V

Year of release : 2009

 

Run time : 41min - 47min / 12 episodes

 

Genre : Sci Fi / Mini Series

 

Cast : Morena Baccarin, Laura Vandervoort, Elizabeth Mitchell, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Scott Wolf

 

 

The series are a remake of the 1983 V miniseries.

 

V comes from Visitors.

 

 

Episode 1 Pilot

 

One morning, giant space ships appear above 29 major cities around the world. The leader of the aliens,Anna,speaks to the humans telling them they need some of the earth's resources, and in exchange,the aliens will give them their technology.

 

FBI detective, Erica Evans doesn't buy her story,and asks her son to stay away from the visitors.

Her son is always lying to her,and does exactly what his mother told him not to do, be around aliens. Not just that,he joins their ambassador program .

 

Ryan Nichols has a good job and a beautiful girlfriend he wants to propose to. He keeps on receiving calls from an unknown number,he refuses to take.

 

Jack is a priest,who thinks the arrival of the aliens is gonna take people away from God,but the next day,the church is full like never before.

 

Chad Decker is a good anchorman with good ideas,that he keeps on giving his boss,who gives the job to someone else. He sees the arrival as a career opportunity.

 

 

 

Episode 2

 

Anna chooses Chad as the one to interview her,but Chad,although at first impressed, becomes suspicious when she tells him to not ask her questions which would paint the aliens in a negative light.

 

The V's cure people's diseases with their technology.

 

Jack,the priest, is given an envelope which leads him to an underground meeting of people who believe in aliens wanting to take over the planet.

 

Erica finds out there are sleeper cell aliens among humans,her partner,who was incompetent at his job,being one of them. She also finds out their true form is reptilian.

She doesn't know who to trust anymore. She joins forces with Jack, after they meet at the underground meeting.

 

Turns out Ryan is one of the sleeper agent aliens but he wants nothing to do with them anymore.

 

Tyler keeps on lying to his mother about the aliens,and falls in love with an alien girl.

 

 

 

Episode 3

 

Wanting to impress the alien girl,Tyler gets carried away,and punches a protester outside the alien base,as the government gives the aliens Visas. He loses his job at the alien center. I remember him complaining to his mother for not being there for him,but he's always away,at first with his friend,then at the alien center!

 

Anna starts to show more and more of herself,as the aliens do seem to have ulterior motives.

 

Ryan goes to another sleeper cell who integrated into human society and likes it here,to help him heal his wound,as on his arm,his humanoid body was split from the reptilian one.

He talks about 'bliss' to his fellow aliens,which is apparently,a way Anna uses to control them,making her a sort of queen of a hive,so they all are her children,not just the one who passes for her daughter,Lisa (I guess Lisa is the queen egg).

 

Working with the aliens Erica discovers the jackets at the ambassador center have spy cameras in them,always active.

 

 

 

Episode 4

 

Ryan hides the fact he's a visitor from Erica and Jack.

 

Anna looks for traitors amidst her ship.

 

Tyler wants to talk to Erica,but she's busy,so he gets over it.

 

Ryan's girlfriend has a heart condition,and being Tyler's psychiatrist,telling her about the V's healing centers, he puts her ahead of the line. She finds out she's pregnant.

 

 

 

Episode 5

 

Erica,Jack, Ryan and Georgie, find out the V's created something called R6,which passes as the flu vaccine,they want to give to the unknowing population,to tag them. They blow it up,and Anna's team lie they know who did it due to their technology.

They give them the fingerprints of someone they are afraid of,and want taken down.

Erica sees through this,and finds the man,Kyle Hobbs, asking him to join their cause.

 

Anna meets Tyler,who is fascinated with the V's for some unknown reason. She keeps him on the ship,looking through his memories,and when his mother goes after him,they play her a hologram,lying to her he doesn't want to see her.

 

Anna and her daughter plot to take him from her.

 

Valerie,Ryan's girlfriend, doesn't feel too well from the pregnancy which is advancing very fast. He takes her to the hospital,to a doctor friend of his.

 

Anna is trying to find the 5th Column members,who are aliens who turned against her. She decides to create an alien army before the alien armada reaches earth.

 

Jack was wounded by one of the aliens at the warehouse the R6 was made,and is taken by his fellow priest at the alien healing center.

 

Chad is told by Anna's team,while working on a piece for them, he is to develop an aneurysm in 6 months time,and ask to heal him. How can they heal him from something he doesn't have?!

Going to the human doctors,they tell him there's nothing wrong with him.

 

 

 

Episode 6

 

Anna gives her 'bliss' to her subjects,and a member of the 5th Column blows one of the ships up,as he sees this as controlling them.

Anna is worried her subjects feel human emotion,which is forbidden for the aliens.

She creates a test,using her results as a baseline, to give to everyone on the ship and not only,to see who is faithful,and who crossed over.

 

Ryan's doctor friend tells him Valerie needs a high amount of phosphorus,which is the reason she feels sick. He decides to go on the ship,to get it.

 

Kyle joins the humans' cause. But he still looks up information on them.

 

Erica thinks she can leave Tyler with his father,whom he loves very much, in order to keep him from the aliens.

 

 

 

Episode 7

 

Throughout the movie,the characters who crossed over bring up John May,using his name with the expression 'John May Lives' against Anna,breaching her transmission.

 

Apparently John May was the first alien to cross over,that Ryan was sent to kill.

 

The human party look for his family,and find out his step son was placed with an alien. His step son hates him,thinking he killed himself to get away from them.

 

Georgie gives himself up,so Ryan can escape the ship. The aliens torture him.

 

Anna doesn't feel too well,due to her pregnancy.

 

Lisa comes after Tyler,like a stalker,and listens in,on the conversations her father has with his mother.

We find out Erica and her husband broke up because he thinks Tyler is not his son. Erica says that's impossible,which means,probably her alien partner did something with their tests .

 

 

 

Episode 8

 

Valerie finds out about Ryan's true origins and doesn't want to talk to him.

 

Tyler is upset at his mother for not telling him the truth.

 

Lisa fails the empathy test. And she seems to have true feelings for Tyler.

 

Erica and the FBI get another lead on a high school computer teacher,who is part of what they call a terrorist group,the 5th Column.

 

Anna and co (this includes her lap dog,Chad), are at a Geneva summit,where they want to present their blue energy to the world. She meets resistance from the secretary general of Timbal (a made up country),the only one with common sense there,who is asking questions about the aliens' agenda.

 

 

 

Episode 9

 

The 5th Column catch the assassin who kills the ones supposed to be its members. Turns out he is loyal to the V's ,for curing his daughter.

 

Valerie goes to the aliens to check on her pregnancy. Ryan arrives just in time to save her.

 

Anna is looking for Ryan and his pregnant girlfriend,as she wants to dissect them. Turns out the aliens injected a tracking device into her. Her doctor gives her something which blocks it. Anna releases a soldier alien who can track them.

 

Chad is loyal to Anna for some unknown reason,although he has his doubts about the aliens.

 

Tyler is obsessed with the aliens,as he wants to live on the mother ship.

 

 

 

Episode 10

 

Erica and the human team,aka the 5th Column, hear about a ship of soldiers sent from the mother ship to earth to find and kill Ryan and his girlfriend.

 

Jack has the amazing idea of confiding in Chad,who after being cured of something he never had,is loyal to Anna. He tells Anna about the 5th Column's plan,and Anna sends a ship full of already dead humans in it(the humans they experiment on) .

 

Erica is assigned to find the 5th Column with a detective which proves to be a V. Erica suspects her boss,though.

 

Turns out the people who live aboard the alien ship are being experimented on,and killed,a fate which awaits Tyler.

Lisa breaks up with him,when she finds out about it,so he won't want to live on the ship anymore.

 

 

 

Episode 11

 

Lisa lies to her mother Tyler doesn't want to live aboard of their ship,so Anna beats her up,cutting her face and breaking her legs,to get Tyler back with her.

They pin the beating on Hobbs again,and another man they want dead, for developing a virus deadly to lizards.

 

Tyler gets back with Lisa.

 

Erica meets Joshua, their alien,5th Column insider.

 

Anna uses beating her daughter up,to portray this as a hate crime,giving a speech about how they came in peace,to help,and the humans(who,by the way,are mostly in their favor) attack her daughter.

Anna ignores Chad for some unknown reason,as she wants him to try harder for their cause(eye roll),for he won't give her the name of his source.

 

 

 

Episode 12

 

Valerie goes into labor. The soldier finds her and takes her to the mother ship.

She delivers what I believe to be a reptilian baby,as we don't get to see it,and Anna kills Valerie,for she wants to see if she can bring Ryan back into the fold.

Ryan goes after her.

 

Anna catches him.

 

Anna's soldiers are about to hatch. The 5th Column comes up with the idea of blowing them up.

 

Anna invited Erica and Tyler for dinner on the ship,as Anna wants Tyler to live among them (I don't get her obsession with him).

 

Jack gives Chad a message for someone on the ship. Jack still didn't learn his damn lesson!

Due to Chad, Joshua and his colleague are taken by Anna's soldiers.

 

Coming to brag about it to Joshua,Chad finds out he had no aneurysm,but he was given one by his amazing Anna and co.

 

 

The actors were fine,Morris Chestnut looks pretty scary when portraying the alien without feelings.

 

Anna was very calculated,cold, ruthless and evil. Nobody is safe from her and her scheming,not even her daughter.

 

I remember Tyler being a very hated character,back when I first watched the movie,as nobody liked him,and wanted him out of the movie. I felt bad for the actor,but I hated his character too,and I still do,as he is annoying with his obsession for V's,and I think he actually gets more annoying in the 2nd season.

 

Being an alien and living among them felt like in the communist era to me,as nobody was allowed to feel anything,everybody was suspecting everybody,and everybody had to be ready at all times to sacrifice for the leader's cause.

The ship,and not only,felt like a very lonely place,as nobody has any connections,no relationships,no friends,although,ironically,they are all connected to the queen.

The queen,Anna,is tracking everyone,having visual on them at all times,even in the human hospital(I guess this is supposed to be explained through the body cam hidden in every V jacket,but it's amazing how it's always placed at just the right angle)!

 

The soundtrack is good, as it was composed by one of the best composers out there,Marco Beltrami,who wrote the soundtrack for movies like Scream, Resident Evil,Terminator 3,Logan ,Die Hard and A quiet place.

 

The visual effects started out as good in the first episode,but with each episode,they look worse and worse,to the point,at episode 5 they look like a cartoon,and they don't get any better.

 

Both V seasons are streaming on Tubi, and they are for sale on Amazon, Apple Tv, Google Play Movies,and Vudu.

 

Rating : Worth a watch ! , I guess.