TVSquad

To prepare for next week's debut of the remake of V, I picked up the V: The Complete Series DVD of the weekly 1984/85 series that followed the original two mini-series, V and V: The Final Battle. I remember loving the original as a kid, sparking my imagination that anyone I saw could be an alien lizard making plans to haul my carcass to a warehouse for storage.

I tore the plastic off of the package with a bit of trepidation. Not everything you loved as a kid holds up to your scrutiny, or even your tastes, when you watch it all grown up. Which is why I'm sure some people cringed when they heard about the remake.

Would it stink? Would it be just as good as I remembered it? Should I have left well enough alone and saved my fifteen bucks?

Remember when the networks hardly did anything with their TV shows online? Heck, remember when we didn't even have official web sites and fan sites for our favorite shows? If we wanted to talk about, say, Knot's Landing, we had to open our windows and yell to our neighbors, "Can you believe Val did that last night?!" Either that or send a letter via mail, and that took days.

But now we have web sites for every show, and fans of ABC's remake of V have already put up a bunch of sites for that show (which premieres November 3 ):

The 4400 co-creator and producer Scott Peters is remaking the 1980's V miniseries for ABC. The article expressly states that the original creator, Kenneth Johnson, will not be involved.

I'm somewhat dreading this remake because Peters says he will pretty much revamp the human story to something completely different (although an alien invasion will probably still be involved). The theme of the new version will more be about having blind faith in leadership rather than being an allegory of the Nazi occupation of Germany.

It's entirely possible this new version would work. The current Battlestar Galactica is not very much like its predecessor and represents science fiction at its finest. The original V terrified the crap out of the much younger me. Then the network wussed out with the concept and tried to maximize profits by tacking on a happy-ending sequel miniseries and shortly-lived continuing series.

On the other hand, the revamped Flash Gordon was a pile of suck. Here's hoping V is better.