V Review: “It’s Only the Beginning”

“My life is AWESOME.”

Well, that’s the last of V for a while, as it’s now on its stupidly long break until after the Winter Olympics after only four episodes. All those in favor of me continuing these sorts of weekly reviews when it comes back, raise your hand. Madison has Heroes, I figured I need something, and V just about fits the bill.

I was expecting a world-ending sort of cliffhanger from tonight’s episode, due to the long break and the fact that I heard after episode four, things got a bit wonky with the “next” story arc said to be coming in the later episodes.

But this was not really the case. Where we ended up was cliff hanger-ish I suppose, but nothing too mind blowing, and overall this was a pretty ho-hum episode.

Now that Erica, Father Jack, Ryan and Georgie are all rolling in one anti-V pack, it’s much easier to keep track of them all. Their mission this week is to hunt down sleeper Vs Ryan knows about and ask them what the hell the grand plan is. They find one who was a lab assistant and is now a professor of chemistry, but when they confront him walking to his car, things go rather poorly and Georgie and the professor end up shot, and the V ultimately takes a self-incinerating suicide pill before he can divulge anything.

I’m sorry, but I do not like you because your name is “Georgie.”

In this scene, the dying V manages to choke out that Ryan is a “traitor.” This happens right in front of Erica, who wasn’t aware of Ryan’s scaly second skin, but fortunately after eight seconds of questioning, she’s right back to trusting him again.

What they find is information having to do with a vaccine the V are prepping, a vaccine that Anna has just announced to the general public will prevent a zillion types of diseases if they’ll just show up to the V clinics and accept it.

Reporter Chad is hanging around the V healing centers, reporting on the miracles taking place there in exchange for another exclusive interview with Anna. He’s upset about his inability to poke around or talk to people unsupervised, but while he’s there, he’s informed that he himself has a life threaten brain aneurysm forthcoming, and the V can move him to the top of the list for healing, if he’ll just do something for them in return. We never find out what this is.

Tyler continues to live the dream as he finds out that he’s not only dating the world’s hottest alien, he’s dating the daughter of the world’s second hottest alien and their supreme leader, Anna. She takes him on a guided tour of the ship and shows him the engine room that “no human has ever seen before” and continues to scheme with her daughter about how they’re going to “use” him for something. We never find out what this is.

“Mom, she’s not just an alien, she’s the HOTTEST ALIEN EVER!”

In her spare time, Anna is conducting an investigation to see just who murdered Dale in the medical bay, and I’m quite sad that Alan Tudyk appears to be officially killed off the show for good. The culprit is one of her closest advisors, whose name I can’t remember, but thankfully he has another traitor working for him who steps up and takes the fall. His punishment? Being skinned alive. We never find out what this looks like.

Back to the anti-V squad, they’ve tracked the professor’s work to a local warehouse where they find vials of human flu vaccine being tampered with. Erica deduces that the plan is to taint flu vaccine so all the humans come running to the Vs for their magical healing shot once pandemics break out. Not a bad plan at all.

The V discover their intrusion, and chase them out of the warehouse, but not before Ryan is able to make it self destruct. Father Jack proves that he can be somewhat useful by punching a V in the face, but a few hours later finds himself stabbed in his church by the guy he knocked out. You would think Vs would have more advanced weapons than sharp pointy sticks, but hey, the recession affects everyone I guess. I don’t think he’s dead, but goddamn, he needs to start being necessary to the show. Ryan is a V, Erica is an FBI agent and Georgie is a veteran V fighter. Father Jack is…a priest….that at one time was sort of a soldier? Give the man a purpose or let him bleed out on that church floor.

What, you can’t even summon lightning bolts from God? Useless.

The episode ends with Tyler, Anna and Lisa staring out into space, after Anna has just given all the Vs a psionic shot of heroin called Bliss, which involes her being naked, doing yoga and whispering sweet nothings into everyone’s ear. Not a bad drug if I do say so myself. The shot out the window pulls back to reveal that there is a giant cluster of V ships (all arranged in V formation of course) hovering just outside our solar system. But by the end of this episode we’re really no closer to figuring out the V’s evil schemes than we were a month ago.

Oh and, Ryan’s wife is pregnant with a half-V baby. Zing!

“Whothehowthewhaaa?”

I hope that V comes back with a vengeance in March. Right now it’s interesting, way more so than say, FlashForward, but the fact remains that it’s nowhere near the caliber of truly great sci-fi shows like Lost or Battlestar Galactica. It just feels a bit cheaper, the characters a bit flimsier, and all around not living up to its potential. It’s on its way, but if the rumors are true and things take a downward turn from here, I don’t see V getting past the outer atmosphere come springtime.