"V" returns, revitalized and ready to get back into action

I don't know if it's too late for "V" to recover from its rocky first season, but its return last night certainly bodes well. Maybe it's too late for it to catch on or be renewed, but I have high hopes for the direction of the rest of the season. Not that the show is anything amazing, but I don't think it's as campy or terrible as people say it is. It's enjoyable for what it is, and last night we got a lot of exposition and the pace picked up. Really, I'm just happy to have another SciFi show out there that is entertaining even if it's not outright enthralling.

It seems like forever, but things picked up right where they left off - Chad Decker discovering the truth about the Vs, Anna turning the sky red, etc. I think they really utilized each character to the right amount in this episode. Elizabeth Mitchell's Erica Evans is still a bit of a bore and the only moments where she gets to shine are when she talks with Anna. Outside of those scenes where she gets to be a headstrong mother and a steadfast resistance fighter on board the ship, she's rather dull and I'm glad they're expanding the cast. Like Erica, a lot of the other characters have this problem of being personality-less. They have designated roles but they aren't very realistic. And you know what? I'm okay with that. This isn't a deep show and some of the characters are entertaining even if they aren't very lifelike. Luckily, Father Jack got very little screentime and most of it actually centered around the Fifth Column storyline and therefore wasn't as useless as his time normally is. It makes me sad that he's such a bore as well since I loved Joel Gretsch on "The 4400." But I like that Chad Decker is in the know and has to grapple with his guilt as well as the pressure of acting like he knows nothing.

The one human character I liked the most is Hobbes, the British mercenary. Well, now I have another human to root for on this show - Bret Harrison's Sidney. I've missed him since "Reaper" ended. Hobbes' declaration to Sidney that he was now working for the Fifth Column was great - "and if you say no, we'll kill you. Relax, I'm kidding. Maybe."

But my favorite characters are still the Vs fighting on our side. Ryan returned, but luckily the rest of the group wasn't moronic and actually questioned why he escaped so easily and what his true motivations are. Joshua was revived, but due to amnesia problems it looks like that was just a quick stunt and he isn't really back. Or maybe they'll go daring and have him report to Anna that Lisa was acting strangely and the friend will turn into a foe. And then we'll get to see his true nature to sympathize with humans resurface and we'll actually get to see him struggle with his loyalties. But that's only in my dreams, if they decided to capitalize on their one awesome character. Aside from him, though, Lisa is turning into my favorite character. She's in the most precarious position and is dealing with the highest stakes. She is embracing her feelings for Tyler and trying to protect him but she has to follow her mother's orders as well. I wish Tyler wasn't such an oblivious horny moron though. But Lisa's big turn to actually helping the Fifth Column is a big deal and I find her to be the most intriguing character, morally. Unfortunately, the more Lisa grows the more obvious it is that Tyler is painfully underdeveloped. I have a feeling the actor doesn't have the chops to pull off much more, though. Like her daughter, Anna is also getting more interesting with her struggle with human emotions. I'm not sure why the human skin also endows them with emotions, but I like the drama it brings. Watching Anna deal with her emotions by becoming more of a cruel bitch was a neat inversion of what her daughter is doing. You can't just give peace a chance, Anna? Come on, all you need is love! Do you really have to populate Earth? There isn't another planet out there you can use?

Another thing I noticed about this episode was that is was really gruesome. Red rain, tearing apart V leaders, Tyler getting his face ripped off (alas, only in a dream sequence)? I think this show borders on cheese without going overboard and I'm really enjoying the balance. It's just cheesy enough without being campy, although it could use some lightening up as it gets a little too morose sometimes. Alien invasions aren't a day at the park, I know, but they can be serious and still riveting.

After watching "V" and seeing a promo for TNT's "Falling Skies," I really want a show where aliens actually do come in peace. They would be screwed because we would never believe them and it would probably end up as a "District 9" type situation, but I would like to see something different.

So I guess the new big development is the phosphorous in the red rain and its ties to V breeding. It's a very elaborate plan full of a lot of work just to breed more Vs, so I have a hard time believing that's all they want - to populate the Earth with Vs, or make humans give birth to Vs, or whatever. And apparently Erica had some phosphorous issues when she was pregnant, leading her to get a blood test with Sidney to learn more. I have a question that's been bugging me - how bad is it to just slice your hand open with a knife? Couldn't Erica have just taken blood the old fashioned way? Lots of movies and TV shows (like the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie for example) show characters slitting their palm to get blood. Does a wound there clot that easily? Wouldn't that hurt like crazy for a while? It just doesn't seem practical or healthy. And now that I've rambled on needlessly about something no one else thinks about, I'll sum things up again - I'm enjoying this show for what it is and hope the rest of the season is as enjoyable as this episode was.

Movie Night: "Live Free or Die Hard"

I managed to work in a movie night yesterday and I am so happy I did. Thanks to FX and theirs DVD on TV specials, I saw my first movie in the "Die Hard" franchise. I know, I should be very ashamed for never having seen any of these movies and I really am. They sound like movies I would love, especially if they're anything like the fourth installment. I feel bad, not being able to compare and contrast the films, but I imagine having a newbie's impression would be good in some ways. For one, I'm sure every film critic out there compared this film against the previous ones. Also, as a first-time viewer and not a diehard fan of the franchise (I couldn't resist), I can give an honest and unbiased opinion on the fourth film. "Live Free or Die Hard" is all about John McClane, aka the original Jack Bauer, fighting cyber-terrorists. You've got Timothy Olyphant as the big bad head terrorist and computer genius, Justin Long as a hacker hunted by the terrorists' assassins, Bruce Willis as a badass saving pretty much everyone, Kevin Smith as another hacker genius, and Maggie Q as another cyber-terrorist. The terrorists are basically shutting down every part of the nation's infrastructure run by a computer, which means the terrorists are shutting down every part of the nation's infrastructure. I wanted a better reason for their actions than "the main villain got really screwed over by the good guys and turned to the dark side," but with this kind of movie you just accept it and move on. McClane gets involved, things get personal, and much hell gets rained down on the bad guys.

With my genius overview of the plot out of the way, I'd like to say I absolutely adored this movie. This was the textbook definition of a summer blockbuster movie. It was great to see McClane, who really is just Jack Bauer with better one-liners, kill off assassins left and right while you've got the average guy Justin Long along for the ride to shout out what the audience is thinking. But it was also great to hear McClane's confusion as the one guy in the movie who doesn't get all this computer business. Speaking as someone who thinks figuring out computers is like figuring out an ancient, dead, foreign language, I knew how McClane felt being around all these pretentious computer hackers who think that people who don't understand computers are clearly mentally impaired. But I also like dragging otherwise normal people along for near-death experiences and the like. You get the audience surrogate, but you also get to watch a normal person get thrust into impossible circumstances and see how they react and rise (or fall) to the occasion. It's probably why I loved "District 9" so much.

For a movie all about cyber warfare, the action scenes are fantastic. The whole time I watched this movie, I couldn't stop thinking what a giant budget it must have had. But I think they use almost every cent of their budget well, making riveting action sequences that are a perfect mix of hand-to-hand combat and large-scale destruction and explosions. Much to my surprise, there's also some parkour thrown in there on the side of the terrorists. I wasn't expecting it, but I really enjoyed its random presence. My only complaint about the action is one of the final large-scale sequences, in which McClane is chased by a military jet fighter deceived to think he's the enemy. The fighter fires missiles at him repeatedly, collapsing the elevated freeway while McClane in his semi truck dodges. At one point, he even ends up on top of the fighter. This sequence was the only one that went a little too over-the-top and it really should have been cut down quite a bit. Aside from being too over-the-top, it's also kind of distracting from the plot as he's fighting a military plane, not the terrorists. The movie clocks in at 129 minutes, and it would have benefited from the cut.

In the end, you get all the action movie staples: the bad guy has a moment where he tries to argue that he's really the good guy, a family member is held hostage, things get personal, the second terrorist in command is killed off early, there are plenty of scenes of the government agencies running around looking ineffective, plenty of things are blown up, the hero and the villain exchange threatening witticisms, the villain was initially on the side of the good guys, the hero can suffer multiple physical wounds without being slowed down in the least, computers can do anything, and there's even a small hint of romance thrown in. And yes, for all those people out there who actually are fans of the franchise (and have therefore already seen this movie, rendering this sentence anticlimactic and pointless), you get John McClane's totally awesome, totally ridiculous catchphrase during the climax.

Grade: A+ (One of my favorite pieces of advice from a favored film critic of mine is to judge a movie against its own aspirations. "Live Free or Die Hard" wasn't trying to be the "Citizen Kane" of action movies. It was trying to be a grand old time at the movies in the summertime. Aside from my slight quibble about the last action sequence, it absolutely achieved this goal. If only we were lucky enough to get a great action movie like this every summer.)