V: The Series is so very bad.

[cheeseyfatmonkey]

I noticed that I have the series available to me through VOD and I'm currently up to episode 3.

I really enjoyed the original mini-series and The Final Battle was OK but the TV series seems to have taken a massive drop in quality.

All the same people seem to be involved so I was hoping that someone could shed some light on why it got so bad?

Diana is still hot though

 

[anti-matter]

I remember that...no desire to ever see it again.

 

[Hermiod]

^It's just a good example of what happens when you carry something on once you've run out of story to tell.

And yes, Diana was still hot.

 

[Shawnster]

They were competing against Dynasty and other night time soaps.

Mercifully the series was cut short. Such a waste and disappointment though.

 

[Gotham Central]

The series was simply too expensive to maintain. If you watch carefully, they cut lots of corners to try and make it work. The distinctive voice reverb was eliminated, which took away the last shred of the Visitor's "alieness." There were almost no new special effects shots. So many corners were cut that it just all fell apart.

 

[cheeseyfatmonkey]

The series was simply too expensive to maintain. If you watch carefully, they cut lots of corners to try and make it work. The distinctive voice reverb was eliminated, which took away the last shred of the Visitor's "alieness." There were almost no new special effects shots. So many corners were cut that it just all fell apart.

Just watching episode 4. It's the one where they have Donovan in their holographic chamber. Diana just ate a mouse, no unhinging of the jaw this time. I suppose that saved them a bit of cash.

 

[auntiehill]

They cut out a lot of the more interesting characters and spent too much time on the "starchild" crap. *shudder*

The writing for the show---who knows what went wrong there? Too many chefs in the kitchen? Too much network interference? It became painfully bad very quickly.

 

[cb31]

Yeah, the Starchild thing was really, really bad!

 

[Christopher]

All the same people seem to be involved so I was hoping that someone could shed some light on why it got so bad?

The same people were very much not involved. Kenneth Johnson created, wrote, and directed the original miniseries, and was initially involved with The Final Battle, but TFB was taken out of his hands early on and heavily rewritten. He had no involvement at all with the series. TFB had a few producers in common with the series, but only one credited writer.

 

[diankra]

Depending on whether it's costing you to watch it, and how much money you're willing to throw away if it is, you might want to stick with it until about eight episodes in (or skip ahead to that one).
At that point you reach the Christmas episode, Reflections in Terror, which is weak, but a lot better than most of the series up till that point. Then the next three (The Conversion, The Hero and The Betrayal) are an order of magnitude better, and well worth seeing.
After that, it all goes horribly wrong. Episodes so awful that Jack Bauer would refuse to use them as a way to torture a captured prisoner, because it would be too cruel.

 

[WillsBabe]

I never got into V myself. Enjoyed the miniseries, though. Thought that had a lot of good stuff in it. I know that V had a big cult fan following in the 80's, though. I do remember one episode where...

Spoiler: Donovan

they had Donovan in a room and told him that it was years later. (Am I remmbering that right?)

I remember enjoying that episode.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I never got into V myself. Enjoyed the miniseries, though. Thought that had a lot of good stuff in it. I know that V had a big cult fan following in the 80's, though. I do remember one episode where...

Spoiler: Donovan

they had Donovan in a room and told him that it was years later. (Am I remmbering that right?)

I remember enjoying that episode.

Yes, that did happen. Diana was attempting to trick Mike into revealing information about the Resistance Leadership's movements.

As for what went wrong. 1) Lack of money, as others have noted. 2) HORRIBLE time slot (against Dynasty and Falcon Crest, IIRC) 3) too many front office suits trying to "improve" the show.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

They cut out a lot of the more interesting characters and spent too much time on the "starchild" crap. *shudder*

Elizabeth. What a miscalculation. The Kenneth Johnson version of the character was so much more interesting than the character presented in The Final Battle and infinately more interesting than in the subsequent series.

I was extremely sorry they let the Ham Tyler character go. I mean they had such a Han Solo gone badass thing going on with Tyler and his classes with the more idealistic Donovan was always fun to watch. Unfortunately Ham went and took the series with him and they wasted screen time on Elizabeth and that piece of cardboard Kyle Bates.

Of the characters they kept they should have spent more time with Elias and Willie. In fact they should have kept Elias's dad, Caleb from the miniseries. And Sancho Gomez as well. In fact they shoulda kept Robert Maxwell and ditched both Elizabeth and Robin. And the Bernsteins too... Shit there were so many good characters from the minis that the series could have utilized... If only... If only...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Bastards killed off Martin.

 

[Leroy]

What I hated about V the series is that they kept killing off all their awesome characters like Martin. If they ever do another V I wouldn't mind it if they ignored everything after the mini.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

It sucked that they killed of Martin. But... the producers did realize that they made a really stupid move and they brought back the same actor to play the Martin's twin brother Phillip who essentially was Martin with a different name.

 

[Christopher]

If they ever do another V I wouldn't mind it if they ignored everything after the mini.

That's exactly what Kenneth Johnson did in his V: The Second Generation, a revival that he tried to get made as a movie but ended up publishing as a novel.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

If they ever do another V I wouldn't mind it if they ignored everything after the mini.

That's exactly what Kenneth Johnson did in his V: The Second Generation, a revival that he tried to get made as a movie but ended up publishing as a novel.

He still intends to shoot V:2G as a movie but first he has to get his motion picture remake of V produced. I wonder if the ABC reimagining of V will sink his movie.

 

[chardman]

Double Post

 

[chardman]

The first miniseries was astounding. The second miniseries was pretty so-so. The weekly series itself was little more than just another prime-time soap like Dallas or Falcon Crest, albeit with sci-fi trappings.

My friends and I called it "Dynasty with scales". The only real difference between Commander Diana and Alexis Carrington, is that Joan Collins refused to eat live rats on camera.