Unwelcome Visit

So I've now seen a couple episodes of the reboot/remake/do-over/whatever V, ABC's new version of the 1980s lizard-aliens-invade-the-earth show.

I'd speculated that this might be ABC jumping on the cheesy-show remake bandwagon, trying to catch the Battlestar Galactica lightning in a bottle.

Like that remake, V boasts some very updated and pretty-impressive-for-TV special effects. The story of the new show models on the older one, but doesn't follow it exactly, again like the BSG reboot.

It also boasts some ideas that seem lifted straight out of that reboot, too. While the Visitors are still lizard aliens masquerading as humans (and again, some of them -- particularly the females -- seem awfully mammalian to be reptiles), we now see that they've had disguised Visitors on Earth for some time, hiding in plain sight by wearing cloned human skin. Anyone could be a Cylon -- I mean, a Visitor! We have no way of knowing! We also see, at the end of the second episode, the previously dead lizard-in-FBI-agent-disguise played by Alan Tudyk wake up, no longer dead, a la the downloaded and eternally resurrecting Cylons androids of BSG. Heck, we've even got one of the BSG people on the cast, as Rekha Sharma goes from playing deep-cover Cylon Tory Foster to playing potentially troublesome FBI agent Sarita Malik.

Fellow Firefly alum Morena Baccarin joins Tudyk, playing Anna, the commander of the Visitor contingent. Stars of Lost, The 4400 and other well-known shows and cult favorites dot the credits.

But it seems as though the showrunners paid more attention to casting than they did to writing their show. The reveal of the Visitors' less-than-benign intentions happens way too early, with little or no buildup. The script includes laughable moments like New Yorkers greeting a peace message broadcast from the underside of a gigantic spaceship hovering over their city with spontaneous applause. Spontaneous middle fingers, maybe, along with a few "Hey, yer blocking the bleepin' sun, ya moron!" The characters are stock, from a single-mom FBI gal to a priest conflicted between faith and modernity. It's shabbily, poorly done, with the hints of very interesting possibilities within only adding to viewer frustration.

And the stunt-casting really only serves to remind people of all the good sci-fi on television that's not happening now. Baccarin and Tudyk highlight the undeserved and all-too-early cancellation of the far superior Firefly. Joel Gretsch reminds The 4400 fans that their show died because of a chintzy network and the writers' strike, leaving them hanging from an unresolved narrative cliff.

Redemption is still possible. As long as the showrunners stay away from the terminally stupid things the original series did, like Willie the lovable nerd V, and duplicate the original's correct moves (like casting Original Bada** Michael Ironside), there's a chance. About as slim as the survival hopes of a guinea pig onboard a Visitor ship, but a chance nonetheless...