V: 1983 & 2009, Part Five: The Role of Women & Minorities

The Role of Women
The Resistance
1983: Julie, medical student and reluctant resistance leader. She is unsure of herself, and this is made worse by her interrupted Visitor Conversion attempt.
Diana, is merely one captain in the larger V squadron. Her primary source of authority comes because she is the lover of the Supreme Commander.

2009: Erica, FBI agent, part of 5th Column (5th Column as assimilated the resistance in this series) even has a feminized man's name. The most feminine thing about her in terms of attitudes prevalent in the 80s is that she is alien abductee whose fetus was modified by the Visitors. This fits in neatly with modern conspiracy theories as to why the "Grays" are here.

The Visitors
1983: Diana is merely the captain of one starship in a larger squadron, her position in the Visitor's hierarchy is assured through her sexual relationship with the Supreme Commander. While she is hard edged and successful enough to run a ship, she has not yet proven herself able to manage and lead a larger population. She engages in kinky sex with a subordinate, in this case kinky is defined as wearing their human skins.

2009: Anna is Queen of the Visitors, a position she secured by overthrowing her mother. She controls her people through dispensing a chemical called Bliss to her species. Her reptilian nature is emphasized more strongly in this series by her mating to produce an army of warriors. We later find out she is unable to produce additional non-drone children of her race. The future of her species depends on her daughter Lisa laying eggs and becoming Queen. Unfortunately, they are far from a suitable planet for her offspring, necessitating the transformation of Earth into a planet better suited for the Visitors.

V is fortunate though to have two strong females going head to head as leaders of different teams. I don't recall seeing anything like that before. This seems to indicate a growing acceptance of female leadership.

The Role of Minorities
1983 - Elias, a street hoodlum and criminal before the Visitor's arrival, and then a freedom fighter and resistance leader afterwards. This reinforces mid-80s American fears of black urban youth, to which even Jesse Jackson admitted having. Additionally, the Hispanic resistance fighter promotes cultural stereotypes of Mexican immigrants.

2009 - Ryan, the primary black character in the 2009 V, is a Visitor and member of the 5th column who may turn on his fellow freedom fighters for his own benefit making him a triple spy. Essentially he is an immigrant who assimilated but may retain allegiance to his original civilization. This corresponds nicely with the Zeitgeist of the home-grown home-radicalized domestic terrorists attacking us. There have been a number of these attacks or attempts from Ft. Hood to Times Square, and there is a fear of more out there. V uses a black character to embody this fear, presumable out of PC sensibilities of using an Arab, and a desire to avoid causing controversey.

More Potential for Biotech

How cool is this?

Scientists Grow Mouse Teeth From Single Cells
02.19.07, 12:00 AM ET

MONDAY, Feb. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Using tissue regeneration technology, Japanese researchers have been able to grow a new tooth from single mouse tooth cells and use it to replace natural teeth in a mouse.
The achievement is "a breakthrough in the development of bioengineered organs and proposes a novel concept for the organ replacement in future regenerative therapies," lead researcher Takashi Tsuji, associate professor, Department of Biological Technology, Tokyo University of Science, said in a prepared statement.

Reporting in the Feb. 19 online issue of the journal Nature Methods, Tsuji's team started by using the two cell types that form teeth -- mesenchymal and epithelial cells. They grew sufficient quantities of each of these cells and then injected them into a drop of collagen. This eventually developed into a budding tooth, which they transplanted into the cavity left by an extracted tooth in a mouse. . .

Regeration and cloning of limbs leads to a whole host of ethical issues that no one has confronted yet with the exception of a few Science Fiction writers. Our society as a whole has had no real discussion or discourse on the implications of such technologies because scientfic/medical research is far outpacing the ability of our society to digest these changes and adopt a coherent, consensus regarding these changes. For example, regeneration may lead to longer life spans for those here whenn it is fully realized, but may also lead to the birth of fewer children, resulting in the loss of some genes and increased risk of decimating plagues.

Conspiracy TV - And how to bring it back

Ok, all three conspiracy-related related shows from the major networks have been cancelled. These were, in order of quality/preference: Surface, Invasion, and Threshold. (Hmm, I hadn't noted the single name theme). I believe that these were all engaging, entertaining shows that could have a life on cable. To that end, I believe we should start a campaign to have them bring one or all (or an amalgam of all three, which I'll go into below) to the SciFi Channel, which has a history of picking up SciFI shows like Stargate SG-1. You can reach the SciFi Channel at: feedback@scifi.com

Anyway, here is my thought on how to combine Surface, Invasion, and Threshold: You have Miles, Rich, the doctor and Nimrod (from Surface) survive the tidal wave and monster and then make their way back inland. They find more clues, and stumble upon Dave (from Invasion's blog). Thinking there may be some kind of connection between the orange glowing creatures and the creation of Nimrod's species. In the meantime, Dave stumbles across the doctor's viral video of Nim's fellow monsters and tries to seek out her, Miles and Rich.

At this point, you can a few episodes of Dave and the doctor playing complicated computer tag trying to figure out if the other is legitimate or dangerous. During this time, they would both be gathering clues (including some from the military and some from the X-Files-like conspirators in Invasion and Surface. At some point, it would be revealed that Nimrod's species was engineered to counter the threat of the orange water creatures, but have become overly aggressive.

Meanwhile, the Airforce in Southern Florida would initiate a program similar to that in Threshold with the idea of tracking down Zura as well as the other hybrid escapees. Additionally, you could throw in elements of The 4400 where some of the hybrids are beneficial, but still have to be tracked down, and quarantined.

Anyway, I think that would be a good show and that SciFi should pick up invasion and Surface to make it work. It could be called Surface Invasion to combine the two and make the point that both undewater creatures do make it on land.