I just watched "Betrayal" and do not understand why Ham and Robin decide to leave LA. Was there something going on between Ham and Robin? What led up to this decision in previous episodes? Why would Robin just up and leave her daughter? I missed some of the middle episodes so if anyone could help explain this to me I'd really appreciate it.
shareIt was just a lame plot shift to cover the departure of the actors from the series. It didn't really make sense but they kind of-sort-of set up for Robin having to leave because of her involvement with that latest Visitor. The tv series was a lot weaker than the original 2 miniseries. All I know is that after Betrayal, the series just slid downhill and became more of an alien soap opera than an adventure series. If they'd stuck with the whole resistance thing and laid back on the Science Frontiers/power struggles on the Mother Ship stuff it might have come out a whole lot better. And yeah, I'm saying all this from the perspective of having watched V when it was first on TV at the time.
Oh, and maybe you missed the episodes where Robin and Elizabeth were after the same guy, and he ended up with Elizabeth. That would explain needing a little "apart time", as well.
yes, robin fell in love with kyle only to find out that he was actually in love with her daughter elizabeth.
later she meets a guy called john langley who joins up with the resistance briefly but he's actually really a visitor whose "mission" is to impregnate robin.
with all that's happened to her (& to fair, she has been through a lot) she felt she had to get away to lead some kind of normal life. ham was simply accompanying her.
however as a result of this, ham was also written out of the series.
Thanks flh462002 and nass_k. That explains a lot. And yes I did miss the episode where Robin and Elizabeth were fighting over the same guy. It's a shame Ham had to leave the series as he was one of the characters I really liked.
shareham was one of the best characters in the series!
shareHam after wasting a few lizards: "Now that's a waste of good luggage". :P
The real reason is by half way through the season they were trying to cut costs in the hope of getting a second season, because the show wasn't cheap to make (though considerably cheaper than the miniseries had been), had a big cast list, and the ratings had been steadily dropping. So they wrote Ironside (Ham Tyler) and Blair Tefkin (Robin Maxwell) off the show, but didn't want to kill them because they feared fan backlash. Plus they could always bring them back if the show got picked up and started rating better. The budget situation also led to killing off or hardly using many other recurring characters, but despite some empty promises by the powers that be, none of it saved the show, and it turned into yet another one season wonder, and sadly ended on a cliffhanger to boot.
shareI read a recent interview with Michael Ironside where he said that he'd asked to leave 'V' to work on film projects like 'Top Gun', and that the producers had even allowed him to pick where his character was heading off to.
He said he loved the character of Ham Tyler, but working on a weekly TV series was getting to be a bit routine.
Presumbly the plan was to bring him back for the second season, as Tyler is featured in the infilmed script for Episode 20; whether he would have, we'll never know.
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by - Adec on Wed Nov 11 2009 03:58:38
So they wrote Ironside (Ham Tyler) and Blair Tefkin (Robin Maxwell) off the show, but didn't want to kill them because they feared fan backlash. Plus they could always bring them back if the show got picked up and started rating better.
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Hmm...So they were worried about the Fan backlash if they had killed Robin and Tyler. which no doubt there would've been. But they weren't concerned about the Fanback lash they would have when they Vaporized the "Blessed Heart and Soul of the Los Angeles Resistance" Julie! Bad enough they were going to Vaporize her but then Nobody showed any grief for her other then Willy. Not even Donovan and he Loved Her!! Oh Boy!! Don't get me started!!
If you ever visited the "Visitors.Info" website in the past you know How I feel about this. (Sigh) I miss "Visitors.Info"
LongLiveV
I was just wondering if there was anywhere we could find the script of the unaired episode where Julie was killed?
shareAnother quote of his I remember is "Faith is for nuns and amateurs."
"I'm dazed and confused and clueless too." -Me
How Robin was treated was just stupid.
She would know that Visitors are cold to the touch, so when touching the new Visitor she should have known.
And with Visitor occupation, what would lead to a normal life? She'd always be hunted after because of how magical her babies would be.
Also, everyone thinking only Robin can pop out magic wands from any Visitor that puts the bun in the oven is obtuse. Why not any human with any visitor? What was special about Brian? None of this is considered. The writing was sloppy. And on the wall, in terms of the direction the show was heading.
Elizabeth too was poorly handled, having any convenient power thrown her way when any old script needed it. That was bad enough in TFB but the 84-5 show only makes it worse. And what happened to her tongue? (okay, metamorphosis, but in reality an actor with a tongue implant that big wouldn't be able to say much, at least on scenes when it would have to be stuck out to spit venom, just like how Diana forgot to when Donovan pinned her to the ground and forgetting the Visitors can still spit while pinned... )
Up until Charles' introduction, the show was doing rather well plot-wise. Even better than "The Final Battle" as the storylines were actually coherent and didn't have enough holes for a mothership to fly through...
Charles comes in, with his hair and ropey outfit, and we all know it's becoming a soap opera, right along with Kyle+Elizabeth too. Ugh.
Mind you, how far can a constant game of "cat & mouse" go on? The season's best episodes (e.g. capturing Donovan and introducing the holodeck) were done too early and they ran out of ideas...
A shame; the re-introduction worked rather well. Except the lack of vocal inflection of the visitors...
Mind you, how far can a constant game of "cat & mouse" go on? The season's best episodes (e.g. capturing Donovan and introducing the holodeck) were done too early and they ran out of ideas...
I missed Robin when she left the show. Robin was a character from the very beginning of the miniseries and she was my favorite.
shareI didn't mind Robin until the weekly series began...but by the time that show was halfway through I think the only characters that didn't annoy me were Ham and Diana.
Well, Robin did go through this whole thing where this alien guy similar to Brian was told to get her pregnant by Diana. This time Robin realized he was an alien and fought back. I have the feeling that the actors didn't want to do the series anymore.
shareWell there wasn't anything going on between the two... But Robin got a little freaked out that her second boyfriend was another Visitor... Brian being the first... and I don't really blame her. So she wanted to leave L.A. and go back to Chicago, for a break, but she needed a bodygaurd, being the mother of the Starchild has to be dangerous... so she took Ham and Chris with her. Michael Ironside was already wanting to leave the series (for a little bit) to do other things... So I am guessing they choose Ham and Chris, for that reason, and the fact that the only other character that could have acted like a bodygaurd would have been Mike, and you can't get rid of his character.
Ham, Chris, and Robin were all "supposed to" come back in the episode that they didn't get to film.
Village idiots are fun. no wonder every village wants one:Greg House
I like the first half of V the series but it started to recycle effects and turned into a soap opera. I think the actors were getting out of the series because it was starting to decline.
Didn't Ham leave after he was programmed by The Visitors to kill Donovan? I know they used the brain-washing machine to make Ham think Donovan wanted his wife and daughter (who died in Vietnam). As for the series ending on a cliffhanger, buy the post-show comics. It wraps everything up there. I bought the whole series on eBay.
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We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
"As for the series ending on a cliffhanger, buy the post-show comics. It wraps everything up there."
If you're talking about the 18 issues of "V" from DC Comics, these comics do not wrap up anything. Issue #16 ends with the first few minutes of the final episode of the regular series, with the mother ship calling for a ceasefire.
Issues #17 and #18 feature a flashback story about Elias Taylor.