Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)
It’s no Battlestar Galactica. Unlike the landmark SyFy series, V doesn’t completely reinvent and subvert its source material.
Then again, V’s source material — a 1980s mini-series and later a series — isn’t nearly as hackneyed as the original Battlestar Galactica.
Instead, the latest V is more of an “updating” of the original, telling the same general story, but with much better production values and special effects, and a snappier pace.
If you’re not familiar with the original V: friendly aliens called the “visitors” come to Earth, promising advanced technology in exchange for minerals to help their ailing world. But are they really as benevolent as they claim?
I flat-out loved the pilot for this latest series, which was my favorite pilot of the fall season. It’s bold, broad, action-based sci-fi. It also has plenty of nice homages to the original series, and yet the look and feel of it stands completely on its own.
For the record, it gets to the point faster than the original, since it assumes, probably correctly, that most viewers will be familiar with the story and will, therefore, already know what’s really going on.
Best of all, Morena Baccarin (Inara from Firefly) is absolutely sensational as Anna, the leader of the aliens (which is saying something, since the actress who played a similar part of “Diana” in the original series was also very memorable).
Baccarin plays the role with a demeanor that is at first disarming, but then grows increasingly creepy as questions set in.
That said, I’m not completely sure how much credit the producers of this show deserve given that they were handed a complete, tested storyline from the original V, and the pilot is just setting up that premise.
It’s true: they absolutely could have dumbed it down or screwed it up — God knows, it wouldn’t be the first remake to do so.
But it seems to me that it remains to be seen whether they can turn the terrific premise — set up so effectively here — into a full-fledged series. We already know that ABC was unhappy with the direction the show was going and shut down production for several months, replacing key creative personnel. They’re airing the first four episodes this month, but then shelving the rest of the retooled season until next March.
And I must confess: I thought Flash Forward had a terrific pilot too, and yet I’m already growing somewhat bored with the show itself.
Still, given how much I liked the first episode of V, I’ll definitely be giving it a chance.
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Brent wrote:
“If you’re not familiar with the original V: friendly aliens called the “visitors” come to Earth, promising advanced technology in exchange for minerals to help their ailing world. But are they really as benevolent as they claim?”
But that’s not correct - in the original V the Visitors came for our water, not our minerals.
And the actress who played the part of Diana in the original V was Jane Badler, and yes, she was very good!
Robert, the “visitors” do come for the water - they make this clear in the remake fairly early on…I’m sure Brent knows this and was just using “minerals” as a blanket term for certain resources, i.e. water (which contains plenty of minerals in and of itself).
V for Victory was a popular U.S. catchphrase during World War II. When it comes to the new remake of the highly popular 1980s sci-fi mini-series, V is for Vacuous.
Many reviews of the pilot episode of “V” have been positive. Not so in this instance.
The above is the opening two paragraphs in my short review of “V.” Agree with it or not, I invite you to visit the following website and read it in full: http://rbergerspov.blogspot.com/
Thank you!
= Richard Berger =
Columnist, author and editor