The third episode of V actually did better in terms of plot pacing – much, much better.

The problem is, a lot of it was a little unrealistic.  For example, the V surveillance room with all the video feeds; she sneaks in without being seen.  This is a restricted area of the V compound; why, exactly, are they letting her roam freely, unsupervised?  Why would a sensitive room like that be empty?

Sure, you might say it’s because it was a coded door.  Surely the Vs have better tech than a four-character PIN?  Surely the Vs are capable of having tech that automagically verifies that the person who enters the PIN is actually authorized to use it?

Entry guarded by a number pad was outdated a long time ago.  We have far better tech than that nowadays; an RFID badge, for example, is far more secure.

Furthermore, she’s on video herself in the room; surely she assumes it’s being recorded somewhere?  Yet she makes no attempt to hide or delete the video of her in the room.

Blah.  Stuff like that.

I’m told that after episode four, they’re delaying the show until March.  I don’t really think it deserves to come back.

(Turns out I don’t get the SyFy channel anymore, so Hulu is my only option…)

I’m getting more and more irritated with this show.  Not only did they put in two completely unnecessary sex scenes, but they had to make one of the characters a lesbian, too, so they could have some girl-on-girl kissing.

This is less and less like Stargate, and more and more like… I don’t know… something else.

This episode didn’t further the plot at all (other than establishing contact with the ships seeding planets with Stargates).  It did little more than increase the already ridiculously high level of tension among the crew members, and (yet again) expose Rush as a liar.

The more I watch this show, the more I want it to get canceled, if only to keep it from doing any lasting harm to the Stargate franchise.

This episode returned to a more Stargate-like feel, yes, it’s true.  Too bad I didn’t like anything about it – nothing.

First: I hate time-travel episodes.  They are rarely done well, and this one was no exception – what’s worse, looping in time is a bad plot tool, unless the looping itself is the premise.   Star Trek: The Next Generation did a looping episode well.

Second: There wasn’t just one “convenient coincidence” in this episode.  No, one convenient, random occurrence is expected.  It’s what you build a story on.  But four or five?  Come on, that’s just dumb.

1. They get infected by something from a planet they’ve been to previously.  (I’ll accept this without argument.)
2. The currently-accessible planet happens to have a cure for the infection.  (Two completely unrelated worlds, one with a disease and the other with a cure?  Visited one after the other, in the proper order?  That’s practically four coincidences by itself.)
3. The wormhole between the planet and Destiny happens to intersect with a solar flare, preventing them from returning to the ship.
4. The solar flare happens to be properly positioned such that the wormhole from the planet loops back on itself into the relatively recent past.
5. Since they know what’s going to happen, they know when the solar flare occurs, and thus they’re able to use the looping to presumably solve the situation.

I say “presumably” because they didn’t actually resolve the situation in the episode.  It’s pretty irritating, actually.  The Stargate formula is a generally self-contained episode.  Stargate Universe has been more like a giant multi-part episode than anything else.  It just doesn’t feel like Stargate.

I’m watching the second episode of V right now.  There are some things that don’t make sense.

• The Visitors have all this advanced technology, but the only photos they have of the resistance cell from the first episode are blurry.  If you can travel interstellar space, create holograms, make human skin suits… you can definitely have your flying recon drone record high quality video.
• If the Visitors have agents in the FBI, they probably have agents in all sorts of government groups.  They should be able to take the recording of the 911 call they intercepted and do voice searches.  (If I were doing an invasion this way, I’d definitely make databases of peoples’ voices.)
• Obviously, given that they have agents all over the place, the Visitors should have a lot more influence than the show indicates.  They’ve been around for decades, most likely; that’s enough time to infiltrate relatively high levels of world governments.  (Compare with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s shapeshifter infiltration of Federation and Klingon governments.)

So… yeah.

What can I say about V?  The premise was decent – aliens arrive on Earth, proclaiming love and friendship and oh by the way we can heal all your diseases.  And all they ask in return is water and some “common minerals”.  Whatever that means.  (An Anonymous Coward on Slashdot wrote an interesting post on whether aliens would actually be interested in Earth; read it here.  Try to ignore the how-many-calories-in-a-baby speculation.  Short version?  No, they’d probably have no reason to care about Earth.)

The biggest problem with the new show is that the plot moves too fast.  Some shows need to move a little faster – Stargate Universe is one of them, I think – but V needs to slow way down.  They should not have told us about the Visitors so early – instead they should have been dropping subtle hints for two or three more episodes that Things Are Not As They Seem.