After all the hype from Channel 9, I was expecting so much more. The amount of American ‘drama’ oozing out of the screen made me want to bash my head into the nearest wall. It can only be described as WANNABE DRAMA.
Okay! So, when it started, I was very excited (well, of course, after the excessive one-month-long advertisement period…) and had high hopes. It leapt straight into the action, beginning with the arrival of the Visitors’ spaceships above all major cities and the consequent chaos and disruption. So the humans are all waiting, scared out of their wits, for something bad to happen. And what do you know — a lovely woman appears on the panel-screens of the ships’ undersides and tells them all they come in peace and that they hope to be great allies, blah blah blah. Of course, Americans being Americans, they applaud. Yes, THEY APPLAUDED. You’ll just have to take my word for it that the woman’s speech was IN NO WAY INSPIRATIONAL, HEART-STOPPING, AWE-INSPIRING (ETC.) WHATSOEVER.
Not only did that sudden spate of applause ruin the “OMGWTF”-ness of the moment, it made me wonder how amazingly gullible people could be.
Now we cut across to the woman amidst a crowd of journalists, about to meet the UN. The first audible question the audience hears is, “Are all Visitors as beautiful as you?” or something to that effect. That is amazingly typical, reminiscent of old vampire tales, and already gives some predictability to the story. Even from the trailers, I could tell that the downfall of humankind would be in part due to the irresistible “BEAUTY” of these Visitors. And one of the main teenage characters goes right ahead and proves me correct within half an hour.
It also seems that, like vampires, these Visitors have some sort of supernatural ability. As well as superior technology (because all invading species MUST have superior technology), they are revealed to be reptilian and stronger than the average human if their combat skills are anything to go by.
Come to think of it, ‘vampire’ and ‘Visitor’ both start with ‘V’. Suspicious, much?
To make matters worse, the director decides to insert a time skip less than 20 minutes into the episode. If you want to wow audiences, YOU DO NOT PUT A TIME SKIP IN THE FIRST EPISODE. Wasn’t this supposed to be a drama? Is not drama supposed to be sustained throughout? That time skip only serves to make viewers displaced from events. They will think, “What happened in those three weeks?” (that was the length of this time skip). This is used to make the audience hang on the edge of their seats and wonder what changes have occurred, but is only effective ONCE YOU HAVE BUILT UP THE AUDIENCES EMPATHY/SYMPATHY WITH THE CHARACTERS — something impossible/extremely hard to do in the space of 20 minutes. In the end, all I felt were the events drawing themselves out tortuously as I waited for something to happen.
I’m sad to say that in one hour, absolutely nothing happened to impress me.
This does not bode well for the rest of the series. If the pilot episode flopped, what about the rest? I will watch the rest of this series…but only because I am intrigued by the plot. Screenplay, cinematography, character development…none of that has drawn me as yet.
V — I hope to see an improvement. If not, you will lose one more viewer. Channel 9 — I have nothing to say to you.
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On a side note, biology wise: the Visitors’ ships hovering above each city deprive a rather large area of sunlight which is vital for plants’ survival. If they’ve been hovering for three weeks without moving, I would think the plants would die. But no, for dramatic effect, they MUST remain where they are and damn the environment! (Typical of an American city like New York. “Plants? What are plants?”)
