V Review – “There is No Normal Anymore”

One of these days, I swear, I’ll catch this on Tuesday night!

Title: There is No Normal Anymore

Cast

Elizabeth Mitchell as Erica Evans
Joel Gretch as Father Jack Landry
Morris Chestnut as Ryan Nichols
Morena Baccarin as Anna

And the rest on IMDB…

Synopsis

Erica and Father Jack, having quickly determined they’re both against the arrival of the Visitors, suddenly find themselves being tracked by a “Seeker” from the V’s. Meanwhile Chad, thinking he blew it for 80 million viewers with his exclusive first interview with Anna, looks to pick himself up and becomes more investigative in his next newscast.

High Points

  • Dueling screens for the two interrogations. Nice way to juxtapose Erica’s calm, cool demeanor and Father Jack’s nervousness.
  • Chad’s playing a dangerous game. I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
  • Marcus (Anna’s assitant) is starting to give me the heebie-jeebies. Can’t wait for him to snap.

Low Points

  • Too jumpy. Almost like we have too many plot threads in the wind. This could hurt the show in the long run unless they tie Ryan and Erica/Father Jack’s plotlines together.
  • Erica’s boss. Goes from paranoid jerk to supportive supervisor in a moment?

The Scores

Originality: 4 out of 6. The terrorist motiff is still working.

Effects: 4/6. I have to knock this one down. The “Seeker” just looked like it was dropped in with bad blue screen (or green screen for you youngins).

Story: 4/6. I’m still in, but this one didn’t move the story forward a lot.

Acting: 4/6. The cast is getting better, even Tyler. There may be hope for the boy yet.

Production: 5/6. Still has high production values. Sets and camera work are good.

Emotional response: 4/6. Again, I’m hooked into the story and want to see where it leads.

Overall: 4/6. A decent episode that gave us a little, but left us wanting more.

The episode “There is No Normal Anymore” receives twenty-nine out of forty-two.

9 replies on “V Review – “There is No Normal Anymore””

  1. I was also surprised by the rapid change of Erica’s boss’ demeanor. However, given the explanation and the evidence at hand, that seemed the most logical choice.

    I have a feeling he suspected something wasn’t right, given what he knew about the tape, but wasn’t sure about her being involved with whatever her partner was into. Once she started talking, he probably was more comfortable agreeing.

  2. Not trying to be creepy, but I hope the writers go where Ray Bradbury triumphed and Gene Roddenberry — and everyone since — has dropped the ball, namely: “Inter-Species Love?? Really???” I mean, the Vs are, what? Lizardmen from the planet Mongo and they’re here to eat us like we eat chickens, right? So… I can understand playing with your food while it’s on your plate, I can even understand growing attached to your pet turkey, but… MARRYING your hamburger? C’mon. There’s got to be a whole mothership full of xeno-anthropological reasons why that traverses the merely icky and enters the WTF. Call me geckophobic if you must, but I’m OK with the notion of a fleet of lizardmen traversing the galaxy in search of lunch, just don’t expect me to believe they can fall in love with the hors d’ouevres when they finally arrive.

    • Two words: “Tentacle Porn”, or “Hentai” if you want the more Japanese version. If some humans can fantasize about sex with creatures with tentacles, then might not some aliens fantasize about sex with pink skinned meatbags? Going one step further, might some of those not want to “experiment” when presented with the opportunity? It does bring a whole new depth to the term “going native” though…

      In any event, they have a couple of ways to spin this that would get around the whole “ewww” issue, if not the genetic one, depending on which way they jump – *if* they jump. The obvious couple is Tyler & Lisa, which I suppose could use a rape scenario as a motive/explaination, but there is also the relationship between Ryan & Valerie, which at least gets the genders the same way around as the original, and probably makes a similiar outcome more likely too.

    • As far as this series goes, the actual motives of the V’s are not known. This time they may not want people for food….

  3. So far this is reminding me as much of “Earth: Final Conflict” as the original, even had the fly standing up with a backrest instead of seats in the shuttle last week although I didn’t spot the pilot waving his arms to fly it!

    • .


      So far this is reminding me as much of “Earth: Final Conflict”

      I was getting that vibe a little… right up until they pulled out the E:FC Global. (that comm device with a flexibal screen that unwinds from the side of the device.) After that, the parrallels started popping to mind fairly quickly.

      .

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