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Why the creators are still tweaking ABC's new V series
Fans who viewed the pilot of ABC's upcoming reboot of the alien-invasion series V at San Diego Comic-Con may not have seen the final version (spoilers ahead!).
Executive producer and writer Scott Peters said that he is still tweaking the first episode, particularly a fight scene between visitors and human resistance near the end of the hour.
"We're doing a little bit of reshooting for the fight, because we feel like we want to make the visitors even more formidable and even more awesome," Peters said in a group interview last month at Comic-Con in San Diego.
Like the original 1983 miniseries, the new show deals with the arrival of alien Visitors who promise advanced technology in exchange for water and minerals. But as viewers of the original miniseries know, the Visitors turn out to be something more sinister.
Peters (The 4400) said that the new show sets up a bit more backstory for the aliens' presence, requiring the final fight in the pilot to be more extreme. "The original intent was that they would come in with silent weaponry," Peters said. "They wouldn't be [here] with guns, and they wouldn't be with lasers, because if they ever got captured or anything happened, they didn't want a piece of alien technology laying around. They also didn't want to draw attention. So they're very adept at hand-to-hand combat, which all makes logical sense. The feeling was it lessened their ability to seem as formidable as they are. So we're going to be adjusting that a little bit."
The fight scene as it was initially shot shows humans doing their best to brawl the alien visitors, who can jump higher and move faster, thanks to wirework. Peters wants to give visitors additional weaponry to make them even deadlier.
"We actually do want to introduce a tiny little bit of Visitor tech that comes in," Peters continued. "What we're determined to do is introduce a little bit, a new piece of alien tech, Visitor tech, try to do it every episode. Certainly try to give a little bit of culture, peel back the onion of what their mandate is, what's really behind it, what's really going on, and just see the political stuff that goes on aboard the ship, just like we have political stuff underneath the ship."
But Peters doesn't want to turn the show into a "battle of the week." "Oh, we're not going to shy away from an action element, by any means," Peters said. "It's just not going to be the driving force of the show. It kind of becomes a little less interesting to us. To us, the characters drive the show. Yes, it's set against this huge science fiction backdrop, but I can watch spaceships for a couple of minutes and be, 'Yeah, it's cool. Now what have you got?' I can watch an action sequence for a couple of minutes and go, 'That's great. Now what have you got?' Characters have to be the thing that drive the show and that you really invest in, and when you do have the action sequences and you do come to the new technology, it's just icing on the cake. It's super cool."
The characters include FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch), the investigator and the skeptical priest who discover the resistance in the first episode. "It'll take a little time [for the resistance] to grow, but Georgie [David Richmond-Peck] will certainly be back, and certainly we introduce some new folks along the way," Peters said. "But, yes, Elizabeth and Joel are not going to be the only ones fighting the war."
Erica will face an additional challenge dealing with her teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman), who finds himself recruited by the Visitors, or "Vs." "That's exactly going to be her issue," Peters said. "'If I had a hard time fixing it before, how the hell am I going to fix it now?'"
Tyler is tempted by Visitor recruiter Lisa, played by Smallville's Laura Vandervoort. "You will absolutely be seeing more of Laura Vandervoort," Peters said. "She was wonderful. She's joined the cast as a series regular, and you can expect to see a lot more with Tyler as things move forward. She has a couple interesting things up her sleeve as well."
Getting back up to the spaceship also adds a little pizzazz to the weekly political and religious metaphors. "That's also a mandate of ours for ourselves," Peters said. "Yes, it's mostly an earthbound show, but we love the candy of going up and seeing the inside of this place."
Meanwhile, Father Jack is dealing with religious implications of alien visitors. If the visitors can cure our diseases and provide technological answers, why would people turn to God?
"He's sort of in the business of asking people to devote themselves to his religion," Peters said. "This is a guy who used to step outside, look up at the sky, where in his mind God would be, and now there's a spaceship in the way."
Another aspect of V deals with the media. Anna (Morena Baccarin) opens up to a journalist, Chad Decker (Scott Wolf), giving him exclusive access. That is, of course, as long as he asks only the questions she wants him to.
"Chad is stuck," Peters said. "He's a guy who was plucked out of obscurity. She didn't pick Tom Brokaw to do it. She picked a guy who wouldn't get up and leave. So she's pretty good at manipulating folks."
The pilot also leaves the fate of Erica's FBI partner, Dale Maddox (Dollhouse's Alan Tudyk), up in the air. Peters only hinted about plans to bring him into the fold. "That's a hard question, because I don't want to give anything away," Peters said. "We love Alan. Clearly the audience loves Alan, and it would be awesome to find ways to maybe see him again somehow."
V premieres in November.
By kyall at 9:01 AM ON 08/03/09
Wait.......
WTF?! November?!
:O GASP!! What timeslot?!
By J at 9:06 AM ON 08/03/09
I do hope they are taking a second look at the original premise of the eighties series and sort out a couple of things. Notably, the water. Aliens whose technology includes interstella travel should be aware that water is made up of two of abundant elements in the universe - oxygen and hydrogen - so they can easily make their own without stealing ours.
Also, the eighties series, although fondly remembered, delivered its allegory with a sledge hammer. I hope the writing team can be a little more subtle about things in the remake.
By Kikstad at 9:10 AM ON 08/03/09
Just make it good, that's all I ask. And make the lizards look awesome and not cheesy.
By mcm at 10:01 AM ON 08/03/09
I hope they don't use the humans as a food source theme again. That was almost as ridiculous as the water theft. I loved the orig. show, it just needs more depth. Maybe something more sinister like the David Gerrold book "A MATTER FOR MEN."
By jcf at 10:30 AM ON 08/03/09
As I recall from the original, the "humans as food" was really a foot note. The majority of humans taken were to be slaves and cannon fodder in the Visitors' war against their unseen "Enemy"
By Vorlon1 at 11:38 AM ON 08/03/09
With all due respect the humans as slaves and cannon fodder WAS the secondary reason for harvesting humans. Watch the original mini-series again. Our water supply was a HUGE issue---and only the humans deemed not consumable were turned into slaves and cannon fodder.
If they keep the original intent alive (including the Visitors version of a Fifth Column) and tie in the original mini-series it should be awesome.
By kryche at 11:50 AM ON 08/03/09
If they can come even close to doing to this show what RDM and the rest of the folks behind BSG did to that franchise, then color me intrigued.
I enjoyed the mini series as a kid, but I also enjoyed BSG as a kid, looking back at both now though is painful and I wonder what I ever saw in them.
By Muldfeld at 12:11 PM ON 08/03/09
kryche, they won't for 2 reasons.
1) It's on ABC and that channel doesn't like political commentary of any kind. Have you seen its massive decline in news quality. Heck they replaced the respectable Ted Koppel with that tabloid journalist who humiliated Michael Jackson, Martin Bashir. ABC is owned by Disney and is doing everything possible not to offend what they see as Middle America, which means to only air escapist nonsense that doesn't rock the establishment.
2) Scott Peters is at the helm. "The 4400" Seasons 3 and 4 was the closest to BSG in terms of its exploration of political themes and moral ambiguity, but that was because of Ira Steven Behr, who worked with Moore on DS9. Behr was actually censored from doing his utmost by USA, but he still did great work with a tiny budget.
However, what did Scott Peters -- whose Season 1 episodes had to be completely rewritten by Behr, Craig Sweeny, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and whose Season 2 episode sucked -- do after the show ended and he'd become nothing more than a director? He started criticizing the direction of the show because that's what supposedly cost the show viewers. To him a show is only as good as its popularity, obviously -- just as I'm sure J.J. Abrams thinks. If you watch the special features of the Season 4 DVD set, it's really obvious that Peters hates the writing staff. He never compliments them and actually goes out of his way to criticize the script. He totally avoids mentioning obvious cameos by Ira Behr and Craig Sweeny in his commentary of the finale. I get the sense he even fasttracked production of a DVD for a cancelled series needlessly just to avoid Ira Behr putting down any commentary tracks because there was a writers' strike going on, when this thing was made, so Behr couldn't participate. It's disgusting, especially since these guys took Peters' lame X-Files ripoff of an idea and turned it into something more reflective of our world and far more innovative and interesting.
If "V" fails, Peters will do the same to the new head writer Jeff Bell, who did great work on "Angel", but who doesn't strike me as very political. Already, you can see that the show is about evil bad guys who try to take over the world. Wow. Already seen it in nearly every production by Hollywood. I want something deeper, and I'm guessing you do, too.
By Nick at 2:40 PM ON 08/03/09
More proof if needed that this really is gonna be crap.
By Simon Baylor at 3:35 PM ON 08/03/09
Should last about one season, if at all.
By ray e at 8:22 PM ON 08/03/09
i would love to see it do good because morena baccarin is so hot
By Simon Baylor at 9:29 PM ON 08/03/09
What will prevent this show from succeeding is numbers. Science fiction shows on the Big 4 networks just don't have a good track record. Its possible that the V pilot may pull in decent numbers for the premier but it won't hold on to them and one thing we do know about the traditional 4 networks they want huge numbers or the show doesn't stay. Look at the shows like Babylon 5 or BSG if they had been on any of the other networks neither would have survived.
By ray e at 9:31 PM ON 08/03/09
good point simon
its a shame people would rather watch reality shows like survivor
By Simon Baylor at 9:57 PM ON 08/03/09
Television Science Fiction has come a long way ,Its achieved critical acclaim form the mainstream, but the problem is it still play to a relatively smaller audience then the traditional dramas. There is still a large percentage of the audience, that still sees sci if as not something to be taken seriously. If you look at science fiction shows that did have long runs on tv, they tended to be due to to the fact that they were on cable , like the Syfy Channel or syndication hence niche audience. At least that's my take on all of this.
By Nick at 4:24 AM ON 08/04/09
I quite like the rare photo of the new V being created that's on the V files forums, under the heading why the creators are still..., it's on the second page....
By joesocwork at 8:30 PM ON 08/04/09
I love serious science fiction as much as any fan here. But I'm definitely intrigued by the picture of Morena Baccarin resembling Audrey Hepburn and Audrey Tautou! :D
By bassethamlet at 10:00 PM ON 08/04/09
I hope the show doesn't have the lizards eating people. It ruined any motivation a person may have had for siding with them.
By MCP-001 at 11:56 AM ON 08/05/09
Sorry, but I fail to see the constant need to remake everything?
Is Hollywood experiencing such a major problem with the caliber of writers to come up with new ideas for programming, that they must ""remake" established properties?
I'm finding that very hard to believe.
By Nick at 2:44 PM ON 08/05/09
It's easier somehow to bastardise someone else's idea than come up with something new apparently..........
They should have left V alone, Ken Johnson has plans in motion, this new version pulled the rug from under him and showed just how disrespectful,desperate and rude hollywood is now, and how willing they are to screw anyone over for a quick buck
By rstar0909 at 10:21 PM ON 08/07/09
If anyone remembers the 80 series, the visitors were very incompetent suppressing the human population or fighting the resistance. The visitor commanders were so dumb that Diana would execute them every episode.
The writers of the new series should look at military tactics in population controls from history: the Romans, the British, the Revolutionary Iraqi Guard under Saddam Hussein. The visitors in the new series should appear to be an unstoppable force both militarily, technologically and intellectually.
The actress playing Diana in the new series has to fill very big boots. I can't remember who the actress is that played the 80s Diana but I think she portrayed a ruthless combination of Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin.
By Quantum at 3:58 PM ON 08/10/09
Btw space ships that travel among the stars don't use Jet engines. I saw shuttle like space craft with Jet engines in the promo. OMG
Please, use you imagination for once! Think anti gravity drives, mind control, quantum physics! Not the run of the mill Star Wars and StarTrek crap.
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Quantum:
Btw space ships that travel among the stars don't use Jet engines. I saw shuttle like space craft with Jet engines ...More »