This Friday on “Invasion: Earth” ep. 5 “The Battle More Costly”

Well I never thought it was possible but it is.....Caprica moves at a faster pace then this thing. I was so bored. I fell asleep twice...yikes. I swear this thing has turned into a novella......

We did get a toxin that kills the ND cells and we also got a portal detector but that seems to be hit and miss but it does give them a good excuse to blast those machine guns they love so much. I did like the orders issued.....STAY IN YOUR HOMES, STAY OFF THE STREETS. Can do and thank you.

So the way I see it the show breaks down like this...The ND's are basically the borg and they are trying to assimilate us for some reason and now we are going to infect the hive and destroy them. Easy peezy lemon squeeze. At least they finally got some reinforcements from the big boys and it looks like they are gonna need it as mount Vesuvius forms on the horizon...next week there's gonna be trouble.

All in all couldn't stay awake I'll give it 5 slutty detectives on the IE scale

http://codenamestone.blogspot.com/

OK. Now we're getting somewhere, but are we complete in our thinking?

They get the toxin into the entire nD colony, but how can they be sure that it works on its own?

I seem to recall that it wasn't working on Amanda until she did the dirty with Drake. Considering that they targeted a town with only 7 men to every 10 women, and it looked as if a disproportionate number of those men were senior citizens, perhaps the nDs knew that sexual contact would react with this or that for a toxic effect against them.

Still a painfully slow watch. I am quite curious about that gigantic mound deposited on the outskirts of town.

I'm back to my baseline on this ep. 7 self-sacrificing elderly town doctors.

___________

I'd've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.

So, just to prove me wrong, not only did they bring up the "how Amanda got pregnant" issue, but they also revealed that she wasn't such an immoral feminist by getting impregnated by a man and eloping with the kid without telling the guy. It turns out she was actually in love and things just didn't work, and she "would never do that." In the end, instead of that post-modern subversive feminist heroine, Amanda turns out to be a good, traditional girl who presented a morally dubious façade for reasons I can't really fathom. Oh, well, I should like her more now, I guess, but I'm even less interested in her.

Oh, I should also mention "Amanda and Chris, sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S..." Isn't that exciting? Not so much, but I did like their strange dynamics. I mean, it was strange to see how they were relating, Drake referring to Amanda as somebody whom he knew and related with well even though they'd known each other for days, and she calling him a monster for god knows what reason. Well, when she said HE was the true monster, I knew it: she likes you, Chris.

Now, the ending I wanna see is the true virus destroying the nDs' malevolent nature. Wanna know what virus it is? LOVE! I imagine the nD leaders observing both Amanda and Drake through a dimensional viewer and one saying to the other, "if two puny humans can find love when there's no more hope, maybe, just maybe we should question our evil ways..." How do you like that? OK, OK, it was just a suggestion.

OK, seriously. The episode is slow because the show is slow. I didn't feel that much because I watch Invasion: Earth doing some graphics in my computer. I find this show excellent to watch while multi-tasking, precisely because not much happens. All things considered, I loved the real message, that just more costly than the battle lost is the battle won. That was very clever. And, seriously, even thought Drake and Amanda's relationship developed too fast to be credible, well, people do strange things in desperate times, and both doing it while she was still human made a lot of sense. God only knows if she would have the human anatomy to do it a second time.

As charmed observed, those guys love their machine guns and to spread bullets. I just thought that, when they shot the appearing nDs inside a tent and in the end there were several wholes on the canvas, what or who was BEHIND that tarp... It's not like they checkes it was clear of any people before opening fire.

I also laughed when an nD materialized inside a soldier and they spread dozens of shots in his direction and surrounding areas. That just kept me wondering, if the nDs can do that why don't they all materialize inside Reece, Drake, the Rastafarian computer guy and all the people that can harm them? The problem is that the show hasn't established what the nDs can and cannot do. Knowing their technical limitations would be a good move dramatically speaking. Otherwise things seem arbitrary and convenient.

Yeah, I'm curious about the mountain too. I guess the nDs gave up on half measures and decide to use their big bio guns, or whatever.

Gosh I'm glad this thing is over next Friday!

This episode gets 7 passionate kisses because deep inside I'm a sap for a good romantic story.

This episode is primarily a set-up episode – putting everything in place for the finale next week. We gather key bits of information such as – Detective Sergeant Holden’s first name is Rebecca. She wouldn’t tell that to the nice soldier trying to flirt with her, (“I have two first names – Detective and Sergeant.”) but to Drake, she says “Call me Rebecca – or heck, just call me! There’s a shortage of men here.” She doesn’t get a date out of it, but Drake realizes that the lack of men is a symptom that the Espheni have been here already. Oh wait, I meant NDs – Espheni is FALLING SKIES.

Good news for Amanda – despite a slow start, the vaccine they gave her finally works – her ugly pus is gone. Now she is no longer a slave to the hive – oh wait, that's DARK SKIES. She and Drake have an on-again, off-again relationship. Last week she was mad at him for starting this war by shooting down Terrell’s ship. Now, she apologizes for that, but then he’s afraid to touch her. So she calls him a monster for (gasp) not settling down with one woman. But we also found out that she fibbed about procreating with the professor just to have a brilliant child. She really loved him and thought he’d be happy that she was pregnant, but he abandoned her instead. She tells that story just to make herself seem to be the one in control. Before the close of the episode, she and Drake are looking like they’ll be a couple.

Meanwhile, the infected people in the town are being snatched by the lizards – oh wait, that’s V – I mean the NDs. The people are milked for the alien bile or whatever, and then returned looking healthly until they get sick again and re-snatched. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. But Nick has finally figured out how to spot where the ND portals are going to be seconds before they open. So the army loads their guns with anti-ND vaccine and fire into the portals as soon as they appear (and amazingly don’t hit anybody else while they’re doing it.) Bentley returns, still looking for proof of the alien invasion. When he sees a roomful of patients snatched away by the NDs, he finally believes, and gives his full support. Reece comes up with a plan to treat the infected patients with the anti-ND vaccine and just let them snatch the people and get unintentionally vaccinated. I can see the logic of the plan; you can’t expect to just keep shooting at portals forever. But he defends his strategy with this week’s quote: “The only thing more costly than a battle lost is a battle won,” thus explaining this week’s title.

So, generally the story is still continuing well. I was going to give this episode a 7, but I liked the final shot of the huge mountain or whatever coming toward them, so I’ll award this 8 rounds of vaccine-laden bullets. I look forward to see if they’ll have a solid wrap-up, or just fall flat. I’ve seen miniseries in the past go either way.

This Friday on “Invasion: Earth” ep. 5 “The Battle More Costly”

Just released from the NDs I guess they don’t like Texans. This one had a few moments few and far between. Glad I don’t work anywhere near the British troops they love their automatic weapons look out stay low would be my advice. They had to get a few soldiers that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Amanda is cured and now we have a plan to destroy the ND’s hope it works but I have my doubts. Not sure what the ND’s did at the end but it reminded me of what a dog might do in its back yard. Good luck earthling cleaning up that mess. Oh well one more to go whether you like this one or not it was over before we knew it.

Six on the pile scale.....

Slightly off-topic, but I was watching GRACELAND this season, and they needed a bank robbed so they got close to a pretty, but tough blonde who knew how to rob banks. Took me a while to realize it, but it was Lacey from THE MIDDLEMAN. She does a great job in the part. I'd love to see them make her a regular, but she'll probably just end up in jail or dead.

And I tried the first episode of THE RETURNED on NETFLIX. Despite it being in French with subtitles, it was fascinating to watch and had a couple of clever twists at the end. I'd still be recommending it for the group except for the fact that it's apparently been renewed for a second season and as such violates our rules.