"V" May Be A Slap At Hopeychange After All

I was a big fan of the original TV Miniseries "V." It was often over the top. The characters were regularly quite wooden. The special effects were not half bad for the era. But most of all, it had a message. There is such a thing as good and evil, and those who promise you everything if you just let them do their jobs are usually lying and have much more sinister motives. The Nazi theme was omnipresent.

So when viewing the new TV series of the same name, I rather expected the usual slickening up of the original, with the plot filled with moral equivalencies, unclear lines of division between the good guys and the bad guys, replacement of the original limited special effects with state-of-the-art CGI, and some version of the current mainstream thinking of "can't we all just get along?" And like most people looking for the bad in something, I found it, to the exclusion of what I've come to see as the good in the show.

First of all, the clear hero in the original was a rough and tumble TV news photograper who went into harm's way to get a story. The new show has no such clear character. In fact, it appears that the key character may very well be a priest who seems to have some very new agey ideas along with doubts about his faith. When the first arrival of the alien spaceships occurs, it causes earthquake-like vibrations in his church, and just in the nick of time he rescues a parishioner in a wheelchair from a large crucifix which has shaken loose from its moorings. Sure enough, another example of Jesus trying to crush the oppressed.

In the original, there were plenty of black characters. In the new series, there is an unusually large number of black-white couples. Nothing wrong with that, but it was a little too prominent and numerically unlikely to have fit smoothly into the plotline. The leader and spokesperson for the aliens was transformed into a woman (check, feminists). The propagandizing of the populace into enthusiastic support for the aliens (by now dubbed the Visitors--hence, "V") occurred with astounding rapidity, where in the original it evolved logically over several episodes. The rebels opposing the Visitors likewise formed seemingly overnight. That part was explained by using the same plot device used in the Tom Cruise slice-up of the original "War of the Worlds." The original core of the resistance movement had formed considerably earlier. You see, the Visitors had been among us for years, and this small cadre had figured out that they were setting up the world for the arrival of the main body.

Fortunately, I had recorded the original episode, and after a couple of days had passed I realized that I may have made a hasty judgment of "typical politically-correct nonsense." So I re-watched the opener, and though my technical objections don't entirely go away, I saw a completely different tone to the plot from what I thought I had seen the first time.

I still see the priest as a rather weak character, but I now see that his faith may be firmed up by his experiences in working with the resistance. The replacement of the leader with a female character may be to throw the current powers that be in Washington off the track about where this show is going. The CGI is not a substitute for plot development, but rather an improved version of the old special effects.

The rush to establish in one episode all the major characters and conflicts is a failing. It should have been done over several of the initial episodes. But I also understand that by today's breakneck standards, any show that isn't making good Nielsen numbers in the first three weeks is probably headed for cancellation. The producers may simply have decided they didn't have the luxury of time to establish the show's themes.

A new character who will be one of the leaders has no genuine parallel in the original. It is a female FBI agent who quickly has to change her investigation of tracking down terrorists into a jaundiced look into the arrival of the Visitors (worst of all, her own teenage son has been mesmerized by the V movement). The bold photographer and gutsy fellow journalists who appeared in the original have been replaced by a weak-sister example of mainstream media reporters of today. It turns out to be a good choice. When the beautiful leader of the Visitors agrees to go on worldwide television for an interview, this guy gets to do it. When she announces that the Visitors have come to ask for a few of our abundant natural resources which are lacking on their planet, she promises in return to deliver their advanced medical and technological advances. The reporter weakly asks: "Do you mean 'universal health care?'" "Yes," she replies, "I believe that is what you would call it."

The leader also tells the talking-head that "we can't be seen in a negative light." It was not a request. And the reporter dutifully complied. When later asked about the surprising growth of the youth organizations supporting the Visitors without question, the leader says: "Embracing change is never easy." Therefore she needs the young and uninformed as her shock troops.

One youngster early in the show says "This is just like the movie 'Independence Day.'" It is basically an inside joke. It's nothing like "Independence Day," in which an initial attempt to welcome the aliens turns into horrible destruction and the people of earth quickly realize there is a powerful enemy prepared to destroy them arriving on earth. The show has some sad similarities to the new "Battlestar Galactica" (the aliens have infiltrated us and look just like us, and the aforementioned "they've been here for years" from the new "War of the Worlds").

The house organ of the Democratic Party, "The New Republic" got it right away. Their review makes it very clear that they saw what I failed to see on my first viewing. "This is not just a right-wing worldview, but the worldview of the Tea Party movement. It's grating that a potentially interesting concept was hijacked by right-wing political paranoia." I guess they just don't like seeing the shoe on the other foot. Since the show clearly is drawing parallels with the empty and dangerous policies of the Obama administration, the show couldn't merely be a different view of the world. It had to be an example of right-wing paranoia. A similar review appeared in the "New York Times."

It's just unfair that instead of the Nazi Bush administration, this show more subtly points at the statist-socialist Obama administration. Oddly, the "Hollywood Reporter," normally the Democratic stooge in Hollywood, noted the Obama parallels, then gave the show a very good review indeed. I'm picturing the phone lines at the White House burning up making calls to everybody connected with the series to remind them that "we can't be seen in a negative light." Like the leader's statement, it won't be a request.

The show got excellent ratings on its initial broadcast. I'm not sure that can last. Most of those in charge of the series have already been sent off to other projects (somewhere in Siberia, I expect). The show runs on Tuesday nights on ABC. As the first network to take up semi-permanent residence in the White House, it is unlikely the network will allow the show to continue on its present course. After all, what's genuine opposition political opinion compared to immediate access to the Leader?

If the show survives at all, I suspect it will turn into a gutless laser pistols and moral equivalency piece of sci fi junk quickly. Only time will tell. But I recommend that while it still exists in its current form, you sci fi and administration critics join me in watching the show before it goes south.