So remember back in the ’80s there was this wicked mini-series about aliens called V?  Yeah, it was awesome.  I rewatched it a few years ago and it totally held up, as long as you watched it through an ’80s filter.  But the remake pretty much sucks, which is really disappointing because there is so much potential in the concept of alien invasion.  I guess sometimes no matter how much you love the original you shouldn’t wish for more of a good thing because it simply turns into a bad thing.  The BSG remake was rocktastic but clearly it is the exception to the rule of most remakes being shite.

The new V could not be more dull or pointless.  And it’s almost like they were overcompensating for the slowness of the original (everything in the ’80s was slow paced, that’s just how they rolled back then) by making it so fast paced that I almost got whip-lash watching it.  They’ve already given away the entire story and there’s only been one episode!  We already know the aliens are up to no good and it was pretty much flashed in our faces with neon signs as though we are all afflicted with ADD and ignorance.

A good portion of the audience will be familiar with the original so I guess they figured they could give everything away in the first 10 seconds but what about new viewers?  The lizard reveal was so underdone that I was incredulous.  I mean really?  In the original it was so shocking and dramatic when we find out what the Vs really look like but in the remake it’s almost an afterthought.  Oh yeah, they’re reptiles, wanna join the resistance?  WHAT?  Who wrote this shit?  Seriously, this is basic screenwriting no-no stuff.  Ever heard of “show, don’t tell”?  Apparently the hacks who wrote this dreck haven’t.  We are literally told by a nameless character that the Vs are bad, yo and they want to kill us, yo, and they’re reptiles, yo so go to this resistance meeting, yo.  Ummm…. you could have written an entire season about the characters figuring that shit out for themselves.  Why it is simply thrown in our faces so carelessly?  It was so bad that I almost wondered if it would be a double reveal of the Vs having another layer of skin under the lizard skin, but no, let’s not give any credit to the creators of this shit. 

I guess the point of the show will be the resistance, which you know what, kinda sucks because it’s just going to become an action series with random explosions and shit.  Where is the social commentary?  Where is the sci-fi?  They’re just trying to distract us with pretty spaceships and pretty Morena Baccarin.  I guess that’s the one amusingly ironic part of the show.  One character is smitten with the Vs ’cause they’re hot and so he joins them.  I guess they hope that we as viewers will do the same thing.  Look, it’s shiny, let’s watch it!  The executives at ABC must be rolling around in their piles of money laughing their asses off because they got me to tune in to a steaming pile of dog poo and they will continue to laugh and smoke their cigars because they know I’ll watch the next episode in the vain hope that it will improve.  UGH!   Why must I be so addicted to sci-fi?

Also?  The characters suck.  There is the aforementioned horndog who joins the Vs ’cause he wants to get laid by Supergirl and there is the newscaster who is so shitty at newscasting that it almost makes me long for his whiny alcoholic character on Party of Fluff.  There is the FBI agent who’s also a single mom, which is TV shorthand for multidimentionality.  Look, she works AND is a mom, therefore we don’t have to make her compelling in any way whatsoever.  Then there’s the priest (!) who questions his faith and stuff… yeah, really.  A priest who questions his faith when he sees aliens.  Really original material, eh?  So far the only one I care about is the dude trying to marry his stupid girlfriend who turns out to be a good-guy V.  It’s completely cliched but the other characters are so null and void that he’s the only one who kept me going.  Oh, and Morena Baccarin.  She could of course read the phone book and be fascinating so good casting there.  She’s got the beautiful menace thing down pat.  So you know what?  I’m officially rooting for the aliens on this one.  Humans suck.  Let’s kill them and steal their planet.  And first in line to die should be the producers of this crapfest. 

[rating:15]