Finally. In this episode it’s the big showdown we’ve all been waiting for! If you’re a hard core V the Original Mini-series fan like me you will have:
a) Been waiting in tense anticipation of the moment Marc Singer and Frank Ashmore reunite as V’s equivalent of Kirk and Spock or
b) Not given it much thought really.
Given how disappointing each of the previous much anticipated “showdowns“ have been perhaps you’re right to go with option b) here. Diana’s face when she thinks she sees Martin again?
(Though if she were truly modelled on Josef Mengele she could at least have the decency to be titillated by the fact Martin was a twin)
How about the great Lydia vs Diana showdown?
No despite the ozone depleting levels of hairspray used even that fight failed to excite.
As for Donovan and Philip? Last time we saw these two actors together they may as well have been stumbling about on the heath: Ashmore as Gloucester with his eyes newly plucked out begging to be guided to a cliff to leap off and Singer as the ever right and true Edgar leading him to the smallest fall. Sadly this script will prove somewhat less moving than Lear. This time the two actors are brought together with characters in conflict, with Philip erroneously believing that Mike is responsible for the death of his brother. Predictable rules of homosociability (as summarised in Wake in Fright) will now ensue.
The problem for Philip is that he’s obviously been set up to be “Martin but betterer” but he’s also the Johnny-come-lately of the show. The rules of the universe have already been divined. What’s more, the very idea that Martin as a character required any improvement actually offends me. Martin was a man trapped in the middle, who truly grappled with fear and desire to do the right thing on a daily basis. The most Philip ever seems to have grappled with is … well as soon as he arrived he did make his (sexy) female colleagues wrestle each other in skin tight costumes … you get where this sentence is going.
It is therefore with little enthusiasm with which I begin my review of this episode.
We open with Donovan, Kyle and Willie creeping around in the dark looking sketchy. They are apparently after something called a Mentamorph which by my estimation is either the latest Transformer or Strawberry Shortcake doll. Neither sounds particularly like something I would have wanted to have received for Christmas but is better than what it actually is, which is just some dumb glowing crystals.
(Julie is completely absent from the episode, not because Faye Grant has finally succeeded in convincing the writers to kill Julie off in a freakish and brutal carrier pigeon attack while decoding secret messages for the Resistance. No, we just can’t have anyone with medical expertise in this episode for reasons that will soon become very apparent.)
We soon cut to the Visitors on the mothership who are gathered around a television set. Predictably there is some squabbling among our reptilian aliens as to what they should watch. Diana is a big fan of Scandi-Noir. Philip is not. Keep your ears open for the duration of this episode as various characters weigh in on their opinion of The Killing showing that our alien friends are remarkably ahead in terms of getting new tv series to air on the mothership. Which is typical. Those bastards.
Diana then says to Philip that she heard he was “once a warrior” which for me being from New Zealand invokes images of Temuera Morrison beating the shit out of Cliff Curtis with a bar stool. But no, I’m relieved to tell you we won’t be seeing Frank Ashmore yelling in Jane Badler’s face to “cook the man some fucking eggs”. Or am I? I’m not sure. Anyway, she means that Philip is some kind of Space Ninja Master.
Diana is soon distracted by the fact that the crystals she’s used as a lure have failed to impress the Resistance who, thanks to the intervention of the Fifth Column realise that this is a trap and scarpered. Fans of Lost (are there any of you still out there?) might recognise the Fifth Columnist Robert as a young Brett Cullen. Robert stops off to collect his wife Glenda who is proving that yes it is possible to be “hilariously pregnant”. The two hurriedly pack to do a runner.
After last week’s pitiful performance Philip is suddenly showing some nouse with regards to investigation skills and soon figures out who the culprit is as he and Diana follow Robert and Glenda to the loading bay. Philip figures that he can track Robert’s shuttle with a homing device. (The fuck? Those things have homing devices and no one on the mothership has thought of using them before now? Jesus H. Christ.) Philip will follow Robert who will lead him straight to the Resistance and Donovan, which he is confident he will quickly dispatch with his space bar stool. Diana is less confident in Philip’s abilities and instead suggests he take a girl with him.
Now picture if you can Miss Piggy doing one of her signature karate chops, accompanied by a lot of “Hi yas”. Except instead of Miss Piggy, picture someone wearing one of those dumb rubber lizard masks getting beaten up by a slightly doughy muscle man. Only Miss Piggy has the excuse that her movements are turgid and unbelievable because she’s a fucking puppet with someone’s hand shoved up her arse.
Is it any wonder that both these guys are bested by a small Romanian gymnast who suddenly appears out of nowhere and mortally threatens Doughy Muscle Man. The next part I can’t actually look at directly as a Frank Ashmore fan. (I can only view this out of the corner of my eye.) Philip enters the fray and suddenly starts beating up Nadia Komaneci which seems rather excessive.
But it’s ok really. Nothing to see here. The viewer is assured this interaction is perfectly normal, there’s nothing wrong with a grown man attempting to beat the crap out of a small gymnast because they know each other. They go way back and I’m sure they’ll laugh about this fight over cocoa and hobnobs by the end of episode. Their shared mission to destroy Mike Donovan and the Resistance is going to go swimmingly.
Diana is quick to pick up that the gymnast, whose name is Angela, is not a big fan of Philip and asks Angela to come to her quarters to look at her snakes. And no, that’s not a euphemism
After having a snack (also not a euphemism) Diana and Angela quickly turn to conversation about how much better the world would be if Philip were dead. I would prefer “never existed” but hey whatever. Angela and Diana agree that once Philip destroys Donovan (ha!) Angela will kill Philip (double ha!). Oh Philip you should have gotten some bowling sessions in with Lieutenant James, then you’d know how inevitable it is that you’re in for a humiliating ass-kicking.
Anyway. We’ve just about distributed our Chekovian guns all over this episode. The one final piece is Willie who is down in the dumps, probably since he didn’t get laid in The Wildcats last week. Apparently he has just noticed he is trillions (??) of miles from home and everyone around him is completely alien. Suddenly after years on Earth this is an issue and oh if only he weren’t so lonely. Cue arrival of Robert and Glenda who has just gone into labour, with Philip and Angela in hot pursuit.
Be careful what you wish for Willie.
On the mothership poor not-very-sharp Lydia wanders into Diana’s quarters with what is honest to god a “space clipboard”. This is an old middle-management trick to try to appear as if you are in the middle of something extremely vital when really you’re just arsing about and trying to figure out who on your team has the best biscuits. Lydia easily falls for Diana’s ruse to get herself recorded saying something about killing Philip and the two pout with delight at the idea of him dying with his boots on. Which is kinky even for them.
I didn’t know the Visitors ate cornflakes, but somehow Philip has gotten his hands on some Gee-Whizz Cap’n Crunch X-Ray goggles. Perhaps he didn’t actually eat the cornflakes, he’s probably powerful enough to commandeer every packet in the state just to cut the coupons out and send away for them. I imagine his quarters are awash with the uneaten cornflakes right now and he’s swimming around in them like he’s Scrooge McDuck.
On earth we return to Philip and Angela wandering around a very small junkyard (or parking lot, it’s too close to call) unable to find the humans who are literally within sniffing distance. You could smell Kyle’s hair gel from here.
Angela is quick to make clear she doesn’t think much of Philip’s Gee Whizz goggle-vision which only seem to have added considerable delay to finding the traitors in this very small junkyard. There is some attempt to give these two a back story. Something about Andromeda’s moon. I think we are supposed to surmise that because Philip rescued her when she was an orphan that he is “a good guy” but this plot won’t fly in a post-Marvel world. When I hear stories of rescued orphans from invaded planets I think of Gamora and the pitiless black eyes and broken body of Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy. Ah, more innocent times, the 80s.
Meanwhile.
Yes just a few feet away the incredibly difficult to find fugitives are getting ready for the labour and deciding who gets to be “wantu” . This honour falls to Willie who I am sure is the perfect person to show this child how to ineptly operate a blender one day. Willie will never be lonely again. Not until next episode by which point we will have completely forgotten Robert and Glenda.
What follows is a birth scene that surely must go down as one of the silliest in television history.
I have questions. How did she manage to give birth with her trousers still on? How the hell did she lay that egg without tearing her pelvis in half? Why even lay an egg if it’s only going to hatch immediately? What the hell did Martin and Philip’s mother look like when she was pregnant with twins? (Oh right same zygote = same egg presumably. Claustrophobic)
Speaking of which. Finally. Mike spots who he thinks is Martin wandering around outside. The two men see each other and lock eyes for as long as 80s tv will tolerate in a scene before… well, I refer you to the Wake in Fright diagram above to guess what happens next.
What might have been fun was if Donovan were left wondering why Martin was still alive and why he was so angry with him. (Though I would have thought it was pretty bloody obvious he was on the verge of cutting a bitch on the day that he died in Liberation Day.)
But no, we have to have some character in the know who can explain absolutely everything to Mike. “Oh yes, that’s Philip he was a great Space Ninja Master turned jurist whose brother Martin died in the war. His favourite colour is green, he’s a Libra and his hobbies are staring at rocks, sitting on rocks and using rocks to divine if people are guilty of capital crimes.”
Shooting ensues. Robert for some stupid reason thinks in the middle of this we can work it out if we all just have a talk. He goes out there to do this with predictable results.
At this juncture I have two choices. I could foam roll my IT band or continue watching this episode.
Have I ever said how fucking tedious Mike Donovan’s heroism is? Only in every post huh? Right. Well this is piling tedium upon tedium as we get to watch Philip watch Mike being heroic as he rescues Fifth columnist Robert under heavy fire. Philip sees all this and thinks “huh”.
Then to slather it on even thicker Philip is being just as annoying by telling Angela to storm the hideout but make sure that Robert’s child isn’t harmed. I think Philip’s expectation that there be no collateral damage in warfare is totally messed up and Angela has a point.
You know what else? My (admittedly sadistic) Thai massage therapist said I should lie on top of a massage ball to roll right on the most painful part of the IT band. I’m thinking about this quite intently right now.
There’s still time for Ashmore to do his best “Jake the Mus” impression, or at least for Frank Ashmore’s stuntman to don a blond wig and prance about for a whole 70 seconds before Philip the Space Ninja Master has his ass handed to him by Donovan. All at once the scales fall from Philip’s eyes …
I stumbled when I saw
King Lear
… as he realises Mike is Edgar, Diana is Edmund and Angela is looking to pluck his eyes out any second now. Glenda is Kent and Angela is now dead because Glenda doesn’t like Scandi-Noir either. (If you’re not keeping up with any of this don’t worry. As we have already established: nothing matters.)
Philip now disavows his previously declared love of rocks and takes the Mentamorph out of his pocket and crushes it under his boot. Take that dumb rocks! Now Donovan is impressed that Philip is willing to destroy something with that much street value. He reaches out to shake hands with Philip but keeps on his trademark gloves because much as he wants to be friends with Philip he doesn’t want to catch lizard cooties.
Is it over yet? No there’s five more minutes of this episode. As consolation we get to see the ugly alien baby getting bathed in motor oil. (That confirms it these aliens are assholes. What does the baby eat for breakfast? Diamonds? Four bedroom homes in Hampstead?)
We end the episode with Diana and Lydia in the loading bay awaiting the arrival of Philip’s body with his boots on. Diana attempts to have Lydia arrested for plotting to kill Philip but who suddenly appears around the corner? Philip can barely contain his glee at the sight of Lydia and Diana’s obvious disappointment. It’s a completely normal reaction anyone would have to starting a new job and discovering your colleagues are out to kill you. Philip tells us he found Donovan to be a “formidable adversary” (i.e.: he tore me a new one). This means that he will have to stay and we the audience are supposed to be on the edge of our seats wondering what will happen next.
Is this a complete turn up for the books? Do I think Philip staying makes things more interesting? Have I stopped thinking about doing bad things to my IT band? Will the Visitor senior officers ever be able to find a tv show they can all enjoy together? Keep watching. Or don’t. It honestly doesn’t matter.
When Martin Died 