Television Review: V - the 2009 series

Well I just finished watching the new V television series on ABC. It does lead one to have several thoughts.

When I watch a sci-fi show, I generally keep an eye out for the 8 critical factors all good sci-fi must have. They are:

Originality

Obey Rules

Writing

Special effects

Plot

Acting

Visuals

Sound

When all of these elements exist and are done well you get Star Wars (episode 4), Star Trek (the original), Blade Runner, and Battlestar Galactica (the original) to name a few frfom movies and television. When they are not, you get Quark - exactly, no one even remembers the show.

The heavily revisioned V loses on originality. But it does ok on sound, visuals, acting and special effects. Just ok, not great or awesome. There is nothing impressive there. (though Morena Baccarin does look good as Anna)

As for obeying the rules, let me clarify. In every sci-fi film or movie, the beginning is critical. In the first 5 - 10 minutes almost every rule of the world or universe being displayed are provided. If there are lasers, if there are superheroes, if a person can control magnetisim or bounce bullets off their chest. The keys to all of what follows are set up immediately, and can only be added on in that context. The Alien vs. Predator movies come to mind as examples of what happens when the rules get broken. You get a crap product.

In this revisioned V series, the rules are still not clear. The aliens have interstellar travel capabilities, look human, are reptillian. They have superior technology and a massive amount of information about Earth. And that's about all we know.

The writing, as well as the plot, is stiff. It all sounds pretty close to right, but not quite. It's almost what you might expect people to say, but not really. Of course that could just be because this is the pilot episode so the creative juices and character development has yet to take place.

The biggest problem I have is with the plot. It jumps all over the place. It skips past vital information. It is obvious in its path and observation. It's slow paced to the point of boredom. It is unengaging, unless you compare it to American Idol - but watching paint dry could be compared in the same way.

Plus there are problems. Lots of them. Some becuase I am old enough to have seen the original, some just intrinsic to this version.

We see that the entire program has been feminized. Which clues us in right from the start that this will be a PC program. Get ready for the political messages as entertainment.

As I guessed all the male characters have major issues. All the women characters assuming all the roles of position and power, which is not a bad thing persay except in the original both sexes had power and position for the good and ill of humanity. It's a subtle message, but a political one all the same.

The men are flawed even when we don't see them. The father and ex-husband of FBI agent Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) has abandoned his kid. He is so insensitive that he doesn't even speak with his child when the world changes.

Agent Evans is the overworked, dedicated, mother/father, of a teen that just wants to rebel. You just have to feel for her troubles, don't you? I didn't.

But they are 2 examples of what the show sets up as the dominant theme. Men are weak, women will save them and the world. Aren't we lucky, because being equals just won't cut it.

But we skip from that to a terrorist cell. A group that increases chatter as everyone else is caught off guard as the aliens arrive. Not that anyone panics with 29 (down from 50 - some places in the world just don't count as much as they did 20 years ago) alien ships in the sky. Not that any of the religious fanatics might go bezerk with this new question directly facing them.

But before we get far we already know that Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut) has a secret. And we are pretty sure that he is a terrorist, likely an alien as well. They telegraphed that punch, like all of them in the show, from about 3 miles out.

Just as fast we get to see that the media is exactly the sleazy ratings whores that many presume them to be. And we get to see that in yet another sex change from the original.

It just does downhill from there. The jewish family from the original - gone as expected. The connection to Nazi's gone. The V itself is now a positive propoganda symbol instead of a resistance sign. The sympathizer boy remains the same though, even as his future love interest is sex changed, and his charcter is combined with the role of the girl that was too dumb to appreciate what she was doing.

I was wrong on one critical thing though. There is diversity in this television show. It doesn't rise to the level of the 1980's but it is better than average for 2009. We have A Black man and A Hispanic woman. We even get to see AN Asian woman. Ocassionally we get to see a few people of color in the background, because this is NYC after all. So I did get that much wrong and I am glad they did get it right (in as weak a version as they did).

Still this show pales in comparision to the original. It has gaps in logic, like if the conspiracy group is so smart, why didn't they check out Nichols? How in the hell did they find this out, and why didn't they spread the word sooner? How do they know ALL the plans of the aliens from day one? Why didn't they have a plan in place for when this happened?

2 things that I did find interesting were:

They slipped in universal healthcare. Except the implication (likely unintended) is that it is a means of gathering sheep that wish to be lead - even to the slaughter.

The fact that those in power can command and pervert the media with such ease. The compromising of Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) seems so much like the way the Obama Administration cuckholded MSNBC. Again I'm sure that was not the intended thought, but there it was.

Overall this television series looks to be worse than I had imagined in my preview. It waters down the sci-fi, and the political grandness of the original, to a meaningless and bland waste of time. It supplants PC themes for plot and motives. It berates and lectures at the audience in a quiet and Hollywood-esque manner.

This show won't make it one season I think. It would have to make dramatic and sweeping changes just to make me watch one more episode. This isn't groundbreaking, sci-fi, or even entertaining. It's the result of of a bunch of Hollywood execs trying to save cash and reusing a great idea in a horrible way.

The only way I can see anyone recommending this program is if the only other option is watching any reality television program, or because your television is stuch on ABC and can't be turned off. Or they were paid a big salary.

Television preview: V (2009)

In yet another in the long line of revisioned entertainment, ABC will be reworking a true classic. V was one of the big mini-series of the 80's. It was a hit, with great writing decent effects and better than average acting. Now it will become likely something far less.

Hollywood has sometime ago abandonded any pretense at trying to create anything new. Movies have rehashed even the least interesting of television shows, and even some of the more obscure comic books. So it is no surprise that television would follow in this trend. At least it's not yet another "reality" program.

V is basically a story of aliens that come to Earth. They appear as good guys, they help us with issues ranging from disease to feeding the world. They do all this just out of the goodness of their hearts. And billions of people, plus their Governments, fall in line to almost worship there aliens. Plus they look just like us!

Then we learn that all is not as shiny and gold as it appears. The aliens have sinister plans. They have the book, How To Serve Man. Thus a small group try to fight to remove the aliens.

How all of this will be played out on ABC today is another question. Likely there will be massive changes. The original had huge references to the growth of the Nazi Party. They hit upon issues like natural resources, freedom, and quality of life. I doubt any of that will be in the revisioned remake.

The first clue to what may happen is the fact that this seems to be planned as a television series. So it will not hold the same punch as the original episodes did. Add to that the fact that many of the main characters have been changed (like the lead becoming a single woman with a child instead of a man and a child). Plus the nature of the media to spin political rhetoric is far more abundant today than then, so be prepared to see a flood of pro-liberal imagery.

Early reviews state

"E! Online rated the pilot episode "on a scale of 1 to 10, we give it an 11. V is the best pilot we've seen in, well, forever." The website Seat42F rated the pilot episode A+, applauding its cast and effects and naming it one of the best pilots in years. USA Today's Robert Bianco named V on his list of the top ten new shows, stating that the remake is well-made and "quickly establishes its own identity."

Pretty good reviews for a remake. Which means either the reviewers are like many watching tv now, and never saw the original or television has gotten so bad that anything above mundane is exceptional. I tend to believe both will be accurate.

The cast will include:

• Elizabeth Mitchell as Erica Evans
• Morris Chestnut as Ryan Nichols
• Joel Gretsch as Father Jack Landry
• Lourdes Benedicto as Valerie Stevens
• Logan Huffman as Tyler Evans
• Morena Baccarin as Anna, the leader of the Visitors
• Laura Vandervoort as Lisa, a Visitor
• Scott Wolf as Chad Decker, a reporter

Chestnut and Wolf are probably the best know of the whole cast. So who knows if the acting will be good.

Overall I find revisioned television shows, and movies, to generally be inferior to the originals they copy. Writers generally change the best aspects of the original and destroy the intent. Directors focus on trivial or far less interesting aspects of the original. And it's really bad news when a director, with the writers, decide that they found a way to improve on the original (ie. Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch, Battlestar Galactica, ect).

Will V become a sensation? Can it provide the impact and drama that caused the original to be a massive hit? Will even I be interested enough to watch broadcast television again?

Probably not. But the premiere might be worth watching. For those that never saw the original it will likely be fantastic, for those that have boredom may ensue. I'd like to be wrong, but I doubt it. Odds are 3 - 1 that it does not get renewed.

Blame It - Jamie Foxx's new music video

No matter what you may think of the skills of Jamie Foxx as a singer, you have to give him credit. The man is big enough from his acting career that he is able to pull out the stops. His latest album features the song Blame It - the video of which puts many entertainers to shame.

The music video is a collection of some of the top entertainers of the past several decades. Ron Howard, Morris Chestnut, Jake Gyllenhaal, Samuel Jackson, Quincy Jones, Forest Whitaker, among several other stars all appear prominently in the video. Oh, there is also T-Pain, who sings on the track. There are enough stars in this one music video to start an awards show.

But having the power to attract big names for a music video does not mean that the song itself is good. Luckily Foxx can sing. Which elevates the song. It has a message which unlike contemporary songs is not overly graphic or over the top with sexual lyrics (though it's not a choir boy song either). That is up until T-Pain starts his part. Then it gets far more graphically explicit.

The title gives you a pretty good idea where the song is going anyway so there are no real surprises. Still the video avoids the mostly naked, butt gyrating theme most videos of this lyrical nature would inspire. A bit of class never hurts, and can be among the reasons so many stars agreed to be available.

The beat is smooth and reminiscent of older R&B, nothing hits you to glaringly - except for the dramatic shift during T-Pain's section. Then again, that's what T-Pain is on the song for. While this may not be the top selling song of the year, I can see how this can do well in a club on Saturday night. I have no doubt it will get people on the dance floor, and massive airtime on the radio. There is just one riff - the stuttering of the word alcohol - that just irks me. But that is a personal irritation, which many may not even notice.

The 2 things that I left the video with are: Who is the Panda? Yes there is a person with a panda head dancing in the video - how often do you get to see that? And if I read it right, the little sister of Jamie Foxx was just introduced to the world in this video as one of the featured dancers of the video. Which I though was a sweet thing to do.

Upcoming movies for 2008 holiday season and 2009

Now that the election is over, and while we are still learning how our money is being spent in ways we never considered (thank you Paulson), the need for a distraction is eminent. This holiday season, as unemployment rises and stock market hopes fall, we all need to get away. Escaping to a vacation that we all can afford. A good movie.

The big question though is if Hollywood has anything to offer us. In recent years the obsession of Hollywood in electing a liberal a President as possible consumed the silver screen. Millions of dollars and huge amounts of time were wasted on political statements that were poorly written, and wouldn’t be worth watching if they were on broadcast television with American Idol and Dancing with the Stars on before and afterwards.

To put it bluntly, if you’ve seen more than 3 movies in a theater this year you wasted money and left thinking that you were once smarter than after the movie experience. But can Christmas bring us all what we have been wishing for, entertainment?

Well the answer is yes and no. There are a couple of movies that might compel you to leave the comfort of your own home. Of course these movies are surrounded by crap that you are probably seeing trailers for right now.

Let’s start with what may be worth your groceries for a day or 2.

Seven Pounds


Will Smith is on a roll (like he stopped). You watch this trailer and you get a couple of thoughts. Why is he doing this? What is the secret? Will this be uplifting? I don’t know the answers but I am very sure of the ability of this actor to make it worth the time for find out. This movie will make money, but more importantly it will entertain you. It will let you share an emotional response with everyone in the theater, and that’s why we see movies.

Transporter 3


Jason Statham tends to always deliver. He is the man of action films these days, and with good reason. His characters tend to be intelligent, the plots tend to make some kind of sense, and the action is not filled with CGI or stunt doubles. Generally the more sequels you have the worse the movies get, but the Transporter series has done well to date. This should easily be worth the price of admission, because he can drive!

Valkyrie


Tom Cruise has finally gotten this movie ready for theaters. I mentioned this earlier when this was planned for the summer. I’m looking forward to the film. But I must admit that with reflection, and seeing additional trailers I have one problem. Cruise. He seems to boyishly happy and young to be a Nazi Colonel that is going to try to kill Hitler. While it’s a true story, I would expect the look of the real schemers to be a tad bit grim. But I will see if all the brightness in the film hinders or benefits the plot.

My Name is Bruce


Ok, I admit I am a Bruce Campbell fan. I just love his movies (and television shows most don’t recall). He is funny. So this film sending up his celebrity and still focusing on what made him famous is spot on. The trailer got me chuckling. Will I see it, yep. Will it win an Oscar, nope. Will it be entertaining? More likely than not. Bruce Campbell may not be Will Smith (on many levels) but one thing they both do well is pick movies that they can excel in. Now where is that boomstick?

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans


I thought this movie had been made a while ago (like Vin Diesel’s Chronicles of Riddick – which supposedly has the 3rd film done years ago) so I’m not surprised it’s coming out. The first film was well worth the price of admission. The second not as much. But redemption seems at hand. This 3rd film is more of a prequel though. And a good thing too, because I really wanted to see more of the Lycan-Vampire war. Mythical creatures, medieval setting, swords, warfare on massive scale. Yep this should be good. And I like the lead actors too! Bonus.

Not Easily Broken


Morris Chestnut is definitely the go to guy in Black films. He has done very well in taking roles that are uplifting, and afrocentric. This is another of those films. I like this personally because, besides the quality acting and plot, it is an example that being African American does not mean being in a pigeonhole of stereotypes the media loves to display us as. This will actually be out in January 2009 (in time for the inauguration – how interesting), so thankfully it will give the Black community a choice besides seeing Notorious – which I do not recommend.