How the hell do you screw up V?

Back in the 80's when I was just a child, a TV show came along which absolutely blew my mind. It featured giant spaceships, lizard people and BALLS!

V was the shit in terms of awesome TV. It had a modest budget which seemed thinly stretched over a series of bad special effects and some of the worst acting seen this side of Saffron Burrows career. In order to pad this piece I will give you a storyline (although memory not great and too lazy to wiki it):

We start with Mike Donovan, TV camera-guy, and his chum reporting from some iffy country in the middle of a war. Despite the incredibly tight denim to the contrary, Mike Donovan has balls. As gunmen bear down on him a giant spherical ship looms in the background. The Visitors have arrived.

They offer peace and friendship but soon we learn that they have an evil motive - THEY WANT TO EAT US! At least I think that's what it is. They are evil lizards after all. Soon a resistance forms against them of good folk who know the truth... and Ham Tyler. Tyler is a mercenary who just seems to want to kick ass whatever the reason.

The show was amazing for it's time. The special effects are still very poor but for the 80's it's practically ILM worthy. The matte shots of the interior of the mothership are obviously that. However it works, it looks amazing even now. Marc Singer is one of the worst actors ever, although V is the only basis I have for this, but his character is so over the top hammy that it works. Almost every line he delivers makes me giggle and his way of aiming a gun where his other arm crosses his chest is terrible... but in a good way!

Jane Badler as Diana, the evilist of the evil lizards, was a childhood crush of mine. Her portrayal was taken straight from the soap operas that littered the airwaves at the time. The only word to describe her was "Bitch" and in a good way!

I could spend my whole life watching V. It was the precursor to so many TV shows today - the ensemble cast coming from different places and becoming a group against a common foe, a story arc that provided continuity and a multi layered story as well as having the balls to kill of characters. It was a show ahead of it's time.

So, how the hell do you screw up V? By remaking it into a cold, bland TV show. Flicking through the channels you could be forgiven for passing V as just another show. NOTHING in this show seems new or original and it's stumbling block is trying to be too good and failing. Many people have compared the show to Flashforward and they are right - you could easily move characters around these shows and you wouldn't really know.

The most annoying thing is whereas the original V had a huge cast it utilised them all. You truly got the sense it was a global thing and watching these characters find their way toward each other was well thought out and new to TV. As you all probably know the Visitors in the 80's were the Nazi's from space - this is something that could have been used in the new version.

"Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it" - the story can be told again and again. V 2009 stupidly forgets one important fact - NINE/ELEVEN. No way would humanity be so trusting especially the Americans! Yet within no time the Visitors are setting up shop and being granted access visas.

The 80's V had the Visitors arrive... and sit there getting the world into a frenzy of paranoia before appearing to reassure us... they were us! This was a time to give all the key players of the series a chance to be shown in their lives - their lives BEFORE the V's.

This is something we have not had and unless the new V bounds in with the tired cliche of the 00's - flashbacks - we never will. Our new V has about 5 characters and none of them have one ounce of the charisma Marc Singer put on screen.

The character of Tyler joining the Visitor's Youth thing is a prime example of where this show's heart lies. In new V he is doing it for a girl and 95% of his screentime involves having this annoying grin plastered on his face. Sure the girl IS hot and I would do the same but from a storytelling level this is inane. In the original series a young man joins up because he has no direction and is swayed by the V's promises. He is a sociopath who begins to abuse his power becoming the darkest character on the show - one who sides with the enemy at the expense of his family.

Also, the elderly Jewish man in the original that shows the kids how to spray-paint properly, adorning a Vistor poster with a huge red "V" is an important scene in the original. It shows us many different things - an old man teaching the young, a generational gap being broken, the beginnings of resistance. Above all else it shows heart - the old man, who would've shouted at kids doing this, realises it's a way to spread the message. I get chills at that scene in good and bad ways.

If new V is to succeed it needs to do ONE THING:

STOP! Kenneth Johnson made V. For that reason alone he is a genius and the father of modern Television (seriously we would not have Lost without this guy) and he has a future for V himself.

All the glossy effects and fast storytelling in the world cannot compare to a show with heart and balls.