Rant On Horror: V vs. V

    I realise that this subject does not fit neatly into the horror genre but it is about a show that I love, so stick with me. Last night I watched the abomination that is the modern interpretation of the classic 80’s sci-fi show V. In fact it was so awful that I couldn’t manage to stay awake for the ending, and I feel violated because the original V is one of my warm and fuzzy memories from growing up.

    Before I go any further I am going to tell you what the original V series was basically about. For the sake of time and clarity I am not going to go into a total rundown because I kind of have a life and I don’t want you to have to read overly long sentences describing how human faced lizards shove guinea pigs into their mouths. The original V series was about a group of aliens who came to Earth under the pretense of peace. However, they were really lizards in disguise who wanted our water and who wanted to eat us. Yummy, am I right? The entire TV series deals with the human resistance battling them so they don’t make dog chow out of all of us.

    Now the original V was a cheese fest; the acting was often over the top and some of the sub-plots were of the soap opera variety. Despite this, or because of it depending on your point of view, the show worked. It was actually a lot of fun to watch the aliens plotting evil stuff and the humans trying to kill them. It was made during the end of the Cold War so I personally see it as sort of a metaphor for the US vs. the USSR. There was a lot of anti-USSR propaganda in films and tv back then so it is not that hard to see it that way. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why it worked so well was because of the Cold War. The more I think about that explanation the more it personally makes sense to me. Just replace the lizards with soldiers and you have another sort of Red Dawn. Instead of ‘Red Scare’ you have ‘Lizard Scare’.

    Now, as I stated in the opening to this rant I did not stay awake for the entirety of the first episode of the new V. I tried my best, believe me, but it seriously put me to sleep. Instead of the aliens looking like different types of humans, these new versions of them all looked model perfect. The reasoning behind this was given so that Earthlings would trust them more. I would trust them less if the aliens all looked perfect so that is strike one against it. I know that should be a minor quibble but it really bugged me for some reason. Perhaps because it was just an excuse for the producers to make yet another TV show full of pretty people? Then there is the acting. So much of it was either wooden or just plain bad so I really couldn’t get into the characters at all. Here is a shout out to Scott Wolfe; please, for the love of God get some acting lessons, you need them. Lastly, they totally changed some of the characters, left some out and made one specifically into an annoying as hell teenage boy. One of my favorite characters from the original series was Robin, the chick who got knocked up with the alien’s baby. Now she’s Logan, a horny teen boy who keeps staring at alien cleavage.

    When it comes down to it the new V show doesn’t work. Could it be because of the acting or the screenplay? Or maybe it’s something deeper; we don’t have the Cold War around any longer to make this new V seem as relevant as the old one did.

Bloofer Lady