ABC's remake of V, the '80s hit show about alien visitors who arrive on Earth with secretly malicious intentions, returns for a second season, in the face of dwindling ratings and a poor critical response. ABC clearly saw more potential for a turnaround than FlashForward, their other hyped sci-fi drama from 2009, which wasn't fortunate enough to escape the axe. Unfortunately, although "Red Rain" was faster paced than usual, and managed to drop V's annoying cloak of mystery a few times, it still exhibited many of the flaws that made it hard to enjoy season 1 in anything but a disposable way. I think this a show that has a strong foundation in its admittedly hoary premise, but too many mistakes were made in the remake's blueprint... The premiere opens 4 days after the finale "Red Sky", where alien queen Anna (Morena Baccarin) prematurely began the titular process to turn Earth's skies crimson, for unknown reasons, out of spite because her alien eggs had been destroyed by the Fifth Column resistance movement. Thanks to the Visitor's suspicious silence, the people of the world are beginning to panic, believing the hellish skies (which even begin to rain "blood") are a sign that the aliens have a sinister motivation for arriving on Earth.
However, it's not long before Anna restores the world's natural atmosphere, claiming her Red Sky gift has reversed the environmental damage humans have caused, while also turning barren deserts into fertile land. Faith in the Visitors is duly restored and deepened, although Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) and the human resistance resolve to figure out what the real purpose of Red Sky was, by finding a scientist who may hold the answer. Meanwhile, Anna had to quell the possibility of mutiny aboard her ship, as rumours of her emotional outburst over the demise of her spawn began to spread; manipulated news anchor Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) decided to join the Fifth Column after witnessing human experimentation at the hand of the V's; Ryan (Morris Chestnut) was exiled from Anna's ship, thus denied the chance to be with his newborn hybrid daughter; and human sympathizer Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) realized her Fifth Column cohort Joshua (Mark Hildreth) has had his memory erased. "Red Rain" didn't do much to renew people's interest in V, beyond pepper its storyline with some attention-grabbing teases about what the V's actually look like
beneath their human skins: Anna's CGI tail ripped an underling's face apart, exposing a cabbage-like head and blinking eye; Ryan's daughter briefly appeared close to the glass in the water tank she's being kept in (so the V's are amphibious?); and Erica's group eventually discovered remnants of a V skeleton unearthed 50 years ago, which makes them look like bipedal velociraptors. But these are moments designed to hook the kind of people who only watch shows like V for superficial reasons, whether they'll admit that or not. And you can only get away with delivering "cool" moments for awhile, before you draw that well dry. In the climax of this episode, the writers even debut a calculated effort to draw in V's veteran fans from the '80s, by introducing original star Jane Badler (who memorably played sexy alien villain Diana) as Anna's mother. Will such stunt-casting work? Does anybody but the kind of people already watching V care about Badler's return to the show that, briefly, made her a star? To her credit, Badler's last-second appearance did have some impact, mainly because middle-age has given her an awesome set of cheekbones that just exude villainy.
Fundamentally, V just doesn't hang together. While it's appreciated we're beginning to see more of the V's themselves, and this episode does a half-decent job explaining some of their motivation for coming to Earth (which you can extrapolate to a logical, if largely predictable, end), the characters are the weak link. So few of them are worth watching, and most feel like walking dispensers of exposition to keep a plot rolling along. It's particularly frustrating that Elizabeth Mitchell (who was so great on Lost) just doesn't look comfortable; perhaps because the material she's given isn't very strong, or maybe because you sense she doesn't like the show she's in. Almost everyone else is equally dull, if not more so. It's frankly painful to watch Erica's son Tyler (Logan Huffman) on this show, as
everything about that doofus character fails to appeal. The only bright spark of genius, singlehandedly keeping me watching this show most of the time, is the superb Morena Baccarin. She has the juiciest character in alien matriarch Anna, sure, but she spins gold from what could have been a silly and overacted character. It helps that Baccarin's physically quite unique; with her hourglass figure, wine bottle neck, pixie haircut, long limbs, and sly pout. She effortlessly holds your attention whenever she's on-screen; full of poise and elegance, with charisma to burn. Baccarin's unfortunately working far beyond the quality of the show she's become the marketable face of. Overall, it's hard to feel excited by V's return. There were some positives to this premiere; such as the fast pacing, agreeable moments of gore (including a rather
incredible face-melt), the fact the show's finally decided that Chad Decker's a good guy, some demystifying of the V's intentions, and the obvious appeal of leggy Laura Vandervoort stripping to her underwear. But is it
enough, when the characters are largely a washout and there's an overarching feeling that V's incapable of surprising you? The premise is an old-fashioned but reliable sci-fi staple, but it needs to be given masterful twists and complexity if it's not going to bore its natural audience -- who grew up on this stuff and can second-guess it.
WRITERS: Scott Rosenbaum & Gregg Hurwitz DIRECTOR: Bryan Spicer CAST: Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Morris Chestnut, Scott Wolf, Charles Mesure, Logan Huffman, Laura Vandervoort, Christopher Shyer, Joel Gretsch, Mark Hildreth, Roark Critchlow, Rekha Sharma & Jane Badler TRANSMISSION: 4 January 2010, ABC, 9/8c
I will continue reviewing season 2 of V at my blog,
Dan's Media Digest.