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V for very tempting

The remake of V indicates it is no longer the campy, 80s schlocker but something morphed from the Disaster genre.

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elizabeth-mitchellIt’s a bit War of the Worlds, Independence Day, maybe even The 4400.

V is a remake of the campy alien schlocker from the 80s and the trailer for the new ABC series. Now it looks like something from the Disaster genre.

The trailer looks pretty darn tempting, with a cast including Eliabeth Mitchell (Lost‘s Juliet). Party of Five‘s Scott Wolf also appears, all grown up.

Of course sci-fi remakes, reimaginings and revisits rarely have any long term success. Dr Who, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica are three of those that sit at the top of the heap.

V premieres in the US in the Fall season.

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  1. Channel 9 has the rights to V according to the paper. I will be watching, look forward to it and hope it is better than the 80’s version.

    However, if 9 take it off after a few weeks rather than letting it grow its audience, I will be downloading it, unless they pass it to Foxtel within suitable time frame. (I currently do not download TV).

    According to 111 Hits, they only have rights to ER up to end of S13 – that’s all that’s been shown on 9. If 9 are not going to show it why can’t they allow 111 to show season 14 and 15? S13 starts on 111 this week and was seen on 9 in January this year.

  2. Wow! That trailer looks pretty impressive. I’ve never heard of the original series, but I’ll give this one a go.

    Plus, “Eliabeth Mitchell (Lost’s Juliet)” has be Sold! 🙂

    “Scott Wolf also appears, all grown up” except he looks exactly the same!

    “in the Fall season” C’mon David, it’s Autumn! 😉

  3. Heroes seemed a good premise at the start, and had a great first series, but look what happened to that! Will watch this and hope for the best.

  4. Along with it starring Joel Gretsch, this is also produced by The 4400’s co-creator Scott Peters, and from these trailers, it looks very promising. As for the camp issue, the first miniseries (the only one creator Kenneth Johnson was wholly involved with) was pretty low on camp, though there were certaintly occasional hokey bits (like the awful acting from the guerillas in the opening scene), but it was overall smart and compelling. V: The Final Battle (which Johnson quit in preproduction over budget issues) simplified the characters more into black and white figures, but was still enjoyable, despite a ludicrous deus-ex-machina ending.

    As for the short-lived weekly series… That’s pretty much camp all the way, especially regarding a laughable arc involving a love triangle between Visitors Diana, Charles and Lydia (and there’s even a “royal wedding” between Charles and Diana!). Also, the budget was gutted compared to the 2 miniseries, meaning virtually all the FX were simply re-used from the minis (ala Galactica 1980, or the last season of Airwolf), and the use of the WB backlot became increasingly obvious.

    On the plus side, the series took to running plot lines with a vigor not seen in most sci-fi shows of the time, and the mid-season clean out of the cast was quite well done. On the other hand, continuity was generally terrible. In the miniseries, the Visitors had eerie distorted voices (thus making it harder for them to assimilate into the human populace). In the series, the voices are totally gone and forgotten, never to be mentioned again…Anyway, I’ve got high hopes for this version, and just hope it doesn’t get cancelled on a cliffhanger, like the original did!

  5. Just looks bland to me, I’m afraid. A bit too generic. Although surprisingly similar to the original, seems to be an identical script, just with some of the genders swapped (looks like the psuedo-lesbian flirtation between Diana and the tv presenter has gone, as he’s now a bloke).

    Gratuitous plug: we talked to Jane Badler (hamster-eating Diana) on Boxcutters a while back, it’s a corker, have a listen.

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