V: They’re Visitors and they hate you!

So last night was the big debut of ABC’s V, which is a “reimagining” or quite possibly a remake of the old miniseries V. Which was awesome to my 12 year old brain. Syfy has been re-airing the original a lot and I’ve been nervous to revisit it because I don’t want that awsomeness to be soured.

But this isn’t about the old one. This is about the new one...



From what I remember about the old one (aliens come, at first they’re friendly but then we learn they’re really not and that they’re lizards who want to eat our varmin and steal stuff from us, only there’s like 6-10 people who hate them and fight them) was pretty much laid out in the first episode last night.

Seriously, don’t we maybe want to build some suspense?

Now, I know this generation of MTV/Aronfonsky style editing kids want their everything fast and don’t hang around if there’s a hint of development, but c’mon. Are you telling me the writers couldn’t stretch some of the story arcs out?

Last night, in the first episode we got:

• Alien contact
• Human defection (FBI woman’s kid)
• Alien defection (Morris Chestnut)
• Alien infiltration into human society (FBI woman’s partner)
• Alien conspiracy
• Alien lizard skin
• Resistance movement started

That all took an hour. We couldn’t keep a few of these things behind the curtain? I understand that the original source material exists, and fans of that pretty much know what’s coming. But that aired 25 years ago. I’m fairly certain there will be one or two people checking out the show that have no idea what is supposed to happen?

Aside from that here are a few of things I liked/disliked…


Liked

• Juliet (I have no idea what her name is on Lost
• The idea that the resistance is born from a Terrorism cell
• Alien leader
• The manipulation of the press, and the ambiguity of Scott Wolf’s character to this point. He’s the one character so far we’re not sure which side he will fall. If I had to guess, he’ll be pro Visitors for awhile, and then help the resistance down the road
• The potential of the religious debate the concept of aliens creates. Though I wonder if that gets dropped next week since now we have the priest going all rogue
• The idea that aliens have been among us for a long time. Though it’s basically an idea ripped off from They Live.

Disliked

• How quickly the FBI agent and priest come to grips with the idea of having to “fight.”
• The FBI agent’s son. And his friend. I get it. There’s tension. Enough tension to drive him to aliens though? That’s a messed up family.
• Morris Chestnut’s fiancé. Sorry, I hated her character in Six Feet Under. It carries over.
• The idea that aliens come and within 3 weeks we, as a race are pretty ok with it. Really?
• The stupid “health care line.”

I want to like this series a lot, and it had enough last night for me to stick with it. I just don’t want it to move so quickly that logic takes a back seat to silly action. There’s really no reason to do that. The concept of aliens is a powerful enough plot device that I think can carry a show for awhile. It doesn’t need to keep forcing stuff in to keep our interest. Hopefully, that’s just a first show mistake, and it slows down in the coming weeks.