ABC's 'V' -- Old Foes in New Skins (UPDATED)

Today's cuppa: Irish breakfast tea (contemplating a switch to chai ... Hmmmm)

On Tuesday night, ABC premieres "V," its remake of the 1980s science-fiction TV classic of the same name.

As it turns out, the new version is pretty darn good (at least the pilot, which is all I've seen).

Below find the full text of the feature story I wrote this week. As you'll discover when you read it, I was unable to talk to the producers (interviews were scheduled, then canceled).

The ABC publicist asked if I could go with what they said at press tour, but since that was back in early August, and a lot had changed with the show in the meantime, I just couldn't.

After the feature story, though, you'll find an exchange between yours truly and the producers at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, which touches on some of the most controversial aspects of "V" (and just how controversial they remain after the shutdown for "script issues," I confess, I have no idea. But, for what it's worth, I have a lot of respect for executive producers Scott Peters and Jeffrey Bell, so we'll see.).

So, read, watch and, as always, make up your own mind.

First up, the story:

'V' pours old foes into new skins for sci-fi remake

 

By Kate O'Hare

©Zap2it

 

Back in 1983, NBC aired the two-part science-fiction miniseries "V," written and directed by Kenneth Johnson. In 1984, NBC followed with another hit miniseries, "V: The Final Battle."

Despite that title, the network forged on with "V: The Series" later in 1984, with most of the original cast (but not Johnson). It was short-lived and just plain bad.

Normally, this sort of a history would bode better for a miniseries remake than a series, but on the other hand, "Battlestar Galactica" was a hit pilot that turned into a flop series in the '70s, only to be revived in this decade as a critically acclaimed miniseries and series.

So one could forgive ABC and Warner Bros. Television for being a little confused over exactly what to do with their "V" remake, premiering Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Layer on top of that a byproduct of timing, partly caused by a strike-induced delay, which lands the new "V" practically on top of the anniversary of last year's presidential election with a pilot that contains such hot buzzwords as "hope," "change" and "universal health care."

As if that wasn't enough, stir in a production hiatus for "script issues," followed by a rollout schedule that calls for four initial episodes, with the rest held until after the Winter Olympics in March.

It's enough to give an executive producer fits, which may explain why executive producers/writers Scott Peters ("The 4400") and Jeffrey Bell ("Angel," "Alias") weren't available this fall to talk about the show.

But stars Morena Baccarin and Scott Wolf were. Starring with them in "V" are Elizabeth Mitchell ("Lost") as an FBI counterterrorism agent, Logan Huffman as her teenage son, Joel Gretsch ("The 4400") as a worried priest and Morris Chestnut ("Boyz N the Hood") as a man with a secret who faces a life-altering decision.

Baccarin ("Firefly") plays Anna, the enigmatic leader of aliens calling themselves the Visitors (or "Vs" for short), who hover gigantic spaceships over every major city in the world, scaring the pants off everybody. Anna then appears and offers a message of peace and advanced technology, just as long as the Vs get the slavish devotion of every human being on Earth.

Wolf plays ambitious news anchor Chad Decker, who lands an exclusive interview with Anna, only to discover he's expected to play ball and make the Vs look good, or else no chat.

Unfortunately for journalistic ethics everywhere, Decker folds like a cheap suit.

But all may not be lost for this Anderson Cooper wannabe.

"In that moment," Wolf says, "obviously he's been put in a position where he's got two very difficult choices to make. One is to be a real sucker, and the other is to potentially give up the best opportunity he'll ever have.

"What Scott thought of Chad in that moment was that he's actually smart enough to believe, or to know, that he'll find a way to make it right, that this opportunity won't come back again.

"He can reclaim his integrity, but this opportunity is once in a lifetime."

If you haven't seen the original "V," stop reading right now, because anyone who has knows that the Visitors are only human on the surface, with a reptilian reality lurking within. But we're not talking hulking crocodiles here; these lizards can hold their own with higher primates.

"I like how controlled and smart and calculating she is," Baccarin says of Anna, "that she's able to learn from humans and manipulate them and be who she thinks they want her to be, so she can get what she wants.

"I like the nuances of that."

So as the alien leader, Anna is a consummate politician.

"Exactly," Baccarin says. "It's all about getting people to trust you, so you have to present yourself and do things that will get that, even if they're not entirely true."

While she says she didn't base Anna on any particular political figure, Baccarin did learn from recent history.

"Obviously," she says, "we were all very captivated by the presidential election, so I watched a lot of the debates and things in general. That, I'm sure, helped me figure out what I wanted to do a little bit."

As for the stops and starts of "V" so far, Wolf says, "Stay with us. I don't want to say I know - because none of us ever knows anything really - but I believe people are going to tune in to see this show, and I believe they are going to be excited.

"As unnerving as any kinds of bumps in the road can get for all of us, I know that every decision that's been made is in the long-term best interests of the show and the story.

"So to me, I've not veered from my excitement and belief in the show at all."

All that having been said, here are excerpts from the press-tour session from Aug. 8, starting with my question and Scott Peters' answer:

KO: Some of the words in the pilot associated with the Visitor agenda are "hope" and "change" and "universal health care." So was that intentional, or are you just freakishly prescient?

SCOTT PETERS: Freakishly prescient.

ELIZABETH MITCHELL: Wow.

KO: And now that you are here and we are in this situation and you are airing it in November, are you going to play off that, or how are you going to work with that?

SCOTT PETERS: You know, because of the Writers' Guild strike, this show has been in development for a long time, and I just felt, to me, it was, you know, certainly -- it wasn't sort of -- we are not looking to put any sort of agenda onto the table, but I think that anybody -- you know, I wake up in the morning and you look at the news, and you see, you know, there's wars, there's new diseases being discovered, there's old diseases that are still -- we are dealing with. There's -- the economy is in the toilet. There are people losing their homes. Wouldn't it be awesome if 29 ships showed up and they all said, "We've got this. We'll take care of you. Don't worry about it"? Wouldn't this be great?  And so, I mean, that's really where hope and change came from. It's just like the world -- Joel has a line in the pilot that says, you know, "The world is in bad shape, Father. Who wouldn't welcome a savior?" And I think that's a pretty interesting thesis statement. So that's kind of where this whole thing sort of came from. And, listen, I think that shows are open to interpretation. People have subjective -- bring subjective thoughts to it. And if you want to ascribe, you know, those words to the Visitors or to whatever is going on in our society, that's sort of up to the viewer, but there's no particular agenda to, you know, hone in on those specific things.

Other reporters picked up the thread a few minutes later, and here's Jeffrey Bell's response to the issue:

 

JEFFREY BELL: Look, there are always going to be people who will look for agendas in everything. This show was conceived during the Bush administration. It got executed in an Obama administration. There are people on either sides of the aisle who can find things. You can say, "Yeah, look how stupid these people are for following blindly and believing everything the government is saying," and you can have people who are upset about that. And you can have other people saying, "Look at these people who are promising everything at no cost, and look, they are leading them to their own doom." And so, for us, both sides have strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to talk about a fantastic -- let's get people to show up and watch it and talk about it.

UPDATE: Showrunner shakeup announced today, Nov. 3 (premiere day), replacing Scott Peters in that position and likely resulting in Jeff Bell's departure. The guy coming in has good creds, but this stuff seldom turns out well. Fingers crossed.