Last night's ep of V had an annoying bit in it. Chad Decker "violated his journalistic ethics" and gave an editorial! OMG! Zowie! That has never happened before in the history of journalism! Everyone knows journalists never do editorials!
That entire part of last night's ep was disgustingly simple-minded. Worse, it showed that the writers of the series don't understand how the news business works, and that they think the rest of us are too stupid to see the flaws in their writing.
It's hardly unprecedented for any reporter to give an editorial or commentary. It's done all the time; and the "journalistic ethics" (what an oxymoron that is) are satisfied as long as the piece is identified as an opinion piece, which Chad Decker's diatribe was: there was a title card overlaying him as he talked which said "Commentary by Chad Decker".
Chad Decker giving an empassioned plea for the Vs to stay was not a violation of whatever he has that pass for ethics.
Anna wants the name of the person who told Decker about the 5th column attack on the V shuttle. Decker has been refusing, citing "ethics"; but after he gave that commentary, she asked him for the name again, saying, "You've already violated your journalistic ethics once today."
*sigh*
The entire Chad Decker story arc is weak anyway, but making up a conflict which wouldn't actually happen is not going to fix it.
You know, and TV news journals don't work the way they do in V, either. The guy in front of the camera is reading from a script; most of the investigation and journalism are done by someone behind the camera: the producer. The woman who played Decker's producer was pretty and I would have liked to see more of her, but they've gone over to the televion fantasy version of the TV journalist and she hasn't shown up since the second episode. The point is, Decker doing his own legwork wouldn't happen; not when he's on a national news show, it wouldn't. Guys at that level are too busy with a myriad of other things to have time for the grunt work.
I think V suffers from having too many story arcs. It doesn't have time for all of them; so they end up simplistic and unsatisfying. The writers are trying to cram too much into too little time, and it shows; the final product is weak.
The V franchise isn't science fiction, and never was. The original miniseries had its own stupidity, but at least the prior iteration didn't include such egregiously stupid writing mistakes.
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Apparently on June 6th Gilette is going to announce something big and new which will revolutionize shaving.
...hand of sarcasm...
I'm betting it's a six-bladed razor. Why else June 6? And how many freakin' blades does a razor need anyway? Five is dumb enough. I use a three-bladed razor and wonder if I couldn't get by with a double.
But Steven Den Beste will have to update his "five-bladed razor" aphorism....