Full disclosure: I am a big fan of the original V Miniseries. In fact, I consider it to be one of the best, most underrated shows in television history. It was science fiction … but more than that, it was a story about something important. And while the show had some hokey visual effects and campy moments, it was undoubtedly an example of legitimate drama. A remake would, without question, improve on the visuals. But would it contain (or even approach) the same level of storytelling as the original incarnation? I mean, it’s easy enough to update the visuals. But could it update the story as well? Could it create a tale that was just as fresh and shiny as the look of the show? If the first episode is an indication, the answer is … not quite. But, to be fair, there’s some promise in this new version of V. It took about forty minutes but, finally, the pilot got around to being about something. And that’s when it, at least for a few minutes, became a story worth paying attention to.

The opening sequences – detailing the arrival of the visitors – really were amateurish in their presentation. Oh, sure, there was a sheen to the ships and the cinematography. And the actors all looked like perfect specimens of humanity (whether they were playing actual humans or not). But the arrival of the Visitors seemed, at best, perfunctory. Worse still, it was preceded by the worst sort of pandering imaginable. The original miniseries began with a dedication to “Resistance fighters.” This incarnation did little more than use 9/11 and the assassination of JFK – pulling at the heartstrings of real tragedies – as an emotional “hook” into the story. It was clumsy, awkward and, truth-be-told, in very poor taste.

Following this, the episode tried to depict the Arrival as something out of a B-horror film – complete with a cheap Jurassic Park ripoff of shaking water glasses. But no one ever asks why it would be that there are just a couple of tremors before the alien ships were sighted … but absolutely none as they made their final descent above the cities of earth. It’s this kind of clumsy schlock writing that plagued the first two-thirds of the episode. Characters were poorly presented (complete with the cliché angsty teen). There was no real attempt at creating a context for this story. And the episode seemed content to emphasize style over any possible substance.

V finally starts to show some promise with the character of Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch). He is the first one to really put thought – philosophical and pragmatic thought – into the arrival of the Visitors. His questions, about whether or not people ought to accept the overtures of the Visitors at face value, echo a fundamental Christian idea – the very concepts behind the Book of Revelations. More universally, his words give voice to the notion that people are often very eager to put their personal benefits ahead of the common good and accept any gifts without considering the source, or possible consequences attached to the overtures. And this concept finds its symbolic representation in the character of Chad Decker (Scott Wolf).

Decker is a news reporter. And through a series of fortunate events, he’s given the opportunity to interview the leader of the Visitors, Anna (Morena Baccarin). Her demand, that Decker not ask any compromising questions, is an explicit demonstration of the ethical and moral realities the Visitors pose to humanity: Does one choose personal advancement over the Truth? Decker chooses personal advancement … but it’s obvious that he isn’t happy or comfortable about his choice. And the result is a fascinating potential tipping point for the series: If (or when) will Decker make the *right* choice and expose the Visitors for who they really are?

And that missing point about Resistance Fighters? It does find its way into the story in the final scenes. FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) infiltrates a secret meeting, only to learn that it’s a nascent resistance cell, dedicated to the opposition of the Visitors who, it is revealed, have been among us for some time, sowing the seeds of discord on our planet (hey, maybe they really are the reason why unemployment is tickling 10% in the U.S. and the global economy is in the tank – and not, simply, the bad decisions of humans who put their own interests ahead of the common good).

It’s this development, that Visitors look like humans and are among us already, that is an ominous and intriguing development – even if it is suspiciously similar to the Cylons in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. On a final note, V’s obvious attempt to co-opt terrorism (as in actually labeling disguised Visitors as terrorist cells) could prove to be troublesome if it doesn’t stick to universal themes and, instead, simply tries to “wow” the audience with transparent attempts to be contemporary with pointless allusions to real-world events. As it is, though, there’s an interesting dichotomy in V’s presentation of hidden, secret cells. There are the Visitors seeking to subvert humanity and there are the humans who are seeking to subvert the Visitors. I’ll be interested to see how the show chooses to portray these elements in the future.

As far as comparisons to the old V go … there are some similarities. There is the troubled- youth-who-turns-to-the-Visitors-for-acceptance character in Tyler Evans (Logan Huffman). You even have the secret Visitor-with-human-sympathies character in Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut). Decker himself seems to be a combination of the old Mike Donovan resistance fighter and Kristine Walsh sympathizer characters. But outside of this episode’s attempts to provide a minor commentary on greed vs. the common good, there’s little to compare this incarnation to the storytelling acumen of the original. At best, we get the closing line from Erica who said, “They are arming themselves with the most powerful weapon out there: devotion.” It’s a good thought, but unless it finds some significant development, it won’t be worth a whole heckuva lot.

But if V eventually becomes a kind of allegory for how our world is gravitating toward fundamentalism, extremism, and blind devotion, then it could become a worthwhile story. But for that to happen, it will have to avoid the emphasis of style-over-substance that plagued the majority of the premiere.

Overall Grade: C+

On the whole, the pilot episode of V was good … but not quite a classic. There’s some potential here for a series that can explore human nature.  But for now, the pilot was, at best, just slightly above average.

Topics: Sci-Fi, TV Reviews
Filed under: V The Series

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