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Lost Season 3

The Man Behind the Curtain

  • By Dave
  • May 9, 2007

LostFlashback: A woman gives birth in the woods as her partner looks on. When the baby is finally born, the mother continues to bleed. Her partner, Roger, carries her and the baby to the highway and flags down a car for help, but before they can do anything she dies. Her last request is that Roger name the boy Benjamin.

Years later, Roger and Benjamin travel to the island to join the Dharma Initiative. Roger gets a job as a work man, but he is not happy about his work or the hazardous conditions that accompany Dharma’s conflict with the Hostiles. At some level, he also blames Ben for his partner’s death. Ben, meanwhile, has befriended a girl his own age named Annie – and he sees visions of his mother, telling him the time is not right for him to leave yet. When he can take it no longer, he sneaks out of his camp and beyond the sonic security fence – where he meets Richard Alpert, one of the Hostiles. Ben tells Richard his story, and Richard seems to believe it. So Ben says he wants to join Richard’s group – and Richard says that one day, he will have the opportunity. And when that day comes, Ben settles the conflict between Dharma and the Hostiles once and for all.

The Island: Sawyer brings the tape that Locke gave him back to Sayid, who quickly organizes the rest of the camp – except for Jack and Juliet – into a council. They are stunned to learn about Naomi and the news about Flight 815, and concerned about Juliet’s intentions. When Jack and Juliet return, Juliet tells Sawyer to play the other side of the tape – the ones with Ben’s instructions to wait for a raid on the camp. She has already told Jack about it, and Jack has a plan.

Locke arrives at the Others’ camp and demands answers. When Ben tells him about Jacob, Locke thinks he’s lying. He demands that Ben take him to Jacob, a demand he backs up by beating a returning Mikhail unconscious. Ben agrees; before they leave, Alex gives Locke a gun. They ultimately arrive at an old cottage, but when Ben brings Locke inside, all Locke sees is Ben talking to an empty chair. Locke considers this a sign of Ben’s insanity or dishonesty, but as he turns to go he hears a voice saying “Help me.” When Locke shines a flashlight in response, things start to fly across the room, but Locke still thinks it’s one of Ben’s tricks. On the way back to camp, Ben shows Locke the ditch where the members of the Dharma Initiative are laid to rest – and then shows Locke how seriously he takes both Jacob’s existence and Ben’s special relationship with him.

Order the DVDswritten by Elizabeth Sarnoff & Drew Goddard
directed by Bobby Roth
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: M.C. Gainey (Mr. Friendly/Tom), Tania Raymonde (Alex), Andrew Divoff (Mikhail), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Marsha Thomason (Naomi), Sterling Beaumon (young Ben), Jon Gries (Roger Linus), Carrie Preston (Emily), Doug Hutchison (Horace), Samantha Mathis (Olivia), Madeline Carroll (Annie)

Note: Hurley discovered Roger Linus’s van and body in this season’s Tricia Tanaka Is Dead.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

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Lost Season 3

Greatest Hits

  • By Dave
  • May 16, 2007

LostFlashback: Charlie reflects on his favorite memories: the first time he heard Driveshaft’s song on the radio; his father teaching him to swim; his brother giving him a family heirloom ring; saving a woman from a mugger; and meeting Claire.

The Island: Jack reveals his plan to the rest of the castaways – with Rousseau’s help, he has been gathering dynamite from the Black Rock. When the Others come to take the pregnant women, Jack intends to blow them up. Juliet tells Sayid that another Dharma station, the Looking Glass, is blocking the signal of Naomi’s satellite phone – but the station is supposedly flooded. Sayid figures that the Looking Glass is connected to the island via the cable on the beach and wants to swim down to shut off the signal, but Jack overrules him in order to focus on the dynamite plan. But when Karl arrives on the beach and tells them that an agitated Ben has moved up the timetable, plans change. Sayid and Bernard will stay behind and shoot at the dynamite to detonate it when the time comes, while Jack leads everyone else to the radio tower. Charlie volunteers to go swim to the Looking Glass, because Desmond has had a flash that Claire and Aaron get rescued after he does so – and after Charlie drowns.

Order the DVDswritten by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Tania Raymonde (Alex), Blake Bashoff (Karl), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Mira Furlan (Rousseau), Brian Goodman (Pryce), Marsha Thomason (Naomi), Neil Hopkins (Liam), Joshua Hancock (Roderick), John Henry Canavan (Simon Pace), Jeremy Shada (Young Charlie), Zack Shada (Young Liam), L. Scott Caldwell (Rose), Sam Anderson (Bernard), Andrea Gabriel (Nadia), Lana Parrilla (Greta), Tracy Middendorf (Bonnie)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
Lost Season 3

Through the Looking Glass

  • By Dave
  • May 23, 2007

LostThe Island: Jack and the rest of the castaways begin their trek to the radio tower. On the Looking Glass station, two Others capture Charlie and radio Ben for instructions; Ben sends Mikhail to the station to evaluate the situation. When the raiding party arrives at the beach, Sayid and Bernard hit their targets and kill seven of the Others, but Jin misses with his handgun and the surviving three capture them. Bernard explains the plan in order to save Jin’s life, and Ben sets out to intercept Jack before he reaches the tower. He brings Alex with him after he learns of Karl’s involvement in the castaways’ escape.

At the beach, Desmond wakes up just as Mikhail starts shooting at him. Desmond dives into the ocean and finds himself in the Looking Glass, where Charlie is able to signal him to hide. When Mikhail reaches the station, he contacts Ben. Ben tells him to kill Charlie and the two women at the station. Mikhail agrees, despite his irritation at having been lied to by Ben. After he shoots the women, Desmond shoots him with a harpoon, and one of the women gives Charlie the code to shut off the jammer.

When the castaways see only two explosions, they surmise something has gone wrong. Jack pushes on, as Sayid requested. But after Kate says she wants to go back, Sawyer says he will go alone. Juliet claims that she can take Sawyer to a hidden gun cache, but that’s only a lie to get Jack to let them go. Hurley wants to come along, but Sawyer won’t allow it. When the rest of the group meets Ben, he takes Jack aside for a private conversation, and tells him that if he does not bring back Naomi’s phone, Ben will have Sayid, Bernard, and Jin killed. Jack refuses, and when he hears three gunshots over the walkie talkie he beats Ben savagely. When Jack drags him back to the group, Ben introduces Alex to her mother, Rousseau.

On the beach, Sawyer and Juliet observe the situation. Their planning is interrupted by Hurley crashing onto the beach in the Dharma bus. The surprise enables Sayid and the rest to turn the tables, kill two of their captors and capture Tom – at which point Sawyer shoots him. On the Looking Glass, Charlie turns off the jamming and gets a signal – there’s an incoming transmission from Penny. She tells Charlie that she does not have a boat near the island, but before Charlie can get Desmond, Mikhail knocks at the window. He’s outside the station, holding a grenade. Destiny is coming due.

At the radio tower, Jack gets word from Hurley that everyone is OK. Rousseau turns off her distress signal, and Naomi finds a channel. Before she can complete the call, she gets a knife in the back – from Locke. A vision of Walt told him that he has work to do, and he begs Jack not to call for help. But Jack is through with Locke, through with Ben . . . and after a moment, he’s in touch with the outside world.

Flash-forward: Nearing the end of a flight to Los Angeles, Jack sees a newspaper item that shakes him up considerably. He drives to a bridge, calls someone to leave a stumbling message, and then steps out onto the bridge, ready to kill himself. Before he can, he hears the sound of a car crash and turns around to rescue the occupants. But even though he’s being hailed as a hero, Jack can’t pull himself together. He’s drinking heavily and taking oxycodone, stumbling through his days. He goes to a funeral home – the newspaper item was a death notice, but no one has attended the service for whomever has passed away. As he sits drinking in a room with books and maps strewn across the floor, he makes another phone call and asks someone to meet him near the airport. It’s Kate. They’re home. But Jack is convinced that this is a mistake – he wants to go back to the island. As Kate drives away, saying that someone is expecting her, Jack screams after her that they need to go back.

Order the DVDswritten by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
directed by Jack Bender
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: M.C. Gainey (Mr. Friendly/Tom), Tania Raymonde (Alex), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Blake Bashoff (Karl), Andrew Divoff (Mikhail), Ariston Greene (Jason), Sonya Walger (Penny), Mira Furlan (Rousseau), Brian Goodman (Pryce), Marsha Thomason (Naomi), L. Scott Caldwell (Rose), Sam Anderson (Bernard), Lana Parilla (Greta), Tracy Middendorf (Bonnie), James Lesure (Dr. Hamill), Nigel Gibbs (Funeral Director), Loreni Delgado (Pharmacist), Larry Clarke (Customer), Kate Connor (Doctor)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Pilot

V (2000s series)Life on Earth is brought to a standstill as enormous alien ships appear over most of the world’s major cities. Each ship reconfigures itself into a gigantic screen projecting an image of a seemingly human woman who introduces herself as Anna, the leader of these alien visitors. She promises peace and an exchange of technology with humanity – and all the visitors ask is access to Earth’s abundant water and a commonly occurring mineral. The visitors are welcomed with open arms, and they begin bringing the benefits of their advanced technology to Earth almost immediately, opening “healing centers” capable of repairing almost any damage or disease.

And yet there is suspicion about the motives of Anna’s people. A priest named Father Landry shocks his congregation by suggesting that the visitors need to earn humanity’s trust. Erica Evans, a counter-terrorism expert, is suspicious when the visitors take to the internet immediately with their own propaganda effort, though her son is less suspicious, finding the visitors’ women very attractive. Reporter Chad Peters earns Anna’s trust by asking the press corps to show her respect at a peace conference – enough trust that Anna personally selects him to conduct her first major prime time interview, though she makes it clear before the cameras roll that the interview will be conducted on her terms, with no questions permitted that would paint the visitors in a negative light.

A member of Father Landry’s congregation appears in the church, bleeding to death, and he hands Landry a package of photos and instructions to take them to a specific address at a specific time. Erica also winds up at that address, following a lead on an open terrorist investigation. Where they find themselves is at a meeting of an underground resistance, taking up arms to fight the visitors…and before Erica or Father Landry can ask why the visitors need to be fought, the visitors themselves appear and, to the few survivors of the resulting massacre, all becomes clear: the visitors have been among humanity for years already, and they do not come in peace.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Elizabeth Mitchell (Erica Evans), Morris Chestnut (Ryan Nichols), Joel Gretsch (Father Jack Landry), Logan Huffman (Tyler Evans), Lourdes Benedicto (Valerie Stevens), Laura Vandervoort (Lisa), Morena Baccarin (Anna), Scott Wolf (Chad Decker)

written by Scott Peters
story by Kenneth Johnson and Scott Peters, based on the miniseries by Kenneth Johnson
directed by Yves Simoneau
music by Normand Corbeil

Guest Cast: Christopher Shyer (Marcus), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Britt Irvin (Haley Stark), Scott Hylands (Father Travis)

Notes: Originally created by Kenneth Johnson as a non-sci-fi modern-day (well, 1980s) retelling of the rise of the Nazi Party, the original V miniseries resulted from NBC’s request for a sci-fi epic, retaining its cautionary tone but now with more futuristic action. In some ways, ABC’s revival of V steers things slightly closer to Johnson’s original intent. But Johnson himself was almost stripped of anything more than a “based upon” credit for the new series; the Writers’ Guild of America decided, in arbitration, that despite a wholesame revamp of the show’s cast of characters, Johnson should still be credited for creating the series, and should receive a story credit for the pilot (which seems to cover much of the original five-hour miniseries’ ground in the space of a single hour). The writers of the new series do not have to seek any further approval from Johnson for any storyline developments, however Johnson does retain the feature film rights to V. The location of the ill-fated resistance meeting, 4400 Pier Avenue, is a nod the cancelled cult SF series The 4400, whose cast and crew included actor Joel Gretsch, writer/producer Scott Peters and director Yves Simoneau.

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2000s Series Season 1 V

There Is No Normal Anymore

V (2000s series)Having just escaped the bloodbath of the V raid on the resistance meeting, Erica and Father Landry have a new problem: the Visitors have launched a killer airborne drone which homes in on them. The two barely escape with their lives, and Erica decides it’s best if they’re not in the same place at the same time. She is soon called in to account for her partner’s disappearance, but she doesn’t reveal that her partner turned out to be an alien lizard in a human disguise – or that she killed him. Father Landry goes to the police to report the massacre, but soon find his trust in the authorities flagging. With so many Visitors already living among the human race, who can be trusted?

written by Scott Peters & Sam Egan
directed by Yves Simoneau
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Alan Tudyk (Dale Maddox), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Scott Hylands (Father Travis), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Rekha Sharma (Sarita Malik), Britt Irvin (Haley), Ingrid Kavelaars (Jocelyn Maddox)

Notes: Guest star Rekha Sharma brings a healthy SF TV pedigree to her appearance here, having played the major recurring role of Tory Foster on the remake of Battlestar Galactica; she has also guest starred on SyFy Channel’s series Sanctuary. Ingrid Kavelaars was a regular on the J. Michael Straczynski series Jeremiah, on which writer Sam Egan also worked.

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

A Bright New Day

V (2000s series)As the first hundred American visas are issued to the Visitors, human suspicion and sentiment are turning against the aliens. Threats are made against the Visitor compound established in New York City, and Erica Evans is assigned to partner with a Visitor security officer to beef up security there. Members of the fifth column – a resistance movement within the Visitors’ own ranks – are making preparations from within the human population. Erica gives Father Landry access to her FBI records so he can try to determine the identity of the other human survivor of the resistance meeting massacre, and while the priest does find the name and face he’s looking for, merely looking could prove to be a deadly endeavour. In the meantime, Anna becomes concerned with one woman’s outspoken protests against the Visitors’ presence – more concerned than her advisors think she should be – and decides that the protests must be silenced.

written by Diego Gutierrez & Christine Roum
directed by Frederick E.O. Toye
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Alan Tudyk (Dale Maddox), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Michael Filipowich (Cyrus), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Britt Irvin (Haley), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Mark Hildreth (Joshua)

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

It’s Only The Beginning

Survivors (1970s series)Anna uses her clout with the media – and, in particular, reporter Chad Decker – to announce that V medical technology will soon be available to humans in clinics everywhere, capable of detecting and curing everything from cancer to heart conditions that haven’t claimed their victims yet. But Erica learns from Ryan Nichols, who has identified himself as a member of a resistance group within the aliens known as the Fifth Column, that the V’s medical knowledge of humans goes much further than that. He promises to lead Erica and Father Landry to a stockpile of an alien drug, R6, that the V plan to introduce to humans everywhere, unannounced, by mixing it with flu shots. But while Erica works with her allies to destroy the stockpile before it can be used, her own son is being lured further into collusion with the aliens by Lisa, and her mother – Anna. And a surprise awaits Ryan when he discovers that his unsuspecting human wife is pregnant with the first human/alien hybrid.

written by Cameron Litvack & Angela Russo Otstot
directed by Yves Simoneau
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Christopher Shyer (Marcus), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Scott Hylands (Father Travis), Ryan Kennedy (David), Craig Fraser (Peter Combs)

Notes: This was the last of four episodes of V to air in 2009 as a special event, as well as the last to be overseen by the original creative team that had developed the show (in large part, the same creative minds behind the series The 4400). New episodes wouldn’t air until March 2010, at which point the series’ revised creative direction was being steered by new executive producer Scott Rosenbaum.

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Welcome To The War

Survivors (1970s series)The destruction of the V’s warehouse full of the R6 drug has not come without a cost. One V security guard survives who saw Erica, Father Landry and Ryan, and he pays Landry a visit, stabbing him in the church and leaving him for dead. The guard’s next stop is Erica’s home, but she thwarts his attack and kills him in the process. Ryan suspects that the guard was not acting under orders, but was instead trying to round up and kill those involved in the warehouse bombing to save face before reporting back to Anna (who would almost certainly have executed him for failing to guard the R6). Erica’s son Kyle is nowhere to be found, having gone to the V mothership at the invitation of Anna and Lisa.

Knowledge of the warehouse bombing quickly goes public, and Erica is left in the uncomfortable position of taking part in the FBI’s side of the investigation. When V investigators claim to have found human fingerprints, Erica braces herself to be exposed as a member of the resistance, but is surprised when the trail of evidence leads to someone who had no connection to the explosion: wanted mercenary Kyle Hobbes. Erica has no idea why the aliens want to blame Hobbes for the crime, but she does have to admit that this man – who she has tried to hunt down many times during her law enforcement career – could become very useful if the resistance could recruit him.

written by Scott Rosenbaum
directed by Yves Simoneau
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Nicholas Lea (Joe Evans), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Scott Hylands (Father Travis), Rekha Sharma (Sarita Malik), Lexa Doig (Dr. Leah Pearlman)

Notes: It’s yet another Canadian Science Fiction All-Star Week on V; guest star Nicholas Lea (seen in Kyle’s “memory chamber” flashbacks) is best known to SF fans in the high-profile recurring role of FBI Agent Alex Krycek in The X-Files; Lea also worked on Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, which starred Lexa Doig as the Andromeda’s human avatar. British-born actor Charles Mesure appeared numerous times as the Archangel Michael on sister series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; his V character, mercenary Kyle Hobbes, is roughly analogous to mercenary Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) from the original V series.

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2000s Series Season 1 V

Pound Of Flesh

VShortly before destroying the R6 warehouse, Ryan sent a signal in the name of the fifth column resistance leader: “John May lives.” That message pushes Anna’s preoccupation with ensuring the loyalty of her followers into an obsession, and she instigates widespread loyalty tests among her own people. Anna also plans to announce a program called Live Aboard, which will invite selected humans to live aboard the visitors’ ships and experience their lifestyle. The program is to be announced with another worldwide broadcast, and the resistances sees this as an opportunity to disrupt Anna’s message and mobilize the fifth column and any other human resistance cells around the world. Ryan volunteers to go – any non-visitor would fail to make it far enough to sabotage the broadcast – and discovers that the rebellion is more widespread among the visitors than he thought. Georgie decides Ryan needs backup and takes a shuttle to the visitors’ ship as well, but his mission will prove to be altogether less successful.

written by Charles Murray & Natalie Chaidez
directed by Dean White
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Nicholas Lea (Joe Evans), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Samantha Ferris (Private Investigator), Lexa Doig (Dr. Leah Pearlman)

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

John May

V (2000s series)Erica, Ryan and Jack start making plans to rescue Georgie from the V mothership, where he is being interrogated following his capture. Hobbes is the lone holdout, feeling that Georgie’s best contribution to the resistance was to be a sacrifice and a diversion. Ryan tries to track down the original fifth column leader, John May, who he encountered ten years ago, and has to reveal to May’s son that his father’s suicide was a cover story. Ryan is making it his mission to find May to lead the resistance anew – but the only problem is that Anna is trying to find May at the same time so she can quash the resistance.

written by Gregg Hurwitz
directed by Jonathan Frakes
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Michael Trucco (John May), Nicholas Lea (Joe Evans), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Jessica Parker Kennedy (Grace), Terry Chen (V Doctor), Brett Dier (James May), Oliver Gatske (young James), Erica Carroll (Lillie)

Notes: More SFTV alumni appear in front of and behind the cameras here, with Michael Trucco – late of Battlestar Galactica – appearing as John May, and Star Trek: The Next Generation actor/director Jonathan Frakes takes command of the action from behind the camera.

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

We Can’t Win

V (2000s series)The resistance movement is in chaos: drawn out into the open by the “John May lives” message, members of the Fifth Column within the Visitors’ own ranks are slaughtered. The human resistance leaders’ lives are in disarray: Erica’s son Tyler, having learned that the man he grew up with is not his real father, loses his faith in both of his parents and flees to the Visitors’ mothership with Lisa. Ryan’s pregnant wife is on the run after learning that the baby she’s expecting isn’t entirely human, but if the Visitors find her, there will be no safe place for her. And on the Visitors’ ship, Lisa – Anna’s own daughter – fails the loyalty test Anna has devised to weed out defectors among her own people. But as Erica discovers, there are also humans willing to sell out their own kind.

written by Christine Roum & Cameron Litvack
directed by David Barrett
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Ty Olsson (Jeffrey), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Lexa Doig (Dr. Pearlman), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Rekha Sharma (Agent Sarita Malik), Lucas Wolf (Samuel), Ernesto Griffith (Secretary-General), Ken Camroux-Taylor (Victor Caruso), Nicholas Carella (Alex Caruso)

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Heretic’s Fork

V (2000s series)Ryan has killed one of his own to help his pregnant human wife escape the Visitors’ clutches, alerting Anna to the presence of a hybrid child. Fearful of a Visitor with the “weakness” of human emotions, she wants Ryan, his wife and their child killed. Erica, Hobbes and Jack find their new prisoner extremely unhelpful; once she discovers that he’s got the names and addresses of Fifth Column members living in secret on Earth, Erica authorizes Hobbes to use whatever means are necessary to get more information. Anna’s willing to take extreme measures to accomplish her goal as well, even if it means unleashing her elite troops on a planet that stands no chance of repelling them.

written by John Wirth & Angela Russo Otstot
directed by Frederick E.O. Toye
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Ty Olsson (Jeffrey), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Lexa Doig (Dr. Pearlman), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Phil Granger (Henry Thompson), Sarah-Jane Redmond (Sarah Thompson)

LogBook entry written by Earl Green

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2000s Series Season 1 V

Hearts & Minds

V (New series)Ryan receives word from his fifth column contact that a shuttle filled with V trackers – from whom Ryan and his wife barely escaped before – will soon be en route to Earth to find Ryan’s wife and their unborn hybrid child. Father Landry makes a misstep with his newly cultivated contact – reporter Chad Decker – tipping Anna off to Ryan’s plan to shoot the shuttle down. Using a ground-based rocket launcher, Hobbes shoots down the V shuttle, only to discover that Anna has outmaneuvered them: not a single Visitor is aboard the shuttle, which is instead full of humans. The resistance has a public relations disaster on its hands, and worse yet, evidence at the scene leads the FBI to Landry.

written by Gregg Hurwitz
directed by Bobby Roth
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Rekha Sharma (Agent Sarita Malik), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Scott Hylands (Father Travis)

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Fruition

Survivors (1970s series)Anna’s daughter Lisa is found on Earth, brutally beaten and with both legs broken. The description Lisa gives of her attackers includes an almost unmistakable likeness of Kyle Hobbes, despite his insistence to fellow resistance members that he had nothing to do with it.

The other man accused of beating Lisa and leaving her for dead is a mystery to Erica and the other resistance members. His name is Parker, and he’s a weapons developer who, with some of his coworkers, has developed a substance that shows promise as a weapon against the V. Erica’s only chance of obtaining this weapon for the resistance is to make sure Parker stays alive – which means convincing Lisa not to pick him out of a suspects’ lineup. But can Erica break Anna’s hold over the girl?

written by John Wirth & Natalie Chaidez
directed by Bryan Spicer
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Rekha Sharma (Agent Sarita Malik), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Lexa Doug (Dr. Pearlman), Samantha Ferris (Private Investigator), Scott Hylands (Father Travis), Paul McGillion (Parker)

Notes: Guest star Paul McGillion is best known in the role of Dr. Beckett on Stargate Atlantis, and auditioned for the role of Scotty in 2009’s Star Trek feature film, instead winding up with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Red Sky

V (2000s series)With Tyler determined to take part in the Visitors’ “live aboard” program, Erica gives up on trying to convice him not to move aboard Anna’s ship, instead seeing an opportunity to get herself aboard and destroy Anna’s army of genetically-bred killers before they hatch. Ryan’s pregnant wife is kidnpped by V trackers and taken to Anna’s ship, where security has been beefed up in the wake of incidents such as the recent “attack” on Lisa, but he insists on going aboard to save her. But she’s already in labor, and can’t be moved. Having lost contact with Joshua and the other fifth column members aboard Anna’s ship, and fully aware that reporter Chad Decker is a direct link to Anna, Erica devises a plan to pass a message to Joshua, and even if Anna intercepts it, she won’t decipher its full meaning. Hobbes uses himself as the bait to lure Marcus, Anna’s chief enforcer and head of security, to Earth. With Marcus out of the way, Erica can move more freely, but she hasn’t anticipated the ever-shifting loyalties of Lisa, or the unpredictability of Decker, and Ryan’s whereabouts are unknown. Erica manages to deal a devastating blow to the Visitors, but the momentary victory is a costly one.

written by Scott Rosenbaum & Gregg Hurwitz
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Lexa Doig (Dr. Pearlman), Scott Hylands (Father Travis)

Notes: Jack’s message to his parishioners – “let V stand for victory” – is a deliberate echo of one of the closing lines of the original V miniseries broadcast in 1984. The birth of the first human-Visitor hybrid harkens back to V: The Final Battle, but is presented very differently here. Another callback to V: The Final Battle is turned on its ear here: in that miniseries, the red dust was an anti-Visitor chemical which the resistance – not the aliens – deployed into the air and into Earth’s water supply by hot air balloon (since powered aircraft would have been detected and shot down). Director Robert Duncan McNeill is no stranger to alien intrigue, having starred as Tom Paris for seven seasons on Star Trek: Voyager prior to becoming an in-demand director.