Watch the premiere of V to see if I like it

I absolutely loved the original V miniseries, sequel and tv series. I even loved the comic book that came out and have all the issues. I imagined fighting alongside the resistance against the Visitors, though I’m sure I probably would’ve been killed while doing it.

I watched the new show tonight and thought they did a good job with the material. There definitely wasn’t a surprise reveal in this show like there was in the original when Diana (Jane Balder) ate a guinea pig revealing the secret that the Visitors were reptilian. Then again in this day and age of the internet I don’t believe any secret of that nature can remain secret. Besides since it’s a reenvisioning, they cut out a lot of that drama because they assume we already know it.

SPOILERS:
In this series the Visitors adopt the term and use of V originally instead of it being the resistance fighters doing it. The Visitors say they are here for water, which was part of their secret mission in the original when they claimed they were here for chemical waste. In this series the leader of the Visitors is a woman instead of a man. There’s also fewer alien ships than in the original.

Things I liked were the inclusion of Elizabeth Mitchell’s Erica Evans as an FBI agent who was hunting a terrorist cell that turns out to be Visitors. I also liked the inclusion of Joel Gretsch’s Father Jack Landry as a priest since the original took a more scientific approach and less religious. (The original targetted scientists as traitors and rebels, though there was reference to the Holocaust and the Nazis thanks to Leonard Cimino’s Abraham Bernstein.) I liked the reveal of the aliens among us and how some have already defected like Morris Chestnut’s Ryan Nichols. I also liked how they played on Scott Wolf’s anchorman Chad Decker and his wanting to be a true journalist with ethics.

I didn’t really care for turning the equivalent of David Packer’s Daniel Bernstein character into a problem child in Logan Huffman’s Tyler Evans. There doesn’t seem to be a Robin Maxwell type character to impregnate so will they be having Tyler impregnate Visitor Lisa instead? (Actress Laura Vandervoort who plays Lisa has experience playing an alien since she was Kara Zor-El on Smallville.) Morena Baccarin as Anna is no Jane Badler as Diana. I’m not liking her sickly nice portrayal, but that’s probably more the writing than a comment on her performance. (On the other hand I’m glad there’s no Robert Englund Willie character.)

I’ll definitely be watching this series, but it doesn’t really have the same appeal for me as the original did back 26 years ago.