Quick Review: ABC’s “V”

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of “V”, “V: The Final Battle” and the “V” TV series. However, I am not one of those fans who believed that the show should not be remade. In preparation for the new series I watched the previous version just to remember how it was. I have fond memories of watching it when I was younger and even role played with friends on the playground in elementary school. I don’t think there was anyone I knew who wasn’t watching it. I was more than excited when I first heard that ABC was going to do a re-imagining of the series. One would think that with all that, the show was doomed for failure. It isn’t.

The cast is excellent. Morris Chestnut, Scott Wolf, Elisabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Joel Gretsch, and Alan Tudyk make up for a deep and talented cast. Was I worried about the number of characters? No. Nowadays, all new shows seem to follow the idea that a large cast of characters make for a wealth of stories. The unique thing about “V” is that since its based on a fairly well known and beloved previous series, the writers aren’t going to skirt around the obvious. The strength of this show is going to be its number of characters and the number of stories. The 1983 miniseries and 1984 TV series had a lot of characters, but it never seemed like it was too many. I don’t think that the premiere needed to be two hours. In the one hour that we got, we got the arrival of the Visitors, the establishment of the Friends of the Visitors (I think they called them Friendship Ambassadors or something like that), the beginnings of the resistance, and the true nature of the Visitors.

The thing that I really liked was the notion that the Visitors have been here studying us and may have even had a hand in screwing up humanity in preparation for invasion. Also, instead of the Fifth Column, there are Visitor sleeper agents (Morris Chestnut’s Ryan Nichols is one example) that are basically founding the resistance in an effort to save humanity.

It would have been better if I didn’t think the premiere was good because now my expectations are high. I have more hope for this show than I did after the premiere for Flash Forward.

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