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V
"The Betrayal"
TV episode
Written by Mark Rosner
Directed by Gilbert Shilton
Original air date January 18, 1985 |
The Resistance kidnaps a Visitor
doctor when Willie is seriously injured on a mission; Kyle
suspects the televised appearances of his father are faked.
Read the summary of this episode at V: The Series Interactive
Website
Didja Notice?
The Freedom Network report brings good news from
Hawaii where resistance leader Chi Chi Haspay has once again
escaped death; in Land's End, England a violent hit-and-run
battle continues between the Robin Hood Brigade and the
Visitors' Fifth Air Wing; the Chattanooga Volunteers in
Tennessee were driven into rugged terrain south of Lookout
Mountain three weeks ago and still no word has been heard from
them since; this week's Freedom Network Medal of Valor goes to
Frankie Weatherwax, a mechanic in
Chapel Hill, NC who stopped
the alien takeover of a junior high school.
Land's End is the westernmost point of the mainland of England;
Robin Hood is the heroic outlaw archer of English folklore known
since the late 13th Century.
Chattanooga
is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Lookout Mountain mentioned in the Freedom Network report is a
real mountain located at the borders of the states of Tennessee,
Georgia, and Alabama.
At 4:20 on the DVD, Willie and the fifth columnist Simon each
approach each other with a hand raised to about face-level and
grasp the hand of the other. Is this the Visitor equivalent of
a human handshake?
As
the computer-generated image of Nathan Bates makes a television
announcement at 11 p.m., imploring peaceful coexistence with the
Visitors, at 5:22 on the DVD he reminds viewers,
"Remember, the Visitors are our friends." This is the
slogan the Visitors promoted during the
two mini-series.
This is the first and only
time it was used in the weekly
series.
Seeing his father on television, Kyle says the best doctors in
the world could not have put him on his feet this fast after
being shot at close range. But "Nathan" did claim in
"The
Hero" that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Resistance infiltrator John Langley pays Diana a visit at the
embassy and accuses her of being willing to let him be executed
during the hostage stand-off in "The
Hero". Diana merely comments that he was in the wrong place
at the wrong time. But, as I pointed out in my study of
"The Hero", Diana does seem about to
say something to Charles about the situation to save John. Why
doesn't she bring this up to John now, in explanation?
John tells Diana, "I didn't just slither out of the swamp
yesterday." This seems to be akin to our saying "I didn't just
fall off the turnip truck yesterday."
During her conversation with John, Diana burns a sheet of paper
with Visitor writing printed on it. What was it? We aren't told.
Was it the request for transfer John later says he has asked her
for?
As this episode opened we saw that Willie was wearing a black
leather jacket. But in the scene of Willie running down the
street at 8:53-8:57 on the DVD, he is wearing a brown one! That
is because the scene is stolen from
"The Hero"!
As Elizabeth wets a towel in the sink at 9:23 on the DVD, a
bottle of Joy dishwashing liquid is sitting on the sink top. The
front label of the bottle has a tear through the middle though,
because television producers generally don't want to advertise
consumer products for free!
At 10:25 on the
DVD, there is a Visitor sign
above the Visitor Field Hospital
in Englewood. It's hard to make
out the characters from the
distance, but a negative version
is a bit clearer. |
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Positive |
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Negative |
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At 10:59 on the DVD, another
sign at the hospital features
the Visitor medical symbol, as
previously seen worn by medics
in
"The Dissident". Visitor
medical student Howard is also
wearing the symbol as an
armband. |
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At 13:43 on the DVD, Charles
receives a printout of a
communiqué in Visitorese. Notice that some
characters appear to be cut off on
the right-hand edge. I suspect
the prop master just cut down a
larger sheet already on hand to
make it "communiqué-sized"! As
for the content of the message,
Charles says it reports that
Nathan Bates has come out of his
coma. |
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The scene of a Visitor shuttle flying over a residential
neighborhood at night at 13:56 on the DVD is stolen from the
original mini-series. The house is supposed to be John's, but in
the mini-series it belonged to Donovan's mother! Also notice
that at 14:28, when John answers the door to admit Robin, there
is a hallway outside, making it appear that he lives in an
apartment! Diana even calls on him in an apartment a little later.
John and Diana's conversation in his apartment/house implies
that human women are particularly attracted to him.
Howie informs Julie that morphine is poisonous to Visitors.
Donovan is at first sceptical that Howie is a member of the
fifth column, saying, "I thought you were purged when Diana
returned to the fleet." But Donovan himself was just saying that
Willie had gone to meet one of his fifth column contacts at the
beginning of the episode! Howie tells him that a bunch of fifth
columnists were killed at the time, driving the rest into deeper
cover.
When Robin shows up back at John's door, he has to dispose of
two white mice in his hands that he was preparing to eat. He
shoves the one in his left hand in his mouth and swallows it, but
what happened to the one in the right? We see his hand dip down
below the counter and when it comes back up the mouse is gone!
In probably the most powerful feat we ever see her perform,
Elizabeth brings Willie back to life after he dies of his
gunshot wound.
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At 28:43 on the DVD, the
elevator up/down buttons at
Science Frontiers are in the
shape of the Science Frontiers
symbol. |
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Howie says that liquid xenon is used as a power source for the
Visitors' laser cannons. Xenon is an actual element on the
periodic chart.
Gee, it sure is convenient that when Tyler is skeptical of
Howie's claims that Charles is smuggling weapons into the open
city, the Visitors they're observing at the loading dock just
happen to drop a large crate that falls open, revealing a laser
cannon.
Nathan Bates dies in this episode, yet the tanks of red dust he
set up to blow if the pulseometer he wears should
cease to detect a pulse do not explode. No explanation is
given in the episode. However, there was a scene in the script
in which Kyle slips the pulseometer off his father's wrist and
onto his own (though we never see him wearing it in any
subsequent scenes). The scene was shot but cut for time. I
haven't seen the script, so I don't know how much detail was
written into that scene. Presumably, the pulseometer could not
have been slipped off of Nathan's wrist at just any time, that
wouldn't have been a very foolproof plan on Nathan's part.
Nathan may have been able to disable the device long enough to
let Kyle put it on and reactivate it. But then what happened after
Kyle's escape from Science Frontiers? Does he wear it for the
rest of the series? Did the Visitors later find a way to disable
the explosives on the tanks?
At
33:41 on the DVD, Diana receives
a printed message from John
Langley. |
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At 34:20 on the DVD, we see Visitor writing on the security booth at
the hospital parking entrance. Also note there is a red and
white X decal on the ambulance door. Is this the Visitor
equivalent of a medical red cross?
At 35:19 on the DVD, there is Visitor writing on the weapons
crates stored at the hospital.
At 36:52 on the DVD, there is a Visitor sign in the corridor of
the hospital. It may be on a fire hose cabinet.
At 37:00 on the DVD, Julie is
carrying a clear clipboard with
a Visitor page of writing on it. |
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At 37:06 on the DVD, more Visitor writing on crates of "medical
supplies". It appears that the broken crate we saw earlier
containing a laser cannon is being stored in this room.
At 38:41 on the DVD, there
is a Visitor sign in the
background of the scene at the
hospital. It's too blurry to
make out the characters very
well. |
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At 39:15 on the DVD, the gauge
has the Visitor symbol on it! |
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At 39:29 on the DVD, a production microphone suddenly pops up in
the lower right corner of the screen.
At 40:33 on the DVD, there are Visitor symbols on the control
panel of the xenon storage tanks.
At
41:06 on the DVD, there is a
Visitor sign outside the
hospital. |
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The ambulance with CA license
plate 2054124 used throughout
this episode appears to be a
Dodgehas the word
"ambulance" decaled on crookedly
on the side! |
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At 37:24 on the DVD, Tyler pulls his trusty MAC-10 on the the
Visitor receptionist and Donovan his M1911A1 handgun.
At 38:06 on the DVD, a Stavros packing barrel is seen in the
medical storeroom behind John. One of these also appeared in
"The
Hero".
The Visitor
Cadillac limousine carrying Diana that rolls up at 42:01 on
the DVD has no front license plate. This would tend to indicate
it is the same one seen in
"The
Hero".
As Robin is packing a suitcase full of clothes to head to
Chicago at 42:59 on the DVD, notice that Julie hands her an army
helmet as well!
Julie comments to Robin that at least she's not pregnant, a
reference to Robin's previous romance with a Visitor, Brian, in
the original mini-series.
Chris is missing from this and the previous episode. As he
prepares to take Robin to Chicago, Tyler comments they're going
to have to move it if they're going to meet Chris at the Mojave
pickup. In "Reflections in Terror", we learned that Chris had
been spending time with a resistance group in the desert.
Perhaps he has gone back to them. Mojave is a city in the desert
northeast of Los Angeles.
Amusingly, Julie and Robin joke that with Ham and Chris
escorting her to Chicago, Robin will be in constant danger!
As Tyler leaves for Chicago, Donovan calls him "Hard Rock". What
happened to "Fixer"?
Referring to Tyler, Chris, and Robin, Julie asks Donovan if he
thinks they'll ever see them again. Donovan doesn't have an
answer. I do: nope! The series was canceled shortly after!
(However we will see them again in issue #8 of the
V comic book,
"Printer's Devil", a tale of
the trip to Chicago and then in issue #15,
"Blood on the Wind",
a tale of Ham and Chris in Chicago.)