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"Matters of Trust"
V: The Final Battle (part 2,
hour 2)
50:13-1:32:03 on Side 1, Disc 1 of the DVD set
Teleplay by Brian Taggert and Diane Frolov
Story by Lillian Weezer & Diane Frolov & Peggy Goldman & Faustus
Buck
Directed by Richard T. Heffron |
Suspicions mar Julie’s return;
the Visitors enact their plan to drain all water from California within 30 days.
(This episode begins with Ruby's funeral and ends with Robin
giving birth.)
Read the story summary of the mini-series at the
V Wiki
Didja Know?
For the title of this hour, I used chapter title 15 on the DVD.
The title relates to the resistance members trust of Julie after
her captivity aboard the mothership, Mark and Maggie's trust
issues with each other, and Martin's disloyalty to Diana.
Didja Notice?
Ruby's grave, as revealed at 47:47 on the DVD, looks more like
the grave of a beloved pet than of a person! And how did the
Resistance get a hold of Ruby's body for the funeral? Or did
they? Maybe that's why the grave seems small, they don't have her body and just buried something symbolic of her at the site.
When the others pray for Ruby over her grave, notice that neither Tyler nor Chris join in the prayer.
When Donovan's young son is awakened from his pod on the
mothership at the behest of Eleanor, Brian says, "I know
somebody who'll be very happy to see you, Sean Donovan." The
novelization reveals that it's not Eleanor, but Diana, he's
thinking of!
Donovan and Julie are assigned to infiltrate the Visitor pumping
station. But aren't the two of them among the most likely of
Resistance members to be recognized by Visitor security?!
Donovan and Julie arrive at the pumping station in a Visitor automobile, a 1984
Dodge 600. This model is seen several times in this mini-series as the "official" Visitor auto!
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There is some hard-to-read Visitor writing on the fence
at the pumping station at 52:18 on the DVD. |
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At 58:55 on the DVD we're told that Willie has just had minor
surgery. For what? We're never told. Presumably it was just to
get some below-the-surface tissue samples.
When Robin goes into convulsions, Willie is able to remedy them,
saying the convulsions are common among Visitor females when
they are near their time to give birth. It seems a little odd
that Willie knows how to apply pressure to a point on the
female's back to relieve the convulsions but, then again, maybe
it's the norm in Visitor culture.
Willie is now wearing a dark glove on his left hand to cover
where the synthetic skin was torn off. Too bad it wasn't his
right hand in homage to actor Robert England's Freddy Krueger
character!
During the resistance briefing on the Visitor water-pumping
plant, Donovan says the laser defenses pulsing through the
tunnel into the plant will be shut off for 12 minutes while the
Visitors switch to the power grid in Oregon. Why are the
Visitors switching to another power grid? We're never told.
At 1:03:52 on the DVD, Mark and Maggie agree to get married as
soon as they get back from the mission. In a Hollywood script
that's a sure sign that one of them is about to die!
At 1:05:40 on the DVD, Julie clutches her
Heckler & Koch P7 pistol during the pumping station raid.
At 1:05:42 on the DVD, as Julie realizes she's holding the gun
in her left hand and switches it to her right, she also finds
that the right hand is shaking as she tries to hold the weapon
in it.
At 1:09:03 on the DVD, as Donovan catapults himself feet-first
at the Visitor watchman to knock him out, it is obvious,
especially in frame-by-frame, that Marc Singer's feet never
actually make contact with the other actor! For one thing the
Visitor actor waits a little too long to react and throw himself
back from the force of the kick.
At 1:11:07 on the DVD, Donovan seems to knock out a Visitor
guard just by slamming the guard's back against the wall. The guard's head never hits the wall and it's helmeted besides!
| There is a lot of Visitor
signage in the pumping station but most of it is at too
far a distance to make out. There are some signs legible
at 1:10:09 and 1:11:15 on the DVD. |
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| At 1:12:00 on the DVD, a Kohler packing
box is seen.
Kohler
is a manufacturer of plumbing products and bathroom
fixtures. |
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Another couple of Visitor signs at the plant are just
barely legible at 1:15:20 on the DVD. |
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After the bombs blow and all the water in the pipelines
to the mothership comes cascading back down through
the waterways, it's a bit ironic that heroic victory music
is playing while we are shown scenes of a dam bursting,
a bridge wiped out, buildings destroyed, and cars
(presumably driven by people!) falling into the deadly,
rushing waters! (The flood footage was derived from the
1974 film Earthquake. Thanks to Gino Marroquin for the
source tip!) |
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At 1:18:29 on the DVD, we see a rifle-toting guard at
the resistance ranch headquarters standing on crutches!
That's dedication! |
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The caves where the Visitors and resistance make the trade for
Sean are the Bronson Caves in the Hollywood Hills, right below
the famous Hollywood Sign. Many films and TV shows have shot
there. Most famously, one of the caves there is the mouth of the
Batcave in the 1960's Batman show.
When Sean is returned he appears to be clothed in a Visitor
Youth uniform.
When Donovan trades himself to the Visitors in exchange for his
son, he warns the resistance they better move their HQ again and
Tyler says he knows a place. It turns out to be an old jail or
prison building!
Steven knows that Tyler is known as the Fixer.
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When Robin's water breaks at 1:26:11 on the DVD, notice
that on the floor (and on her socks) the water is green! |
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When Martin opens the airshaft at 1:26:55 on the DVD, he shoves
Donovan through and then clambers in himself. But he doesn't
appear to close it behind him! Isn't that just advertising their
escape route?
I am noticing that throughout the series Frank Ashmore plays
Martin with a paranoid flair. Whenever he is acting in his Fifth
Column capacity he is looking always looking around him
suspiciously.
At 1:28:18 on the DVD there is a subtle shift of the scalpel
from Julie's left hand to her right. A nice, almost unnoticeable
touch by actress Faye Grant.
At 1:30:30 on the DVD, Father Andrew crosses himself when the
reptilian baby emerges.
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Of the twin babies, one appears to be human and the
other Visitor. But each has a small physical trait
carried from the other half of its dual-species
parentage. Obviously, the human girl has a forked,
snake-like tongue. And the reptilian boy has blue human
eyes with round pupils instead of the red, vertically-slitted ones we've
seen on the unmasked Visitors. |
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Notes from the V
mini series novelization by A.C. Crispin
(The page numbers come from the 1st printing,
paperback edition, published May 1984)
Pages 305-324 cover the
events of "Matters of Trust" |
Page 305 suggests that Donovan and Julie's reconnoiter of the
water pumping facility is 10 days after her rescue from the
Visitors.
Page 306 describes how Stanley and Lynn Bernstein reported to
the resistance that, in a drunken frenzy, Daniel bragged about
killing Ruby.
Page 306 says that the voice modulators obtained by Tyler to
mimic the resonating quality of Visitor voices were made by a
network engineer in Japan. And here in the novel they are described
as being worn on the chest, not the throat as in the
mini-series.
In a scene not in the mini-series, after getting pictures of the
water pumping plant, Donovan and Julie scout the surrounding
hills for avenues of escape in their upcoming raid to blow up
the facility.
Page 308 goes into some more detail about the conversion process
as experienced by Julie. She says drugs were used to put her
into a state like hypnosis. She says that everything
she's ever been afraid of, no matter how disgusting or private,
appeared in the induced nightmare fantasies.
Instead of taking place in a sleeping car of the train at the
resistance ranch HQ as it does in the mini-series, here in the
novel Donovan and Julie's love scene takes place in the tall
grass near the water pumping facility after their scouting
mission.
On page 310, waking up in the grass after lovemaking, Julie
finds that her bare bottom has become sunburned!
The novel devotes only one paragraph to the mission of blowing
up the pumping station!
Page 313 briefly describes Donovan and Julie spending an evening
watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes over a joint and a bottle
of Liebfraumilch (a German white wine).
Pages 314-316 contain a scene not in the mini-series. After the
Visitor announcement about Sean on TV, Donovan and the other
resistance members discuss their options. Donovan has met with Martin to
get the lowdown on what the Visitors want...namely Donovan.
Donovan considers taking some kind of poison before turning
himself over, one slow-acting enough that it will allow him to
surrender and be delivered to the mothership, but kill him
before they can administer truth serum or torture.
On page 316 the exchange of Donovan for his son takes place at
night on a cordoned off bridge on the L.A. freeway system. In
the mini-series the exchange takes place during the day at
Bronson Caves.
Page 317 describes Donovan's captivity after the exchange. He
was subjected to the most intensive and insensitive body search
he'd ever undergone, making "Cambodian prison guards seem like
paragons of delicacy and tact." He doesn't know how long he was
held, maybe a week or two, before the Fifth Columnist Oliver
offers him a death pill as the only escape he can offer.
On page 318, after Oliver introduces himself with the resistance
code phrase, Donovan asks him if the "head iguana" sent him. It
seems like using the term "iguana" would be kind of an insult to
use with a Visitor who was your ally! And just who is the head
iguana Donovan is referring to? Martin?
In the novel the capsule that Oliver offers Donovan is green. In
the mini-series it was yellowish.
Page 318 reveals that the middle-aged, black Visitor (whom we've
seen throughout the two mini-series) who shoots Oliver is called
Jake.
On page 319 it is revealed during the interrogation that
Donovan's full name is Michael Sean Donovan. Diana also
comments, "Such a lovely Irish name. Your mother told me about
your father, and how he named you." I wonder what that story is.
On page 320, after dragging the drugged Donovan into the air
shaft, Martin realizes Donovan is "rocked" from the drug. He
means "stoned", a slip-up in the English idiom not unlike the
kind that Willie often makes!
I've noticed that the novelization has added a character who did
not appear in the mini-series, Cal Robinson, a biochemist who
had some medical training. Throughout the novel Cal assists
Julie with the resistance's medical needs. He is the main person
in charge during both Robin's aborted abortion and the delivery
of her twins.
Here in the novelization, Robin is put under for her caesarian
section; in the episode she remains conscious, with Julie using
only a local anesthetic on her.
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