V: 1.20 The Attack (Unfilmed)
1.20 – The Attack (UN-FILMED, UN-AIRED)
Credited to:David Braff, Paul F. Edwards, & Donald R. Boyle
NEW!!!
I will keep the synopsis below for the sake of the original review, but the link above is a full transcription of the unfilmed twentieth episode I have come across. I will write a further second view below as well.
Synopsis:
The Leader’s shuttle leaves the mothership returning to the homeworld with Elizabeth and the Leader aboard. Kyle has secretly stowed away. Philip is happy that seemingly there will be a continuing peace between the two races. Lydia is not as certain and she notes Diana as a reason.
PHILIP: …Prepare the cyclo-purgers…
Diana and James are set to be executed. Lydia is visibly pleased.
PHILIP: Lydia, do not enjoy these executions too deeply. My instinct tells me that’s exactly the way Diana began.
Oswald leads Diana and James to the brig. Willy and Thelma run back in to say that they can’t find Kyle anywhere, confirming that he must have stowed away. Donovan wants to go after him, but Julie stops him saying that it might start the war all over again. She also intimates that Kyle and Elizabeth’s relationship might help them. Willy and Thelma inject that the Leader is too great to harm Kyle.
DONOVAN: Really? Then if he’s so ‘great’, why does he have Elizabeth?
Lydia checks in on Diana and James’ handcuffs and taunts Diana that she’s finally lost. Diana seems not to be bothered which irritates Lydia.
We shift attention to the Leader’s shuttle where Kyle comes out from hiding, threatening the ship’s pilot, demanding to know where Elizabeth is. Suddenly he hears her voice in his head, and he begins to vanish into “a cosmic transition to an ether state” and he winds up in some sort of limbo where he can see a towering reptilian with four arms who supposedly is the Leader at some distance away. Kyle demands to see Elizabeth. He raises his weapon towards the shadow, but it suddenly disappears.
Elizabeth then appears before him telling him that the Leader is:
ELIZABETH: …the sum of one. The total. The complete.
She goes on to explain that long ago the Leaders of Saurus feared that one would become too strong so they broke up the Anyx which was the source of their combined power. A piece of it was brought to Earth by “ancient” astronauts.
ELIZABETH: As part of you…and part of them…I make the Leader whole again.
Back on the mothership, Donovan and Julie prepare to leave for a rendezvous with Ham Tyler, who will help Donovan with his search for Sean when alarms sound and all flights are canceled.
Diana persuades Oswald to free her and James and she goes directly to the bridge. Philip and Lydia have discovered the explosives on the Leader’s shuttle and offer Diana a full pardon if she’ll deactivate the bomb. Diana plays innocent and the Leader’s shuttle explodes.
Diana blames the resistance and declares that Philips was in cahoots. Somehow she is able to seize control asking if Lydia is with her. Lydia agrees as long as she is in co-command. Diana agrees and launches an al out attack on Earth.
The remaining resistors, Donovan, Julie, and Willy have all been locked up again. They note that something must have happened to the Leader. Thelma soon shows up with an “engagement cake” for Willy. She is about as subtle as a hammer about the cake containing explosives.
Suddenly Kyle appears in their cell but he is unsure as to how he got there or what happened to Elizabeth. They blow the door open, setting off alarms as they make for the landing bay. Diana and James are waiting and they open fire on the resistance. One of the lasers blasts Julie and she disintegrates. Willy is shaken to his bones but Donovan sadly tells him:
DONOVAN: We can’t blow our own lives for her, Willy. She’s finished. She’d want us to go on.
They escape into the ventilation shafts.
DIANA: Damn them! I want this ship torn apart to find them, do you hear? Capture them at all costs!
James nods and races off to begin pursuit.
Philip meets with Diana and Lydia to discuss his future, still claiming to be loyal. They agree to settle the matter later. Diana says he that if he is innocent, he has nothing to fear.
PHILIP (under his breath): Except, of course, the heinous treachery of these two bitch cats lusting for my blood!
Donovan, Kyle, and Willy have dressed as pilots enter the landing bay to mingle with the troops that are preparing to invade Earth when suddenly Elizabeth appears on the catwalk. Diana orders that she be captured immediately, but she disappears when approached. She reappears on a different catwalk, frustrating Diana who says they’ll capture her later after the attack on Earth.
Skyfighters begin the attack. Elizabeth appears and vanishes again. Philip spots Donovan and calls out that he will find where Elizabeth really is. he chooses Donovan, Kyle, and Willy off the line to come with him. Donovan quietly demands an explanation. Philip says he’ll get one when they get to his quarters. Once reaching his quarters, Philip tells of Diana’s assassination attempt and how it must have failed (due to Elizabeth’s appearances). He says he needs to get them off the ship. They are concerned about Elizabeth, but Philip promises to get her back to Earth when things are safer.
Donovan pretends to take hostage so that Philip wouldn’t be betrayed.
PHILIP: You don’t have to protect me, Mike.
DONOVAN: I know. I want to. We’re still going to need a fifth column.
WILLY: Now, more than ever.
Diana is thrilled that the invasion is going even better than expected.
Philip and the resistance make their way through the mothership when they hear Elizabeth’s voice calling for them. From the bridge Diana and James can see Philip being led by gunpoint, but Diana doesn’t believe it. She hits a switch and the floor opens beneath the resistance and they fall into the mothership trash compactor. The walls close in when Elizabeth appears and attempts to help before she vanishes again and we see her with the Leader.
ELIZABETH: You led me to believe that Kyle could stay! You deceived me.
The Leader replies that that she has to be more patient for she will rule with him now once she brings him the Anyx. Elizabeth refuses, citing that she is of two worlds and she chooses Earth. She returns to the compacting room and stops the walls with her powers before passing out. The group is able to escape the compactor and make their way towards the landing bay again.
Diana sees what is happening from afar and orders the landing bay secured. Donovan uses Philip as a hostage pointing out to James that Philip is the Leader’s best friend and that he will kill him if they are not given free passage. James seems indecisive, but Willy places Elizabeth into a skyfighter and then turns and shoots James who falls to the ground.
Diana and Lydia enter the landing bay and get into a skyfighter to pursue the fleeing resistance. Diana clips the ship and Donovan’s shuttle goes down. Diana and Lydia believe the resistance destroyed as they return to the mothership.
The resistors survived the crash and emerge from the wreckage and head towards the nearby road. Suddenly they see a “Road Warrior” type vehicle and it’s revealed that Ham is behind the wheel. There is a brief reunion before they get in ad drive off.
Back aboard the mothership, Diana is told that there has been victory on all fronts with it being only a matter of time before total victory.
LYDIA: The armistice lulled them into a false sense of security.
Diana and Philip trade barbs, but Philip declares that he is her superior officer and he is not accountable to either Diana or Lydia.
The Leader soon contacts Diana telepathically and brings her into the “limbo zone”. He commands Diana to capture Elizabeth who has stolen the secrets of the Ancients and knows of the Anyx. If she is to find it, she will become even greater than he is. She also has stolen the Syllabus of the Ancients which could lead her to the Anyx if she can decipher it. If she finds it the Earth will be victorious.
THE LEADER: If you fail, I will not be the first to die. You will go before me.
Back on Earth, the resistance see the ruin the Visitors have brought upon the planet. Donovan asks Elizabeth about the Syllabus. She hands it to Willy who reads aloud:
WILLY: Follow the wind for the source of all knowledge. To a place that lasts forever. Where your hear will sing.”
They don’t have any idea, so their only plan is to search for the place until Elizabeth’s heart sings. They realize they’ll be caught within the midst of the war, but this is what they’ll have to do.
DONOVAN: That’s the future out there. Let’s go live it.
Analysis:
Wow. It’s hard to judge this just based on a synopsis but certainly it shows that if the show had continued we were going to be taken in a WHOLE new direction. Instead of Dallas with Laser guns, it was going to be The A-Team with aliens combined with Lord of the Rings!!!
It had always been important way back when Kenny Johnson wrote the original that V should be more about a struggle for power with a sci-fi backdrop. The science fiction aspect was always limited and really rarely showed it’s head. But with this new take, V was about to embrace it’s sci-fi side a WHOLE lot more. From an ancient syllabus, to a powerful artifact, to Jedi powers, and a Leader who is completely more mystical than anything we have been led to believe (except maybe for the last filmed episode). It’s really ridiculous because it’s not only cliched but it goes against EVERYTHING V had been established to be.
This episode seemingly goes SO far as to basically steal a scene from Star Wars! (if you don’t know which scene…go watch Episode IV right now.)
It just seems ridiculous how easily the resistance was suckered into this whole armistice thing and how weird that Philip didn’t know what was going on.
And how does Diana place a bomb on the shuttle to overthrow the Leader, but the Leader still contacts her to do his bidding?
Then there’s Julie. Julie seems destined to have joined Elias in cheapy death syndrome. Again, I don’t mind a character dying…in fact with regards to the writers, again like Elias before her, the writers had put her in a position where she wasn’t really relevant anymore. She had missed a few episodes already and wasn’t missed. When she was there it seemed lackadaisical. So if the writers genuinely felt they couldn’t come up with good storylines for her, I’d even say, let her die. But hell, the episode right before the season finale, she had a major storyline with Maitland…so we know that’s not true. But regardless, again it was less about who they killed in this case, but more that it was such a pedestrian a way to kill off basically the FIRST resistance hero. I’m glad I didn’t actually see this part or else I would have been pissed. Then it’s followed up by Donovan completely shrugging it off. Very out of character.
Despite it’s abhorrent negatives, I appreciated the fact that they were going to try something new with it. Perhaps embracing the sci-fi aspects would have given it more life, but they certainly would have been better off trying to return V to it’s roots and deal with the human equation more than special effect of the week.
It had gotten so bad that even myself as a V fanatic might have stopped watching…but for the return of Ham Tyler. It seems that maybe the creative team was starting to realize some of its mistakes and was trying to rectify them. That alone would have bought them another half season with me. It at least buys them a few ratings points on the scale…
C-
(for Ham’s return)
D
(for everything else)
SECOND VIEW
After reading the more full transcription, my grades actually get worse. I can now only muster a D for Ham’s return. Everything else? Pure F. Granted this wasn’t a finished script due to cancellation but they couldn’t even keep straight any continuity points. For example, Julie is killed only to reappear moments later in the landing bay to talk to Donovan. Philip is going aboard the skyfighter at one point not to emerge from the crash, but later on be on the bridge with Diana.
And the Star Wars rip off scene was actually worse than I had thought.
Julie’s death would have been worse than Elias’ which I had ranted about, even if Faye Grant had (rightfully) wanted out by that point anyways.
I’m very glad to finally have had the opportunity to read this myself, but I have to say, it’s a good thing it was canceled when it was. It was beyond saving.