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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 40 |
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THE RESURRECTION OF 'V'  |
ABC remakes an NBC series
and may have a winner
of TheColumnists.com
Riding the wave started a few seasons ago by its "Lost" and the cable TV remake of its own ancient sci-fi series "Battlestar Galactica," ABC has taken the bold step of remaking somebody else's sci-fi series from a quarter century ago--NBC's "V."
If last week's opening episode is any indication, it was a very smart idea. The new "V," which will roll with its first four episodes this month, then go on a leave of absence until after the Winter Olympic Games, is a brilliantly-executed resurrection of what was a pretty imaginative TV series from the 1980s that just didn't get a big enough boost from its own network at the time. The new "V" began with the most-watched premiere episode of any new series this season.
Today's viewing audience is much more tuned to science-fiction and ABC. which is having a pretty good TV year so far, is coming off a pretty good run with "Lost," which ends this season, and the new series "Flash Forward" which has earned good reviews and pretty strong ratings.
And the remake of "V" has a strong executive team, starting with Kenneth Johnson, the writer-producer who created the original, and Scott Peters, who was the executive producer of "The 4400," one of the best sci-fi shows of the past 10 years. They are re-imagining the original series, hopefully the way the new producers re-shaped "Battlestar Galactica," turning it into one of the most respected sci-fi series since the original "Star Trek."
The storyline is deceptively simple: A squadron of giant spaceships arrives in Earth orbit, each of them hovering over a major population center. The people aboard look just like us, only better, and they say they've come in peace, hoping to trade their vastly superior technological knowledge for some basic elements abundant on our planet, but sorely missing on their home world.
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Above, left, Jane Badler as The Vistor "Diana" in the original NBC "V." Above, right,
is Morena Baccarin, who plays The Visitor "Anna" in the new ABC "V" series.
From the start, though, there are suspicions that "The Visitors," as they term themselves, are really sinister creatures bent on swallowing up our world and all its inhabitants under cover of a grand public relations campaign designed to make all Earthlings love them.
The original "V" was a popular miniseries in 1983, which was followed by a second miniseries--"V-The Final Battle," also in 1983, and then a short-lived weekly series that ran out of gas pretty quickly. Basically, though, it became a series about Earthlings fighting a guerilla war against a superior race and almost overwhelming odds. The new version has the same basic slant, but the characters are all new, along with the actors playing them.
The most vivid character in the original "V" was the alien Diana, played by Jane Badler. She was the chief spokesperson for The Visitors, a stunning and sexy woman many human men longed for until the Visitor worm began to turn. The original miniseries' most dramatic moment came when a human eavesdropper managed to see the beautiful Diana take a lab rodent and swallow it whole, the large lump bulging along its route down her throat.
As Earthlings eventually learned, The Visitors were really reptilian people wearing human flesh disguises.
(I'll never forget my luncheon interview with actress Badler at the height of the "V" craze. When the waiter came for our order, I seized the opportunity to tell him Miss Badler didn't see anything on the menu she liked, but wondered if they had any loose rats running in the kitchen that she might swallow raw. Badler didn't find the moment quite as amusing as I did, as I recall, perhaps because the waiter had no idea who she was and what she ate on TV.)
The original "V" helped propel the career of the male lead, Marc Singer, who went on to the "Beastmaster" movies and TV series. At last check, he was still doing muscle roles in fantasy projects, though he's no youngster these days. Badler didn't fare as well, doing a couple of other TV series, then re-establishing herself in Australia after going there to work in the short-lived remake of the "Mission Impossile" TV series. She married an Australian and now, at age 55, has become a popular cabaret singer Down Under.
By far the biggest star to emerge from the original "V" was Robert Englund, who played the "friendly" alien called Willy. Englund made his fame not with that small supporting role, but by playing a much more malignant character in the movies--scar-faced Freddy Krueger in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies. (Englund finally has been replaced as Freddy, though. The new Freddy, who appears in the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" next year, is Jackie Earle Haley.)
The breakout star of the new "V" is very likely to be the tall, slim, ultra-cool beauty Morena Baccarin, who plays the modern counterpart to Badler's Diana, the alien spokesperson called "Anna." I'm not counting the days until she swallows some rodent. I don't need to watch a beautiful woman eat vermin.
Anna has turned on the charm to win over news anchor Chad Decker (Scott Wolf), who seemed quite troubled in Episode One to learn he was her chosen mouthpiece on Earth and would have to compromise all his journalistic values in order to maintain that favored role. Decker may eventually become a freedom-fighter, but he seems mostly a weasel in the first chapter. Wolf, who once played Bailey Salinger in the popular Fox network teen series "Party of Five" in the 1990s.
More likely to hold my interest is Erica Evans, an FBI agent who's drawn into the human underground in chapter one and seems more heroic in nature than the TV newsman. She's played by Elizabeth Mitchell from "Lost."
If the writers can build strong storylines about the valiant Earthlings who organize the opposition to the takeover by The Visitors, this could be a riveting series with many cliffhanger moments. Most of the new characters seem to have potential and the acting is uniformly good. I also hope they can avoid following the general plotline of the original "V" projects. I watched an awful lot of those 1980s episodes and wouldn't like to have a permanent deja vu feeling while watching the new show.
For right now, though, I welcome the new "V," which seems intent on bringing us science fiction with an adult sensibility, something we surely can use while so many other networks seem bent on forcing us all to watch "reality" television, the curse of the 21st century boob tube.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The top illustration and the photo of Morena Baccarin are courtesy of ABC. The photo of Jane Badler is courtesy of Warner Bros. and the NBC network. This column first posted Nov. 9, 2009.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He most recently
was the television columnist for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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