★★★★★ 0/5

V

ABC's CGI remake of the 1983 sci fi miniseries is just about as broad as it gets, but ticks a lot of boxes.

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The Visitors have arrived. Again.

They are here to share their technology with Earth. And they offer universal health care. Not even President Obama has managed to pull that one off.

Most of the best science fiction tales serve as allegories for social or political truths. In 1983’s original V miniseries many observers noted the thematic similarities with the rise of the Nazi movement. Glamorous aliens wooed a race, shielding their sinister motives. It was a series that has become renowned for its thrilling plot and camp style. But it wasn’t camp at the time, only attracting such status in retro-hindsight.

In ABC’s CGI remake the use of metaphors remains, but they have shifted. Now it’s message is one of anti-terrorism. Fittingly, the first spaceship arrives high above New York City not long after an opening title asks if we all remember where we were on 9/11…

V propels straight into the action. It opens Irwin Allen-like with multiple characters going about ordinary business in the middle of an ordinary day. Suddenly water in a glass trembles like a scene from Jurassic Park. There are aerial shots of huge shadows darkening a city -straight out of Independence Day. While they could well be homages, the opening shots feel more like genre hallmarks designed to put a broad audience on the same page. It is effective if simple.

Representing the humans’ frontline are FBI counter-terrorism agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) who is also mom to teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman), plus TV news anchor Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) and Catholic Priest Father Jack Landry (Joel Grestch). They cleverly tick all the boxes of law, media, religion, youth and family.

What happens in New York has been replicated in 29 cities, and while the Visitors are ready to address the United Nations, it is Decker who lands a career-making interview with their High Commander, the drop-dead gorgeous Anna (Morena Baccarin). In return for water, the supposedly-peaceful aliens will share their knowledge to cure the incurable. But Decker becomes suspicious of Anna’s request to avoid questions which would portray them in a bad light.

Meanwhile an underground, rag-tag movement of non-believers are convinced the arrival is merely the open declaration of what has been suspected all along: that there are sleeper cells of aliens amongst us all over the world.

This treatment is just about as broad as it gets. It is a shiny, handsome production with heart-on-sleeve emotions from its aesthetic actors (Scott Wolf even asks the High Commander if all the Visitors are as perfect as she is… it’s a bit ironic, really). While it isn’t trying to be intellectual it is trying to be wholly entertaining, and on that score it hits its mark. Ambitious sci-fi shows like FlashForward promise much but don’t always sustain the ride. If we get to those scenes with rodent-eating aliens that infested the original series, this should prove satisfying.

Check your brain at the door (lest it be eaten) and break out the popcorn.

V premieres 8:30pm Sunday on Nine.

28 Responses

  1. Why do the free to air channels continue to think shows like this will work in this time slot? Channel 9 especially. It’s the same story as with Roswell, Fringe, Terminator and others. They heavily promote it with the expectation of big ratings when its quiet clear in the long run it will not have enough viewers after 3 or 4 episodes. It will then disappear to a later time slot or GO.

    And yes there are no shots of Sydney in the first 4 episodes so don’t expect any.

  2. hopefully v will be entertaining ,a breif look on the net for alien will give you plenty of fodder for a few si fi movies with all the conspirices about the place like area 51,the dulce project,and the sgt jonathan p louotte death,if you only beleve .1 % of this there allready here !!!!

  3. @ Craig
    For the moment, Parenthood beat The Good Wife, but then again it was a premiere, and it got huge promos from Olympics, but I think that it won’t be as good as it could be at say 8pm. Something like Wednesday 8pm, in an uncompetitive timeslot, it’s better than having a hospital drama with blood and guts flying about at 8/7c to traumatize our kids.. LOL

    For those who are wondering what to watch on Sunday night now,
    Watch V live, tape Good Wife, and just don’t watch Bones, it’s a procedural, hell it’s half a rip-off of X-Files. if you don’t like V, your #1 priority should be Good Wife.

  5. @aznfratboy – with that 10pm thing I hope that’s not the case with Parenthood, which goes to air in a little over 24 hours in the US. I’ve watch a heap of promos and read spoilers and reviews and it’s a show I think can and will work if all the critics are any guide. Although it’s up against TGW which could be a problem.

  6. this show is taking top sunday priority for me, bones is bumped to my second machine and the good wife is out, so I hope it stays on.

    mom? why did you use the american spelling david?

  8. I predict a 1.4m debut, even up against Bones and Good Wife, both of whcih are successful.

    @ Trent are you kidding me?! 8pm shows aren’t successful?
    V got the most competitive timeslot
    CBS – NCIS (top scripted show)
    Fox – Dance (2nd best reality show for fox)
    NBC – Biggest Loser (their biggest show)
    CW – 90210 (Dawn Ostroff’s favourite show)

    The 8pm Tuesday timeslot is the most competitive timeslot, the only othermore compettiive timeslot would be 9pm Thursday.

    In fact, there hasn’t been a 10pm show to debut recently in the US that has had any longetivity, the only ones that come to mind are – Brothers and Sisters (huge lead-in from Desperate Housewives), Castle (huge lead-in, Dancing), Good Wife (fairly big lead-in NCIS LA, plus no competition).

    It’s been a while since a show debuted at 10pm that wasn’t lead-in dependent.

  9. I don’t think V will drop that much when it returns in the US. If anyone looks at the ABC television schedule, you will notice that V’s first four episodes were shown at 8:00-9:00, which nowadays is not a very successful timeslot. Most things are usually successful in the 10:00 timeslot, which is where ABC have slotted V when it returns. Most of the shows in this timeslot get at least ten million viewers which would be good enough for ABC to renew the show for a new season.

  10. @Eyce – I’m in QLD and we got the Sydney ones.. still total crap!

    People with tune in with the expectation of seeing them in a local setting and get New York and other international settings. Correct me if I’m wrong but I can’t remember seeing a single Australia sight in the first 4 eps?

    It reminds me of the History Channel special Life After People (which is now a series and not on FTA) Seven added in some local scenes after butchering the show down to just 65 min from the original 90 (after ads) and changing the voice over. I just hope in this case they are just promos and they have not added scenes in the eps for local flavorer.

  11. @Craig: You’d find that Channel 9 probably put the ships over each Australian city for each market. Down here in Victoria we had the ship flying over Melbourne by Crown Casino iirc.

  12. i am surprised at how much promotion 9 has given this and how much they seem to be relying on it to perform. in america it had a good premier but by episode 4 it was getting borderline axeworthy numbers, rating worse than flashforward was at episode 4. FF now is highly likely to be axed and V was dropping very fast. just this morning i saw an ad on a tram and a big bilboard for it.

    risky or just stupidity?

  15. David, while the original miniseries isn’t especially campy, the weekly series it spawned is a total laugh-riot of camp, espeically the ludicrous wedding of Visitors Charles and Diana (geddit). The series, which like V: The Final Battle wasn’t overseen by Kenneth Johnson, is an absolute fiasco of cheapness (all the FX shots are simply reused from the miniseries), terrible writing (and awful continuty) and silliness. And to top it all off, it got axed on a cliffhanger. This new version simply has to be better than that.

  21. Thankfully i already saw the first 4 eps, cause ill be going to the US for a month tomorrow morning, i wouldnt have minded watching them again, but oh well, ch9s loss. Although Sunday night is a dead night for me anyway, which has seen me miss TAYG twice in a row 🙁

  23. The thing that annoys me is you look at the Nine promos and expect to see CGI of the ships over Sydney… sorry to spoil but that doesn’t happen guys!

    I hope it works but I predict it will be moved to GO! before the first 4 eps are done.

  24. I absolutely hated the first two episodes of the initial batch of four – cheesy, derivative, and clumsy. But they do ramp things up a bit after that. Remains to be seen if it’s got creative life in it, but hey, it’s a hundred times better than the dreaful FlashForward. Then again, “The White Room” was a hundred times better than FlashForward 😉

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