V

The pilot for this drama is good. I have a few quibbles with it--some of the character drama is a bit clunky--but overall, I found the first hour of the show to be solidly entertaining and suitably suspenseful.

the new V begins with an entertaining, well-made pilot that tweaks aspects of the original story but generally retains many of the show's familiar elements.

V doesn't have an original premise - the humans versus aliens thing is as old as moving pictures. But the special effects are better, and if ABC can get you to buy into the storytelling then it might have another genre hit on its hands.

The visitors return for their second season on ABC Tuesday night and alas, they still aren't quite as fascinating as you want them to be.

Indeed, if the show is to have the symbolic import that we expect from a science-fiction story, this is the only possible way to read V as a coherent text. The only problem with this analysis lies in its generous presupposition that the text is, in fact, coherent.

There's no surprise to this, just a sense of resignation that such a hokey climax is the way these shows are supposed to work. Which doesn't make V a terrible show, just a terribly ordinary one.

The groan-worthy dialogue, usually spoken in a monotone by alien and human alike, is rarely credible and lacks the kind of self-aware irony that might make this enjoyable.