Love is in the air. And in this episode we’re threatened with the prospect of Willie actually getting some action.
This episode of V is quite divisive among fans of the series, I’ve heard The Wildcats described as both “the worst episode of the series” and “my favourite episode”. Maybe the deciding factor is how much you are into Willie? Or how much you thought the eponymous Wildcats were a bunch of Mary-Sues?
As a hard core Frank Ashmore fan with no skin in this game I’m here to tell you this episode sucks, because they all suck.
Poor Willie is that character that everybody loves but doesn’t take particularly seriously. It’s a very sad trajectory from the original mini-series where his character was the core story about love and tolerance, to the weekly series where he became the punchline of every joke. Originally Willie overcame prejudice to befriend Caleb Taylor, and ignored his people’s propaganda when he fell in love with Harmony Moore. Willie and Harmony were two of the more endearing characters from the original miniseries. I was much more invested in this relationship than the one between Mike and Julie (or Maggie and Mark) and it was deeply upsetting when Harmony was killed at the end of the Final Battle, while sacrificing her own life for Willie’s.
In the weekly series Willie is working for Elias Taylor at Club Creole, and quickly becomes Elizabeth Maxwell’s mentor/partner-in-crime and the two are really sweet together and are very watchable even when they add nothing much to the plot. Which is often. Robert Englund is endlessly appealing in this role, even if the writers overdo the malapropisms in a desperate play for laughs.
What is amusing are the stories that both Frank Ashmore and Michael Ironside report from around the time the weekly series was being filmed. Ashmore recalls catching up with Englund on the phone one evening after he left the show – the two were friends before V and kept in touch. Englund mentioned he’d done a small budget horror which he told Ashmore he didn’t expect much from. Englund’s exchange with Ironside on the matter is even more revealing, as Ironside recalls Englund sidling up to him on set one day and confiding he had “gotten away with one” meaning he’d done a movie of lesser regard and got paid well for it, Englund clearly expected this film would sink into obscurity. That movie of course was Nightmare on Elm Street.
And so on with the show. We open on Willie driving a battered blue van as fast as he can, which I estimate knowing him will be about 40 miles an hour (yes in case you were wondering who drives 40mph everywhere? – it’s Willie). Elizabeth is in the back with a very sick patient in dire need of medical attention. In hot pursuit is a Visitor jeep with a giant mounted laser gun. In all honesty those things are hard to take seriously because they’re too damn clean and therefore prissy looking.
Of course there is no way the writers are going to allow Willie’s driving to prevail so Kyle Bates turns up to shoot out the tyres of the toy Visitor jeep. They can now progress back to what looks like the Courtney Ranch from the last episode. Here Faye Grant’s continuing efforts to get Julie killed off have failed even though this week there is a bad case of diphtheria roaring through “this here valley”. (This week they downgraded the neck brace to a paper cut that doesn’t require a sticking plaster. Faye Grant must be pissed)
And “oh no we have just this minute run out of amoxicillin”. Of course the Visitors are hogging all the anti-biotics, probably to serve with estrogen to fatten up their guinea pigs. Rude. The Resistance need to go get the amoxicillin but Mike is off somewhere, possibly stuck in his room with a tub of Vaseline trying to get his pants on for the day. The logic follows that without Mike and his pants the Resistance is basically useless. They need an army to make up for this critical absence. So off Kyle and Willie go to find The Wildcats, or, more “don’t worry they will find you”.
Aroooooooooo.
Back on the mothership we find Philip explaining to Lydia and Diana that for spurious reasons someone must accompany Charles’ dead body into deep space. That someone will be Charles’ murderer. But Philip is on the case as V goes legal procedural this week.
So which great investigator is Philip going to emulate? Ironside? Poirot? Inspector Gadget? No, he intends to put this case to rest today. Welp. Martin did say justice on his planet was “swift and final” and not particularly interested in getting things right. You know – like CSI. Angela Lansbury can rest assured Philip won’t put her out of a job as he goes about solving this crime.
First clue, it seems there are fingerprints (wait Visitors have fingerprints? What?!) on the bottle of cat poison that killed Charles and they belong to Marta the ship’s pharmacist. Ship’s pharmacist handles poison bottle! Bear shits in woods! Birds suddenly appear every time you are near!
I mean any normal investigator would have been all over this already and gotten her prints for elimination. But no Philip goes headlong for poor Marta, and the conniving Diana and Lydia are not far behind him. In a shocking turn of events these two have banded together to save their skins.
Fun fact, did you know Rose West ended up in the same prison as Myra Hindley at some stage and the two became fast friends nicknamed “The Gruesome Twosome”? It seems they had a lot to talk about. Purportedly they fell out however after arguing over who enjoyed greater notoriety. I don’t know why I’m raising this right now. It just came to me.
Where were we? Oh yes Philip then goes on to question Marta but the blocking of this scene is so terrible: think Days of Our Lives. He’s not even looking at her to gage her reaction to his questions. I keep waiting for him to pull a Columboesque “just one more thing” but I have to admit, like most other characters in this show at this stage Philip is a dumb dumb.
Alright Willie fans I know we’re impatient to get back to Earth where we meet The Thompson Twins led by the love child of Billy Idol and Bruce Springsteen. Of course he and the rest of these kids are at first a tough sell, but I dunno Kyle is so “cool” and Willie so superfluous and the thought of catching diphtheria so impressive (these kids must not be up to date with their shots) that they quickly fall in line.
Just when you think “well that’s not credible” we next see Willie on the raid of the Visitor pharmacy executing his duties with alacrity as he elbows someone in the stomach and then kicks them in the nuts! WTF?
So I should be delighted that Willie has been redeemed for this episode. The purpose of this though is to give Female Wildcat (what’s her name? Oh who cares) some reason to find Willie attractive. Because let’s face it, cute and lovable as we know he is there is no way that a chick like that would go for such a dork. Surely.
Having said that she’s really impressed by what Willie has to say for himself here:
What’s your name?
Willie
Willie what?
Just Willie
That’s nice.
I will grant you on paper it has potential to sound badass. It’s not what you say but how you say it. On reflection there’s not much separating what Willie says with what a ragingly arrogant (but competent) egomaniac might say. I mean what would you think if Mohammed Ali came up to you and said:
You would respect the hell out of that.
But this girl is totally into Willie’s meek persona and strange ability to speak very poor English with a perfect American accent. The fact that Willie is, quite frankly, rather odd, makes him more attractive than ever to Wildcat Girl.
Sadly the efforts at the pharmacy are all for nought as Julie announces the antibiotics are merely baking powder. Personally I think Julie is being unnecessarily negative because at least everyone can get on with a low cost tooth-whitening regimen now.
The upshot of this switcheroo is that someone in the Wildcats is a spy. Oh god does this mean we have to spend the rest of the episode wondering who it is? My money is on Mr Dancing in the Dark with Myself but apparently the writers think we will die of suspense if they drag this out, so now would be a good time to cut to the mothership. Where it’s a completely different show.
The opening shot looks very much like BBC Planet Earth’s Iguana vs Snake. In fact I’d be willing to forgive Philip’s swift and final justice if the Visitor justice system consisted of snakes ruthlessly pursuing newly hatched baby iguanas up an erupting volcano.
But no. They’re just set dressing.
We’re here to see Diana and Lydia stitch up poor Marta who is vaguely irritating with her fake British purr and vacuum cleaner hose attire but doesn’t deserve this. Philip then drags up a rather dull and uninspiring doctored sext Marta supposedly made for Charles which according to the logic of the show proves everything!
Surely Philip won’t fall for this shite? Oh no, nope hook line and sinker. Job done! Case solved! Plus the rocky chair Philip is sitting on is really hard and his ass is pretty numb now so let’s get this over with.
Marta is sentenced to spending the rest of eternity in Charles’ sarcophagus. This “exciting” interlude is supposed to give us a break from the unrelenting sexual tension between Willie and Wildcat chick.
We are treated to one more ludicrous scene where Wildcat chick needs to be rescued from a marauding Visitor and the only person around to save her is Willie. Once more Willie shows some fighting prowess not seen before because it’s in the script. Honestly it makes Outlander look sophisticated. (“Oh no the only way we can salvage the second Jacobite uprising now is if we rip off all our clothes and fuck each other senseless.”) But oh, Outlander this is not.
The comedy/tragedy of this set up is that Wildcat chick doesn’t know that Willie is a lizard and suddenly Willie has developed some scruples about this fact. Which is adorable. Sure. But some of us have long memories and haven’t forgotten that stellar line Willie previously used with an unwitting Harmony all that time ago.
I’m not sure the whole not knowing he’s a lizard plotline is working for me. If we were serious about wanting to heat things up for Willie surely seeing some consensual inter species pashing would be the way to go. Would Willie be more attractive as a lizard? Or just as wimpy and milquetoast as his human facade?
Don’t think too hard about that one.
So this is 80s network television and we’re not going to to see anything more graphic than maybe some gum sticking to someone’s shoe. The gig is up and Willie is exposed as a lizard. Oh yeah that reminds me the stupid “who’s the traitor?” plot comes up again. And all the Wildcats point the finger at poor Willie who’s never so much as snorted a line of baking powder in his life.
Spoiler. It’s the kid with the headphones. I’m taking that one personally as I related to that too hard. Headphones is the only way I can make it through a full shop at Tesco Extra on the last evening before bank holiday closing.
Anyway Donovan finally gets his pants on and parachutes in and I dunno kicks Lieutenant James’ ass again or something. Whatever. Does it matter? Willie didn’t get laid, Diana and Lydia didn’t get their comeuppance, Philip still can’t feel his ass after sitting on that dumb rock. Press reset. Start again. Ho hum.
When Martin Died 