V Series Re-Premiere Review

What did they do to this show?

V premiered back in November with huge numbers, but even before the first episode the show had gone on hiatus to fix production issues. It sounded like code for "our show sucks and we want to try to fix it before it's too late." But then the first four episodes aired, and they weren't bad at all; they were sleek, moderately paced, and interesting. There was enough drama to balance out the action, and the characters were being painted as "real" so that we'd care about them.

Now fast forward four months to the show's return (but there were so few episodes and so much time in between that it really should just be called the second season or the re-premiere or something), and I'm utterly confused about what has happened. This is clearly not the same series that we were given back in November. It's so insanely fast-paced and quick that I can't tell you a single thing that happened in the episode; it felt like I was watching images as I passed them in a car going 80. I think the resistance recruited some new guy, who the Vs have some sort of connection to (I think? Either way, they framed this guy for the R6 explosion); I think Erica's son spent the entire episode in a memory machine; and I think Val tried to eat a dead rat at some point too. Oh, and Anna had really weird sex with a meathead V before eating the camera.

Speaking of the camera, this episode's director should be fired immediately. His style consisted of exactly two shots:

1) Extreme closeups. And I mean extreme. They were so close you couldn't tell who was speaking; they were no more than a nose and a mouth, and maybe one eye.

2) Spinning shots. As in the camera did not stop spinning in circles. I swear I got motion sickness about 15 minutes in to the episode. And it didn't help that half the spinning shots were clearly of a green screen with the V ship added in post production.

But my biggest problem is with the characters. Erica is suddenly Buffy, beating the shit out of a V who attacks her in her home; Jack is nothing more than a sweating, panting mess; and Chuck is a pushover, not even trying to fight Anna anymore.

The characters and plot have now taken a backseat to the special effects and action scenes, of which there are plenty. This new style of V makes the show seem like it was designed for an audience with a 5 second attention span.

Oh, right. That would be most of America, wouldn't it?

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