Alien invasion! More news at 10!
I’m sad to report that despite my initial optimism, V hasn’t turned out to be all that great. What I wanted to be at least a little campy has taken a turn toward the super-serious topical commentary, and that has both good and bad ramifications for the show.
On the plus side, the show is reaching for something that I always love in science fiction. It’s playing with fiction to throw issues about modern life into stark relief, transforming our fears about immigration and foreignness into a terror of literal aliens. I love that the show has zeroed in on news media, trying to play with the distinction between actual reporting and the impact one anchor’s agenda can have on public perception. 9/11 continues to loom large over everything, both in the V’s ship physically looming over Manhattan skyscrapers, as well as the vocal protests against the Vs by a widow whose husband died during their arrival. Protestors hoist signs outside the V headquarters. While the V leader Anna describes the importance of managing popular opinion, she proudly holds aloft her own newly-issued US passport. The issues and anxieties look exactly like our own world, but we have the pleasure of shifting our fears about ambiguous, possibly unfixable human concerns onto evil space reptiles. It’s super zeitgeisty, and I think that’s usually a good thing. (It’s so zeitgeisty, in fact, that someone asked Robert Gibbs at a press conference if he was aware that this new show V was being considered a possible criticism of the Obama administration).
They are watching you...they are watching you while you watch them...
The focus on serious commentary as opposed to camp, however, means that I expect more from the show than the current level of writing and acting seems able to meet. Many of the lines are clunky – “If you’re anything like me, this whole…this whole thing has made you feel…alone. Lost.” There’s little value placed on subtlety. In addition, allow me to take this opportunity to complain vociferously about the main character’s dopey-eyed teenage son Tyler. Truly, in the middle of global invasion, we’re focusing on the fact that this super stereotyped sack of hormones thinks one of the Vs is especially hot? It’s like diving into The Vampire Diaries every time he comes on screen. The problem isn’t just that the writing isn’t great, the problem also is that by aspiring to serious, socially relevant science fiction, V has set itself up against shows like Battlestar Galactica. Vs walk around the earth like Cylons, so that you can’t tell who’s human any more, and like Battlestar, the show has placed specific emphasis on the religious implications of the invasion. And at least at this point of its development, V pales in comparison. Battlestar was just so…thoughtful. V is like watching someone try to thread a needle with a fire hose.
Soon, V will go on a months-long hiatus, and return with a new showrunner. I’m interested enough to give it a chance, but dubious about its ability to improve.
Man, I miss Battlestar Galactica.