous, frustrating, and overall unsuccessful.

Anyways, those are my snap judgments on V. What did you all think? Will you keep watching? Will it replace LOST for you when *GASP* it ends next year? How amazing is Elizabeth Mitchell? Is anyone else totally digging Father Jack?

3 comments:

Susie said...

Given your enthusiastic endorsement, I'll definitely check it out on Hulu. Also, have you given up on Flash Forward yet? I saw another episode the other day and thought it was ridiculous. I officially renounce it

pgv said...

oh no!! you renounced flash forward? how far did you get? i've only seen episodes one and two which were both good -my brother said the next 2-3 episodes are terrible, but that the last two have been AMAZING, so i'm gonna try and get to that point!!

Julie said...

Ok I am hooked on V, although I'm with you on the tiring of Tyler's storyline really quickly. The teenage "rebel" who joins the visitors because of a pretty girl? pllleeaseee so overplayed.

The other story line I don't like is the fiance-in-the-dark-to-partner's-secret-life (re: ryan), but I do like that they are establishing just enough story lines to keep us interested already.

And nooo Susie!! Don't renounce Flash Forward!!! I don't know why but I'm hooked on that show, although I have to agree that some parts of it are kind of ridiculous.