Has anyone else seen any V from ABC? I just watched the pilot (and the fourth episode the other day with Mom and Madeline) and it seems fully steeped in heavy-handed political allegory. Anybody?
They've gone and like. Completely re-worked the old political allegory ("Nazis are bad, mmkay?" to "universal healthcare is A PLOT FROM THE ALIENS THEY'RE OUT TO GET US, mmkay?") to make it shiny and new.
idk idk. I watched the second episode and liked it far, far better - more actually character and story development. The pilot kept tossing blatantly political crap in every five seconds (copying practically verbatim from Obama's inaugural speech for Anna's creepy reassurance messages? okaaay) and it was like I was watching a conservative version of Star Wars Episode III. I didn't like the liberal crap in that, and this is more of the same except right-wing.
I think I would like it better if anything was tossed in that didn't fit into the current political climate, but as it is every detail is an annoying echo of current events/ideologies. At the moment I think I'll try to enjoy it through the first four eps and then see where they take it from there. Apparently the first four episodes are the ones based of the old V, and then they're doing more? To elaborate? We'll see.
Maybe I just have my critical thinking hat on too tight. D:
Yeah, it's crazily heavy-handed and full of fundie paranoia fuel. I'm hoping that we get more character-centric episodes. Like, I'd love to have more about the preacher whose name I forget and what's going on with how all the characters are connected. It gets kind of Lostonian as time goes on. And, ahaha wait until the last episode and we shall talk about the lovely gay alien subtext. More with the aliens period would be awesome, too.
BUT YES, I'm in complete agreement with the ugh-ness of the heavy allegory. Instead of flavoring the narrative with it they've just slathered it in it like a thick and molasses-y syrup.
I think that the old Majel Roddenberry show Earth: Final Conflict did a much better job with the same premise, at least in the first season. It had sufficiently advanced aliens who come to Earth in peace, and help to solve most of humanity's enduring problems, though with ulterior motives that the protagonists struggle to uncover. The reason that this was better than V is because while the aliens had ulterior motives, they were not shown as being necessarily evil ulterior motives (at worst they seem more ends-justify-means motives) and the aliens as a whole were themselves ideologically divided and sometimes worked at cross-purposes with each other.
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They've gone and like. Completely re-worked the old political allegory ("Nazis are bad, mmkay?" to "universal healthcare is A PLOT FROM THE ALIENS THEY'RE OUT TO GET US, mmkay?") to make it shiny and new.
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I think I would like it better if anything was tossed in that didn't fit into the current political climate, but as it is every detail is an annoying echo of current events/ideologies. At the moment I think I'll try to enjoy it through the first four eps and then see where they take it from there. Apparently the first four episodes are the ones based of the old V, and then they're doing more? To elaborate? We'll see.
Maybe I just have my critical thinking hat on too tight. D:
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BUT YES, I'm in complete agreement with the ugh-ness of the heavy allegory. Instead of flavoring the narrative with it they've just slathered it in it like a thick and molasses-y syrup.
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