V – The Series: What went wrong?

For the mid 80s, V the Series was innovative and daring. While the two very successful mini-series were just that – a mini-series telling a contiguous story in 3 or 4 episodes, they attempted to translate that type of series into an ongoing show. Modelling it after some of the more success soap opera at night like Dallas, they attempted to tell a vaguely serialized story without being actually serialized like today’s TV. It was way ahead of it’s time and unfortunately suffered from lack of vision and decent writing that worked for the semi-serialized format they were attempting.

I have spent some recent time sitting down and watching it and while I am no expert in writing for TV series, I am a huge fan of the original mini-series and a fan that was HIGHLY disappointed in the series. Here is a few notes on where I felt they went wrong. This may be a little knit-picky but I feel if they did better in these areas, it would have been a much more appreciated show.

Technological Consistency

The Visitor tech was said to be 300 years in advance of ours but it was easy to break and never really consistent.

For example: It’s not until like episode 14 that we learn that the mothership has laser cannons, but through out the show, Diana and her goons seem to have the resistance on their scanners. Use the cannons then!! The laser cannons on the mothership should have always been a constant threat while in LA. They should not make that a thrown in aspect late in the show. While the Resistance was moving throughout LA, the mothership laser cannons needed to be something they always considered, along with fighter and ground patrols.

And the way they were disabled in Episode 13 was just plane stupid. Just grab a couple of crystals out of this one unguarded room? seriously. That tells me they had no real sci-fi writers on that episode. Add more intelligence to the show! You don’t need to make it overly cerebral to add intelligent.

In the episode where Elias dies – e11 The Hero – the Disintegrator – where did that come from and why didn’t they have it before. Again, this was just the 80s mentality of the new alien tech threat of the week but that is such a crutch. If you establish a fixed tech bible that had all these things in it, and built stories around these as axioms, not one-off episodes (much like Stargate), I think more consistent story would emerge.

Along the same lines, I liked that they used the Crivit couple of times, but more back story would have been nice. A whole story arch about the Visitors introducing creatures into our own biosphere and messing it up could have been a thing. If you are going to be a sci-fi version of Dallas, you need to have some real science considerations in the show.

In the end, I wasn’t really upset of the re-use of the mini-series special effects as long as the story was good. And in the first half of the series, it really was pretty good. But after the end of the year break, the floundered and it went no-where.

Keep The Casablanca feel

I enjoyed the détente that the Visitors established with the city of LA but it would make more sense of more of the government, and perhaps the local military was involved. I think focusing in on collaborators and converted would create a deeper intrigue. Real consideration of the aftermath of the mini-series really needed to be considered. Not just the red dust (which I felt they properly dealt with) but weeding out the Converted and any collaborators in high positions. Representing LA by a single corporation and a single guy was short sighted and unrealistic (and an obvious plot device due to budgeting. I think there was more to deal with on Earth than Diana plot of the week.

I think the destruction of the Club Creole was a budgetary thing to cut down on the cast, and I don’t mind moving the resistance from place to place, but that location was not exploited enough in the story. Just look at Casablanca to get idea on how to truly use it. Deep Space Nine has it’s own bar and restaurant where a variety of people filtered through. It needed to be more, giving Elias (my favorite character) more to do.

The Dissident (ep 8)

This was a HUGELY missed opportunity in storyline. Initially I was bothered that ONE GUY was apparently responsible for the Visitors technology but if we have to have that as a thing, then why not exploit that a little more. They were going for an Einstein type character who apparently created technology that the Visitors exploited for their own good. There could have been more background to this character. Maybe he wasn’t actually a Visitor. Maybe he was the last member of an advanced race that the Visitors encountered during their more peaceful and religiously awakened days. Seeing them as an enlightened species at first, this benevolent alien gives them the tech to advance further in hopes they would use it for peace. Unfortunately, no one saw the Great Leader rise to power and the totalitarian society that rose out of him. This gives the Visitors further depth and starts the world building they badly needed.

The Visitor Voice

The Visitors in the mini-series had a reverberation that caused an issue when people put on the uniforms to infiltrate their ranks. This was thrown out with the series because I guess they did not see any point in it. However, it did add some interesting challenges in the mini-series that I wish they had kept. There were several moments in the series that bothered me because if they had kept the voice thing, the plot would not have worked.

It would not have bothered me so much if they had not made such a big deal about it in the mini-series. If they had to get rid of it. then they could have made a hole plotline about how the Visitors voices changed over time while on Earth. Another science plot that could build on the evolution of the Visitors. New Visitors would initially have the Voice issue but it would slowly fade.

The Skin

The whole skin thing needed to be more than just a means to not have a high make up budget. Is it more than a disguise? Is it biological or synthetic? In one episode, they brought back Martin’s actor as his brother and of course, they look exactly alike. Why? They never really take advantage of the fact that a Visitor could have any skin they wanted, creating a “body snatcher” type scenario.

Why did some feel the need to continue to wear the skin while others did not? Again, I realize that it would be too expensive to have lizards all through out the show, but give me a good story reason for it. This was a lost opportunity to expand on the Visitors again. They needed to show us the technology they used to encase their bodies in human-like skin. They did show them repairing it but the skin was simply treated as a general plot device and not something that could drive a story.

Maybe it is a religious thing? Maybe it is a protective thing against our sun (like the glasses). Or are they born with it (this is implied when Martin’s brother first arrives)? Maybe these Visitors have been genetically engineered for Earth and it’s take over and part of the engineering is the skin. There was implication that the skins had identifiable fingerprints, implying they are unique to each individual, so perhaps they were grown for the individual.

Killing Characters

Much has been said about random killing off of many beloved characters – Martin and Elias, to name a couple – and I am not one to complain about it given modern shows seem to do it so often now. However, these were key characters in the mini-series and they were so random and unexpected that it was obvious that it was more about budget cutting then story. If you are going to kill main characters, pull in new ones (like The Walking Dead often did) first and give us a chance to like them before you kill a new one. The way they did it, it just left a hole and made the show even weaker.

Partially Serialized

There are multiple story-arches that spanned episodes but then there were others that did not. I am pretty sure the showrunners weren’t sure the order the episodes were going to play. There was one where the character Kyle was introduced in a prison camp and Ham Tyler interacted with him at one point. A few more episodes later, Kyle meets the resistance and Ham acts like it’s the first time they met. Consistency in this area too would have been better.