11.19.2009

V: as in “Vicariously living through the 80’s”

11.19.2009
I’m not a show basher. Unless Steven Segal is in it, then it’s all fair game, but that’s a different post. No really, look it up. I’m talking about the rehashing of 80’s classic shows, the TV entertainment that helped raise me. Well, maybe I exaggerate. Television did not help raise me. It totally raised me, on its own. Much like a single mother on the run from its powerful and abusive ex-husband, cinema.

That said, I confess I am watching the new ABC show “V” through nostalgia goggles. They are like beer goggles, only filled with salty liquid, I think you gal’s call ‘em tears. (Please forward all hate correspondence to my email). Anyway, so yeah… V, right? It’s not bad. It has offered me 180 minutes of entertainment, but you are not here to read me rambling about how I like the show. I know you want to hear my bitching, so let’s dive right into that.

Bailey? I mean, really? Actour extraordinaire Scott Wolf portrays the daring and dashing Chad Decker. A reporter that apparently gets in “the know” early on with the V’s, sacrificing a slice of his soul for a few exclusives. Now, as realistic as that last bit may be (no sarcasm here) I’m having a hard time with the actor whose previous credits include the edgy “Party of Five” show, which lasted about 4 season’s too many. Any show that spat at us Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Neve Campbell and the other little whiny bitch that played the little sister, must be a creation of Satan himself. Mathew Fox gets a free pass for being in Lost and Speed Racer, but I digress. Marc Singer was Bailey’s predecessor in the original series. Marc the-beastmaster- Singer. The man wrestled tigers, and carried ferrets uncomfortable close to his crotch, while trotting around in a loin cloth.
I shit you not.
For his role on V, Singer graced us with white sneakers, jeans so tight they had to be a risk to his testicular health, a bomber jacket and a shirt (or several) that had evidently lost - at least - the five topmost buttons. How can ABC expect to have Bailey fit in those shoes? At least they had sense of not trying to have him fit in those pants. Nobody could. Really, I tried. I’m a uniballer now.

Moving on. Anna: The new leader of the V’s. I don’t know and don’t care about the actress playing her. Here’s all I care about it: The slope of her eyebrows is a snow skier’s wet dream. She is the most corporate, generic person I have ever seen and I cannot stop from comparing her to the womannequins in the opening credits of Nip\Tuck. However, I think she has a secret, and no, it’s not that the V’s are really a reptilian race that have come to earth to steal our water and turn humanity into their own personal Golden Corral. Well, maybe, but that’s not all. She’s got a stache. A well plucked, waxed, and shaved mustache. But you can see the green of it growing when the light hits just right. And with those phantom whiskers, she is supposed to be the new Diana, so deliciously played by Jane Badler in the original series. Wow. Anybody who saw V, in real time, had the same thing to say: “Diana is hot! I don’t care if she is lizard.” Hotness that transcends species: We should all strive for that. She was hot, in an evil stepmother, leather-bound dominatrix, with crunchy hair, kind of way. You should really check them out. Both the old and the new series, for a few laughs, if for no other reason.
That’s it. I’m done. Let me know if you agree, disagree, or have no idea what in the world I am talking about.

8 comments:

MC Howe

I didn't skip ahead, I swear, but halfway through your third sentence, I knew you were talking about V. I have my own likes and dislikes, mostly how they just explained the whole reptiles here to take over the world thing in the last 5 minutes of the first episode, rather than letting us learn to hate the Visitors gradually over time and then the shock of seeing them eat, like in the original.

As to Bailey, he's not filling the Marc Singer role. I think Father Jack is, and he's pretty good.

Now about Anna. Everything you said - yeah. And did you notice she has a Simpsons overbite?

Travener

Ever since I watched that episode of "The Twilight Zone" with the aliens with huge heads who come to Earth with a book entitled "How to Serve Man" and then it turns out it's a freaking cookbook, I have never been able to watch any sci-fi that involves the consumption of humans.

Melissa Hurst

This is too funny! I watched the original V when I was a kid and loved it, and I'm giving the new one a try. I like it so far, but I'm wondering...how are they going to pull off the human/alien twins thing? Looks to me like they're going to have the alien teenager get pregnant this time around, but I could be wrong.

Leigh Hutchens Burch

Funny you should mention V.

My hubs was so excited for this show. He felt for it the way I did about Flash Forward.

I just thought it was a'right, but I didn't watch the original... and even the husbter was like, "What is UP with every actor from Party of Five being back on tv?"

Thank you for giving Matthew Fox a reprieve, though, because he deserves it. (LOST Season 6 premieres Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Hoooooray!)

Anonymous

Anna, Anna, Anna. She is like a canvas, a white board of purity and apparent prediction. She is presented to the humans like this, because she calms our fear of the unknown. She is beautiful, graceful, delicate, secure, articulate, predictable and almost motherly. You're right, there's more to it than a meal. Why is it too good to be true? It's every inch of comfort with a bonus boner included. We know what she is hiding under that tight solid colored suit (yes, the meat cleaver), but the longer and more cloned skin (or cold and scaly) covering it is, the more we want to peek in. She was designed like a mouse trap. So simple, yet deadly. We know it, yet we still want to go for it, because there's MORE to it. (Did I just make that rhyme?)

Her every word and every action makes you wonder how and when she will truly unleash. Will it be slowly and painful? Will it be explosive and painful? All we can intercept from those impervious eyes is that we could lose ourselves in her uncaring and limitless nirvana. She's a predator blanketed by an understatement and that's why she does not compare to Diana (Jane Badler). Don't get me wrong, I too loved Diana. But as lizardly hot as she was, she is now too bold for today's TV. I guess it depends on cultural TV trends now. Characters and situations have to be different because we have evolved in attitudes and behaviors. We can't be fooled by the evil dominatrix stepmother (although hell yeah, we want to!). Diana would be too predictable, because she is insanely hot...and by that, I mean hot and insane like a mistress stalker. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's too revealing. We want to see it, but we also want to be fooled by it.

We can, on the other hand, be fooled by the corporate beauty with the phantom, yet woman humanizing whiskers (read below after P.S.). If you don't believe me, ask around in Wall Street. A smirk, a few comforting words, and suddenly millionaires are now living off Social Security. That, to me, compares to being hung upside down in the fridge of a reptilian kitchen.

P.S.: The whiskers are probably meant to "humanize" her to the female population. Women around the world breathe better now that Anna has a resemblance of a fuzzy upper lip...she's one of us! Not another Sports Illustrated Model! Photoshop ends here! We can trust the V's! Yey!...Seriously?

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Tara McClendon

I thought "V" looked good, but I haven't had a chance to watch it. Of course, I didn't watch the original, so no beer goggles here.

Jill Kemerer

I'm so glad I found your blog, because you are funny! I remember watching snippets of V as a child, and a V alien baby was born--or ripped its way out of a womb?--I don't remember. I figured this new incarnation would kill those fond memories, so I'm passing on it. My friends who do watch haven't been very impressed.

Dana Elmendorf

Your last paragraph had me in stitches. "snow skier's wet dream" so true, she has some wicked eyebrows. "phantom whiskers" I can see them too. I watched it in the day and all I remember is they were lizards. My husband and I watch it now (he knows all things V)and he agrees with you the new "Diana' is not bringing it but the old Diana was hot. We watched the old one last week and I don't see hot, all i see is 80's cheese. I don't mean to be blasphemous toward V but I don't see it. V was slow this week so hopefully it picks up. Tuesday is the last one for 2009. Will it be picked up for 2010?

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