I’m sad to report that despite my initial optimism, V hasn’t turned out to be all that great. What I wanted to be at least a little campy has taken a turn toward the super-serious topical commentary, and that has both good and bad ramifications for the show.

On the plus side, the show is reaching for something that I always love in science fiction. It’s playing with fiction to throw issues about modern life into stark relief, transforming our fears about immigration and foreignness into a terror of literal aliens. I love that the show has zeroed in on news media, trying to play with the distinction between actual reporting and the impact one anchor’s agenda can have on public perception. 9/11 continues to loom large over everything, both in the V’s ship physically looming over Manhattan skyscrapers, as well as the vocal protests against the Vs by a widow whose husband died during their arrival. Protestors hoist signs outside the V headquarters. While the V leader Anna describes the importance of managing popular opinion, she proudly holds aloft her own newly-issued US passport. The issues and anxieties look exactly like our own world, but we have the pleasure of shifting our fears about ambiguous, possibly unfixable human concerns onto evil space reptiles. It’s super zeitgeisty, and I think that’s usually a good thing. (It’s so zeitgeisty, in fact, that someone asked Robert Gibbs at a press conference if he was aware that this new show V was being considered a possible criticism of the Obama administration).

They are watching you...they are watching you while you watch them...

The focus on serious commentary as opposed to camp, however, means that I expect more from the show than the current level of writing and acting seems able to meet. Many of the lines are clunky – “If you’re anything like me, this whole…this whole thing has made you feel…alone. Lost.” There’s little value placed on subtlety. In addition, allow me to take this opportunity to complain vociferously about the main character’s dopey-eyed teenage son Tyler. Truly, in the middle of global invasion, we’re focusing on the fact that this super stereotyped sack of hormones thinks one of the Vs is especially hot? It’s like diving into The Vampire Diaries every time he comes on screen. The problem isn’t just that the writing isn’t great, the problem also is that by aspiring to serious, socially relevant science fiction, V has set itself up against shows like Battlestar Galactica. Vs walk around the earth like Cylons, so that you can’t tell who’s human any more, and like Battlestar, the show has placed specific emphasis on the religious implications of the invasion. And at least at this point of its development, V pales in comparison. Battlestar was just so…thoughtful. V is like watching someone try to thread a needle with a fire hose.

Soon, V will go on a months-long hiatus, and return with a new showrunner. I’m interested enough to give it a chance, but dubious about its ability to improve.

Man, I miss Battlestar Galactica.

…without which, you stop paying attention, aliens surreptitiously infiltrate your society, and the next thing you know you’re surrounded by attractive people who blink veeeery slowly in an eerily reptilian way. Or at least, that’s what I took away from last night’s premiere of V.

The new show is a remake of a series from the early eighties, and the premise is generally what I described above. One morning, alien ships descend on the major cities of the world (as they are not infrequently wont to do in genre fiction) and announce their intentions to live peacefully with humans while they supply their ships with a few key, abundant natural resources. The aliens are pretty, they can cure diseases, they have awesome space ships, and by about half of the way through the first episode, it turns out they’re also evil. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Aiiieee, aliens over Manhattan! It looks like every other alien invasion story ever told!

V’s strengths, at least in this pilot episode, are also its weaknesses. The appealing aspect of the premise is that it provides an explanation for all the ills in our society (war, economic turmoil, religious fanaticism) while also giving us a concrete, definite enemy to fight. The best science fiction has always been social commentary, and V seeks to capitalize on the current cultural mood by playing with our naturally suspicious natures. Aliens in EZ-PEEL human suits have infiltrated the government, the media, and Wall Street, and are now trying to destroy life as we know it. I knew the left wing/right wing/Darkwing Duck branch of politics were evil!

EZ-PEEL human suits

What I’m trying to say is, it’s actually kinda fun to watch a show about alien overlords who are actually absurdly transparent metaphors for totalitarianism. But the pilot episode deflates whenever the connections are too obviously topical. Things start to get silly when Anna, the leader of the Visitors, refuses to agree to an interview without a promise from the journalist that she’ll be portrayed positively, and all those familiar accusations about cable news flood into the fiction. It gets even worse when Anna mentions that she’d really love to provide universal health care for all of humanity. Aliens who clearly watch C-SPAN are not quite so satisfying. And yet, in spite of all the pointed reminders that the Vs have infiltrated the world we live in today, there’s one moment in the pilot that stretches the bounds of imagination beyond all reason. In the first ten minutes of the show, alien ships hover over the world’s major cities, people scream and run around, an eerie alien lady describes her intention to live in peace with humanity while also taking advantage of the earth’s water and minerals… and the gathered masses below applaud her. It’s just unfathomable that our collective response to an alien race, even a friendly-seeming one, would be polite applause. The first thing we’d do is shoot at it, right?

I’ve never seen the original miniseries, and so I only have a vague sense of what’s to come, but the pilot was entertaining enough to see if later episodes of the show can improve on its faults. I did happen across this clip from the original, though, and if the remake is anything like the crazy, corny, surreal alien birth below, consider my interest peaked.