At first blush, V 2009 looks like good money after bad.
Following the enormous critical and ratings success of Battlestar Galactica it must have been a no-brainer for television types to reboot another sci fi franchise.
Strong opening ratings may lead to another round of V episodes in spring, but the first batch offers nothing new beyond some gee-whiz CGI.
But as some folks say, consider the source.
The 1983 miniseries called V and its follow-up, V the Final Battle, was a hackneyed alien invasion serial that flogged a predictably xenophobic premise: aliens that LOOK LIKE US arrive on earth wanting to enslave everyone. They strut around saying dastardly things like, “You fools!”
The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers exploited Cold War paranoia during the McCarthy era. The original V exploited Cold War paranoia during the Reagan era. The new V says don’t trust your girlfriend’s mom. In other words, nothing. Not even something wrong-headed.
BSG 2.0 made a formulaic space opera into a gritty drama that referenced present-day issues such as fundamentalism, military occupation and terrorism, while delving into grand science fiction themes such as the ethics of technology and what it truly means to be human.
The new V, meanwhile takes a premise based in sci fi’s most low-brow theme – aliens are out to get you so shoot them – and makes it into an uninspired cop show.
The Rambo-like gunplay of the 1980s V becomes people dashing around parkades with handguns. Characters like tough guy Ham Tyler (played by the charismatically grim Michael Ironside) are replaced by bewildered-looking detectives.
Ten years before the X-Files brilliantly built a mystique around the unknown. In the second V audiences already know that that hot moms are out to destroy the human race through wellness centres. There’s no compelling mystery so characters just wander around.
Attempts to give the principals back-stories fall miserably flat, mainly because the back-stories are flat. Single moms, sullen teenagers, grizzled war vets – nothing that the 4400 didn’t already handle better.
The CGI spaceships are good.
The last 30 seconds of episode 3 is especially good. A scene on main street earth zooms into space and pans across the solar system to reveal a menacing invasion fleet behind Jupiter.
It’s a trippy half-minute of great television, in no small way because no actors, writers or Hollywood execs are there to bollocks things up.
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