'V' Is That New TV Crack
There are two types of people in this world, those who cower in the door frames of their homes when the aliens come and those who reach under the floorboard for their trusty Heckler & Koch, grab their Go bags (kept by the front door expressly for this purpose), put on action pants and sprint towards the massive looming spaceship to watch shit get retarded.
Last night ABC aired the premiere episode of the highly-anticipated reboot of the 1983 sci-fi series V and let me tell you, it was AWESOME.
People will likely draw parallels to shows like BSG since the aliens take on human form and can seemingly reincarnate but have that whole "continually habitable zone" agenda where they laugh their asses off at the inelegance of the Drake Equation and cancer but maybe still can't get around needing water for carbon-based life. Anyway, they look more ID4 inside because when you crack open their bastard foreigner skulls they look like giant squid covered in mucous.
People will stir the drama pot about how they feel about the terrorism angle and the show using 9/11 as an interest nugget but let's ignore all of the noise and talk about the casting! First of all that one shrewy blonde lady doctor from Lost is in it and Scott Wolf who we've missed SO MUCH since Party of Five and who we like to picture hugging Matthew Fox for putting in a good word for him in Working Actor Land.
But we really should talk about the Big Show, the new head alien lady Anna, who is the BEST CASTING EVER because she is SUCH a Monet-with-a-twist in that she's so pretty from far away but up close she's not as cute and in fact totally scary. She rapes your face with her face and she does it while SMILING WITH HER EYES and it's so confusing because she has the perfect pixie haircut of a passionate inner-city grade school teacher and is maybe wearing Armani Collezioni. She looks like a Latina who would speak in a Castillian thexthy accthent and it's all delicious-creepy and modern in that way that the super obvious appeal of cylon Number Six got tired after a while which then got us looking at Edward James Olmos's skin in a critical light and how short and whingey Dr. Gaius Baltar was.
Anyway, it's worth watching because it's so much fun and, really, what else are you going to do until Friday Night Lights comes back for real?
(What is the maximum number of words before you know a post is by Mary HK Choi?)
Zero. Mary never uses alt text.
DONE.
This time it was 40. I counted.
Great question. Made me realize that I have such a crush on her and her writing style.
I'll admit that I've appropriated "quaff on that jam" into my every day drinking parlance.
"Too squat in discipline" (+ infinitive) does it for me.
I knew it as soon as I read "watch shit get retarded," and then I fell in love all over again.
That was one giveaway, and 'Go bag', for sure, but even before that, who else among the usual suspects would name-check a European gun manufacturer?
Yeah, the Heckler & Koch reference was the DING! moment for me…
I thought "Heckler & Koch" was rhyming slang for "watch," like "Up the apples and mind your Heckler." (And of course "crotch" works, too.)
I am an uptight jerk, I suppose, but I wish people would not use that word. So 1988.
That's actually a great question! For me it was suspicion at the end of the first paragraph and confirmation at the end of the second. Plus, I actually want to watch the damn thing, now.
"grab their Go bags " where I had an inkling…
I couldn't finish the first sentence. That's when the eyeache hit.
Dude, "action pants" is the coolest thing I've ever heard.
Kind've 4400 I thought, which could be interesting if Tom Baldwin/Joel Gretsch drops the whole priest schtick and rips off his clothes like he did in half the 4400 episodes and then has hot sex with the pixie because really he has the most amazing body (PECS!!!!!!!!!!!!) ever put on a 40-ish man and there is absolutely no reason he should not be completely naked for every episode of V, and I stayed home every Friday night to watch him on 4400, just like I still do with FNL Season 4 on DirectTV RIGHT NOW because I can not bear Matt Saracen getting any screen time without me watching.
Dood. I wanted to like 4400 so bad and I watched and tried and watched some more and COULD NOT GET INTO IT. Assure me it's great and I'll invest.
The first 2 seasons are really good. After that, it starts repeating itself. But there is the Pecs, which you'll get soon enough on V. I wouldn't invest. Let's talk about FNL Season 4 though. It's already so sad and I am really worried about Coach.
4400 was dumb. The premise was interesting but the acting hack and the writing cliche. I watched 8 episodes as a favor and didn't like any of them.
Also, I will share that I watched the original. (Because I am an Old.) (But also because my folks & I were visiting family friends so I got to stay up late!)
And when it actually gets 'round to mouse-eating original stylee V? I will squeal and clap. Promise!
As an old I will share that I was switching from V to the KC Royals game which also just happened to, that very night, feature a young hitter named George Brett and something called "pine tar" which I had never heard of.
All 24 inches of it.
If Anna was selling skin product, I'd so buy it: My skin was all reptilian and shit, but then I bought me some Lubriderm and damn but I'm hawt.
I spent a bit of the weekend watching the V reruns on SyFy (eeech what a name) and I was really charmed by the cheesy pew pew rayguns and bottle rocket effects, all of which seemed so cool when I was a kid (Okay, stoned 20 year-old.
The politics was present in the old V, but fuck if they don't beat you about the head and torso with it in the new one. "Why you're talking about Universal Health Care." Face.Palm.
Head alien lady Anna rapes your face with smiling eyes and lingering close-ups AND she has cloned human skin. Plus, while you're all think that she's smiling at you because she wants a little something-something she's all thinking you are delicious BECAUSE SHE'S AN ALIEN REPTILE.
V is retarded good.
Am I the only one who thought it felt a little like radical Truther/teabagger propaganda?
Hmm… I missed it (http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/went-west/2009/nov/4/missing-ivi-premiere-probably-not-end-world/) but I hear you can get it on iTunes. Reading this renews my interest in seeing it all over again.
The title says it all. Only retards and the desperate do crack when there are so many better drugs to be had. Like most of the writing on this site, it's obvious that Mary has her eye on a sweeter, more high-paying high, so she's willing to do some street-level pushing in hopes of convincing the TV dons to grant her that corner office at the pharmo. You go girl. You've obviously got the three digit crowd hooked on your candy.
Wow. Perceptive. She does not get paid. The Awl provides a space for talented writers to get the paying gigs until it can do so itself.
Exactly. She pushes TV as clever so she can get paid. Can't blame her, but I never hated on the pusher man either.
Your avatar is misleading because it lacks a mouth. Something you clearly have.
Some obscure resentments trying to articulate a lonesome howl in there somewhere? Huh?
Sort of. I value words too much to whore them out, so I whore out my other talents in hopes of saving the words for myself.
Who are you? I need to meet you. I wanna be on the side of anyone who says "you go girl" when the Visitors come. I have supplies and a flashlight you can crank by hand. I think it will be useful to us. :)
I am the wind.
The wind that squeals twixt the cheeks
of infinite love.
Why dont you go toss your lovely word salad somewhere else?
I want to reply
to the homophobia
of smapdi, but can't.
Haiku! Looks like someone's a-wooin'…
For the "three digit crowd" alone I want him on our side. Also maybe I will need him for a splinter group, should there be infighting about Friday Night Lights???
'Cause you're joking, right?
Girl Power, gurl.
Yeah, I'm trying to get past it being Juliet from LOST–my least favorite character. Although she does have the LOST glow to her which can't hurt.
Wash from FireFly looks fantastic; not as bug-eyed and leaner? Hot.
Tyler looks like a douchebag with that early-90s haircut. I could give a shit that neither of his parents want to spend any time with him. Get back to the aliens. Kthnx.
Why does the black guy have a Latina/light-skinned black woman? I'm surprised they went so freaking cliche with that.
But did anybody eat a live mouse?
Also, you guys?
DAVID ICKE, amirite?
"—and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie."
!!!
Gurl, how META4-y is the show? Like for real, remember when they made a Caveman show that was like OMG-THIS-IS-A-OBNOXIOUSLY-CLEVER-ANALOGY-FOR-RACE-BUT-LIKE-IN-QUOTATION-MARKS-CUZ-PEOPLE-JUST-WANT-TO-LOLZ.
Or is it like Alien Nation? DEEP and CAMPY?
OR THIS SOME DUNE BULLSHIT.
Please write back soon,
NVC
just stop thinking lady. while 14 million of us are wrapped up in figuring out who's who on the show, the real aliens assemble and punch the fuck outta all of us in the proverbial armpit and THAT is when shit actually get retarded. The telly with the frontin' aliens is the real front if you're picking up what i'm putting down.
I HAVE SAID TOO MUCH.
Wait, the real aliens are in league with the birds and they're the ones making the bears lose their fur, right? Omigod. Must…assemble…bomb shelter…
I need Awl-brand action pants. Where's the online store?
No FNL INFIGHTING please????? My emotional health depends on the well-being of eveyone of you and them except the Dad of the new West Dillon quarterback.
Also I still have my go-pack complete with transistor radio from the Northridge Quake. So have fun reptiles. I'll be sunning in Jericho you stupid-ass lizards.