Promotional image for "V"
The highly-anticipated premier of ABC's "V" brought in promising ratings in a competitive time slot last Tuesday night.
"V" premiered against solid established competition in the 8 p.m. Tuesday time slot, including CBS' top-rated drama "NCIS," NBC's "Biggest Loser," and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance." It opened with a 5.0 rating for adults 18 to 42. The newcomer shot to the top of the leaderboard with an average of 13.9 million viewers and beat out second-place "NCIS" by 19 percent.
The results of the Tuesday premier are promising for the show. It continued to generate tune-in throughout the episode, increasing its total viewers from its first half to its second half. The positive reception of "V" gave ABC its strongest ratings in the time slot among the 18 to 49 group in three years. It was also the highest 18 to 49 rating for an 8 p.m. drama debut of any network and any night since ABC's premier of "Lost" in 2004.
"V" is a science-fiction show that is based on the 1983 miniseries by the same title which was created by Kenneth Johnson. It features a technologically advanced alien race refferred to as "Visitors" whose ships appear over 29 of the world's major cities.
The beautiful leader of the Visitors is named Anna (played by Morena Baccarin) and claims their intentions are peaceful. However, a small number of humans doubt the sincerity of Anna's claims and begin to mobilize to discover and reveal the true motives of the creatures.
It is discovered by counter-terrorism agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) that the aliens have been on Earth for decades, infiltrating human organizations, including the government, businesses, and religious institutions. They have since moved into the final stages of their plans for world domination.
However, not all Visitors have motives of domination. Evans joins a resistance movement, which includes a Visitor sleeper agent named Ryan (Morris Chestnut) who wishes to aid in saving humanity.
As the Visitors begin to recruit Earth's youth, including Evans' son Tyler (played by Logan Huffman), the resistance movement must gear up to face the Visitors and their now unwitting human spies.
"V" is gearing up to be a promising addition to the Tuesday night line-up. If it continues its forward momentum, it could potentially gain a fanbase in a genre that has been otherwise missing from the night's television schedule--science fiction. The nuances of an alien culture conspiring in a complex plot to take over the Earth in a "killing them with kindness" approach is enough to ignite the interest of many science fiction fans. The fast-paced action sequences, edge-of-your seat twists, and performances from up-and-coming actors and returning television favorites promise to keep anyone else who tunes in (science fiction fanatic or not) glued to the show.
Tune in to keep track of the latest alien promises and conspiracy theories, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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Comments
As I was watching the second episode and Agent Erica Evans was walking through her department wondering who else besides her partner was a V, I thought they were lifting liberally from Battlestar Galactica. "The Cylons can look like us," and "who among us is a Cylon?" Even going so far as to have Rekha Sharma, one of the elite final five on Battlestar Galactica portray FBI agent Sarita Malik of the Visitor Threat Assessment Joint Task Force.
Then I started thinking back to the original V and it hit me that V had it first and that the new re-imagining of Battlestar, with it's human looking Cylons and subplot of a savior child that would unite humans and Cylons owed much to the original V television series and V: The Final Battle. So, nothing is really ever new, and even re-imaginings can be thinly veiled mash-ups.
It all comes down to how well a show is executed. The next few episodes should show if V can evolve beyond its original AND its sci-fi contemporaries.
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