"v" Oad 01/18/11

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That sure is a funny looking baby. Not lizardy, just ugly. Maybe Lilly is getting bliss from somewhere.

It just seems stupid to me that an advanced race doesn't get the concept of a spiritual component to a species. Like they've never heard such a thing before. Whether it exists or not, it can't be squeezed out of the body. That should be obvious.

 

Because of my fond memories of the original - I was excited and now disappointed at the Momma Jane Badler locked in the basement under the cousin IT chair storyline.

As far as the skinning goes - I don't get it -
we skin you and you will be dead in 30 minutes -
after all the hype about how strong her convictions were i woulda thought she woulda endured the pain and not given up the intel so quickly.

it's not like she was being tortured by Jack Bauer or anything.

but - i'm still watching.

 

Without getting in to a religious discussion or lack thereof it seems to me their might be something to this soul thing although I'd rather call it a spiritual center of the brain or something like that. Someone that believes in a higher power vs someone who believes in nothing must have some sort of their brain activated differently than the other. Take, for example, these people that get brain injuries and suddenly they can speak a foreign language or become a savant by having new parts of the brain activated. This is measurable on brain scans and even though we're talking about synapses and neurons I'll bet their is a way to isolate them and have them removed sort of like whatever happened to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So, whatever it is their calling the soul probably can be isolated and removed in the same way that my desire to eat Cheetos could be isolated and removed.

 

I'm an atheist, and the soul storyline doesn't bother me at all, nor do I think it's harming the show.

I hear 'soul' and just think of higher level concepts like emotions, guilt, morality, empathy, responsibility to yourself and your kind, human legacy etc. Mix all that together, and you get close to a soul without requiring a higher power. Even with one, I can still watch and enjoy shows like Supernatural just fine. It's all just fiction anyway on TV.

That may not be what other people think of as a soul, but consider that it's just the word that the Vs are using. If they don't have a soul or even understand what it's supposed to be, maybe they're just using it as a convenient stand-in word for something that's not the same as a religious soul that is going to be tormented in hell for any sins they may have committed.

Maybe that's why they're trying to prove that a soul doesn't exist. Because the absence of one proves that evil can go unchecked, even after you die. All you need is enough ray guns and space ships on your side and you can ruthlessly exploit weaker species without any fear of punishment.

 

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I think you're over-thinking it. I think they're being sincere...they are purely rational beings (they don't naturally feel emotions, and when they begin to, it is a defect that results in execution), they can't see any rational reason why humans are resisting them, the humans blame the soul, therefore the soul must exist. And since it exists and influences human behavior, it must be quantifiable and ultimately removable.

I think their treatment of the soul issue is one of the few ways in which V is actually good science fiction. The Visitors are truly alien. They don't get us in a very fundamental way, and their failure to comprehend is leading them completely down the wrong path.

 

Lets do the premise that the soul does not exist. People over the years have tried to discover things that don't exist. Phlostogen comes to mind. Heat does not flow like water. Ether, the universe does not have ether in it. The concepts were later replaced as more research was being done. The V's, if they are looking for something that does not exist, will not ever find it and come to the conclusion that humans have subconscious, or emotions or something else that is what people call the soul.
If the soul does exist, they may not have the instrumentation to detect it. Also the V's may discover that they have souls. Why not? Don't dogs go to heaven?

 

Like all tv and movie villains, the Vs over complicate things. Just kick our asses and do what they want with us.

 

And yet, while the writing probably isn't the best at accomplishing this, I really like what they SEEM to be doing. The aliens flat-out cannot comprehend why we are resisting them. It makes no sense to them. And they fear what they cannot understand, so they're desperately groping for an explanation. They don't realize that we're just not that smart; we don't know when we can't win. Their inability to realize that they really do have us beat, and we're too dumb and stubborn to realize it, is what will give us a chance.

In a better-written show, what they're (the writers) doing could be brilliant.

 

The problem there is you don't have much more than a few hours of blood.

Greg

 

Ok here's what I'm not getting. If all they want is to breed to save their race, why bother with all the shenanigans? I mean, the first season set out like the Vs were going to eat and kill people, but if their sinister plan is to seduce humans with Vs like Lisa and Anna then I'm not so sure they'd get too much objection.

Amiright? High fives anyone?

 

Questions I have:
• So..why didn't Lisa eat the dude after doing the deed?
• V culture/physiology only allows for one fertile female at a time?
• Other than camouflage, what does the skin do?

 

Have they ever mentioned if the V's have visited other races on other planets in the universe? It just seems odd to me that they have never come across a race that has emotion before. But maybe we are the only 2 planets with sentient beings on them out there??? Then I guess it's more likely that we are unique. It seems arrogant to me to assume that we are the only people in the universe stubborn enough to keep fighting for our planet even when we know we can't win.

 

They could set up Lebensborn type centers and just have babies. I mean, would it even be noticed in some third world countries. Take male sperm and impregnate V women. No one would know.

 

What I didn't get is that the 5th Column had a half-skinned lizard laying on a bed. If they wanted to throw a wrench in the acceptance of the Vs, why not just dump the body in front of a hospital somewhere with a note saying "Hi, I'm a V. Dissect me."?

 

Stop, please stop. You're bringing too much logic into this discussion. New guy (Sam, the demon hunter) needs the body so blondie (Erica) can figure out what they did to her son.

Also why doesn't Erica ask Lisa what she's doing with her son. Considering 5th column suspects the V's want to bang us, and her son is part of that equation, wouldn't the fact that Lisa (princess V) is dating her son raise alarm bells? Lisa may evade answering Erica, but it seems like Erica and Lisa do have some trust between them.

 

They have addressed this in past episodes; they don't want to start a direct war with the Vs because the humans would lose. They feel it is in their best interests to work covertly.

I think they stated directly why the V couldn't survive once skinned - something about air density or some such nonsense I believe?

The soul thing bothers me mostly because it is cheesy and a stereotypical trope for Sci-Fi-ish shows (even Dark City did it better); and slightly because the Vs have been living on Earth for dozens of years or longer and yet somehow they are completely oblivious to the current beliefs concerning the soul and seemingly are only recently aware of its existence...

 

If I understand things correctly, our cast of characters still aren't 'Fifth Column' proper, right? They may be _a_ fifth column in the sense of the word, but not _the_ Fifth Column group, since they haven't actually been able to contact them yet.

I suspect the writers are keeping things this way, both to have a story arc climax available for when they do connect, and to avoid introducing more new characters at this point.

 

I thought it was the opposite - they are the real fifth column seeing as how they had direct contact with Joshua, and the other group(s) are following their lead.

 

From season 1, John May, founded the Fifth Column before the Visitors even revealed themselves to humanity.

He's supposedly dead, but the way it was handled, makes me think it's another card that the writers are keeping in their back pocket to pull out when they need it.

Eli Cohn's people behind the suicide bombings might still be a group merely inspired by them, we haven't seen enough to know that yet.

Spoiler

One V wiki page lists him as 'the leader of a radical Fifth Column cell, with whom Erica shockingly has a mysterious past.'

Considering the actor who plays him (Oded Fehr), we're going to see more of them soon.

 

I think the 5th Column is somewhat amorphous right now. I don't know that our cast of heroes are the 'head' because it seems the only contact they have with others is the priest's sermons.

I guess I liken it to cells of people acting independently with a common cause. Which reminds me - Sleeper Cell was a fantastic show that should've gotten another season! </rant></hijack>