User reviews

"V" is a show with a great premise but clichéd, lazy execution.

I'd never seen the original series so my only comparison point coming into the show is the old sci-fi novel that inspired both: Arthur C. Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END. While the visitors in both are very similar, their goals, in the book, turn out to be less directly destructive than the goals of the visitors in "V." Nonetheless, the premises are similar enough that CHILDHOOD'S END manages to illuminate some of V's weaknesses.

In CHILDHOOD'S END, for instance, the visitors' ability to speak perfect English is evidence of their unfathomable intelligence and adds to their mystique. In "V," it is accepted from the start that the visitors speak English. Nobody is surprised. In the third episode, we see visitors speak in English with each other, so their linguistic skill is revealed to be nothing other than a plot device. CHILDHOOD'S END milks the mystique of the visitors for as long as possible and manages to maintain a sense of fear and awe without much action happening.

The visitors in "V" are simply not mysterious enough. We learn of their evil aspirations early on and from then on, the show proceeds as quickly and unambiguously as an action series like 24, except that the characters and performances are a bit more nuanced in 24. The humans are all either in love with or terribly fearful of the visitors and the show provides them with little opportunity to reflect on the absurdity of their situation. It is as if they had been prepared for an alien arrival all along and they don't have lives outside of their relations to the aliens. Instead of giving us ways in which the visitors impact daily lives, it manufactures conflicts and dilemmas that impede our ability to actually sympathize with any characters. The show bombards us with so many musical and visual cues to remind us of the evil of the visitors that it nearly renders them boring and harmless.

The series has at least 5 main characters who never meet each other, and several other minor characters who it focuses on for minutes at a time. No character has a chance to develop aside from Erica Evans, but the perspective is so fractured that we don't even get to see enough of her. Every good TV show, even moreso than every good movie, depends on the appeal of its characters: it takes a lot more to watch someone week after week than it does to sit down, watch a movie, and then never have to see them again. V may be attempting to throw as many characters out there as possible in an attempt to appeal to as many audiences as possible but it doesn't give the characters any breathing room. It bounces so many characters around that none of them have the opportunity to stick.

For a show that shows us a fractured story featuring multiple characters, it is also heavy on exposition. It sometimes seems to spend so much time on dishing out intriguing plot information that it doesn't know where else to go. Many full episodes feel like cliffhangers. Producers may believe that the fast pace and intense music will stimulate us viewers, but the show tries so hard that it left this viewer numb. I barely made it through to the end of the third episode, which is a shame, because I really had the feeling this was going to be a good sci-fi series. But life is too short and there are too many other TV series out there to waste time on one that's as weak as this. Even "Mercy," another overrated new series, managed to hook me more than this one. Its performances are good enough and it limits itself to a small enough handful of characters that I, despite myself, find myself missing the characters more than I ever expect to. V doesn't even have that. I can only hope that the best of the talent involved in the show will find their way into better projects in the near future.

The fx are better than the original of course, but that's about it. The characters and situations are not even close to being as engrossing as the mini-series from 1983.

They shoved about four hours of story into one, so there is no sense of reality that the characters are living in, no getting to know the characters, and no build up to the reveal of the arriving ships. My guess is that the producers are getting some of the obvious story bits out of the way so they can plod full steam ahead with their 're-imagining.' Fine, but I was not impressed.

If this is going to be an on going series, then why rush the story? Oh, I know. To beat the attention deficit disorder and the need for the 'quick fix' of today's audience.

And now this is the 2nd new ABC series with an FBI agent as a main character, with Flash Forward (another bore) being the first. Is there going to be a 'cross over' of the 2 shows in the future? Are the visitors the cause of the 'black out?' And 'V' even comes with the typical dramatic 'explosion' moment of the hour, ala LOST, ala FLASH FORWARD, ala whatever. Lame.

I will not be watching 2009's V. I will however watch the original again, sometime in the future.

The aliens have come, and they say they want to be our friends. Anna (Morena Baccarin) is the face of the aliens. Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) is her daughter. Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) is a journalist who worms his way into a prime spot with the aliens. FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) stumbles on some nefarious alien activity. Tyler Evans (Logan Huffman) is obsessed with the aliens ignoring his mother's warnings. Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch) is concerned about the aliens even thought the church hierarchy has accepted them wholeheartedly.

Tyler is super annoying. Alien Anna is super creepy. And alien Lisa is super hot. As for the story, it is unrealistic to accept that the humans could fight back. Like the original, it is hard to write this believably. The production value is as good as they could make it for a TV show. But it is just too hard to achieve that grand scale. By the end of its 2 seasons run, there were too many unreasonable plot lines.

Characters are cookie-cutter predictable. In one show it seems we already know exactly who's who (or what) and where they stand. Maybe I feel this way because it's a remake and I already know pretty much how this is going to go. I sense however that this is going to turn into another 4400 (especially with Joel Gretsch in the cast), a good start and downhill from there. I'll watch because I'm such a huge sci-fi fan, and hopefully I'll be proved wrong. Then again, about the only sci-fi stuff even I can't stomach are those made for Sci-fi Channel movies that look like they were cranked out in about two weeks. Hey, at least it's not another cop or hospital show!

When the first V came out, it was original and few science fiction shows were on the air at all. I liked the character, Anna, she is a younger version of Diana. Elizabeth Mitchell is fine as FBI agent Erica Evans. The show will probably focus on the relationship between her teenage son, Tyler, and the visitor alien, Lisa. Although ABC has placed lots of ads, I didn't see what the hype was about. It's still the same story about alien visitors coming to earth as our friends but we learn their true motives. While I suspect humanity is a bit more suspicious and troubled by such generosity, the new show manages to keep the same premise with a little more special effects. Scott Wolf is fine as the egotistical newscaster. The filming is done in Vancouver (a great city). My problem is how the network will allow this show to grow if it didn't allow others of a similar nature. Will the viewers hold enough to keep wanting more?

Like most remakes, it failed to stay afloat. It did however last more than one season when most remakes fail to make it that far.

I echo the sentiments that this incarnation started slow. As they say, first impressions are lasting ones. The show did get better as went along, but in my opinion, it lost many viewers after the first episodes. Of course, you are going to get fans of the original tuning in; that's not really the crowd the creators should have been worried about, but the new comers. Yes, you want fans of the original to be onboard, but new fans in the numbers make for a happy show as they have no idea of what is going on. ABC likely lost a lot of newcomers to the V story from its slow start.

If you were a fan of the original, you knew that the visitors were up to no good. That element of surprise is gone for original fans. Yes, this is a totally different show from the original and rightfully so. But when the element of surprise is not there, you need to tweak the plot a little otherwise you won't have much of a fan base for the remake. Another reviewer admonished, "This is not the original, do not look for it," which is a true statement.

Rather than try to recreate the characters from the original, they wrote new ones which was a smart move. The show did start to pick up steam a little as the episodes got interesting. Unfortunately, by then, the show had lost many viewers.

Season two came out with some interest going as apparently the network thought the latter half of season one was improved. But it never picked up enough steam to be the hit that it could have. You know the show is in trouble when two stars from the original V mini-series are brought in to try to garner more interest.

Season 2 ended with a cliffhanger with no hope of season 3 to resolve it.

Remakes or the fancy term "re-imagine(s)" are hit or miss, no more, no less, no gray areas. The (re-made) show either begins with a promising story that attracts many viewers and retains them at the get-go or it drags the first few steps and turns off the viewers that see it. Then they have a heck of a time trying to "adjust fire" and try to fix what was not working.

The makers of the re-made V had the chance to cook up something very special in this new version but came short when the beginning was very slow.

I would not want to spoil the fun but my review is in fact dealing with plot holes. I watched season 1 and 2 and while the acting is good, the whole plot really is a problem.

I like the set design, the special effects. It is also good to see that we don't really get too much lizard skin and that the show is around what a small group of resistants know (the V's are lizards who are invading us the soft way) but that this is no more a spoiler than say, knowing that Darth Vador is Luke's father. You didn't know about Vador? Sorry mate ;o)

The issue is that characters make illogical or hurried choices, there is no follow up of many threads, and ultimately what happens is just a big incoherent story where many other options were discarded for any given situation.

I decided to check this out since I was a fan of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, another 80's series that was wayy too shabby for me to enjoy. TV has just gotten better over the years, with better fx (of course) and better writing and character development. So for the record, I have never watched the original and I don't care to.

This series has some good, though uninspired, fx (with the inside of the alien craft looking like one big apple iCity). The characters are the typical scifi one-dimensional cardboard types: good guys, bad guys and cannon fodder. Most of the actors look like they were plucked from some kind of church promotional. The acting is decent if you discount the simple clichés involved (loving mother raising a rebellious son, priest who has his faith shaken but is still trying to do good, evil human-looking aliens who want to do evil stuff). The fast pace of the show gives you little time to notice the lack of depth and there's some decent action. This makes it all mildly entertaining in a Hollywood kind of way. It might be too early to pass judgment on this series since it has just started, but I don't see it lasting very long if it keeps going on like this.