Why the creators are still tweaking ABC's new V series

Monday, August 3, 2009

Why the creators are still tweaking ABC's new V series

Fans who viewed the pilot of ABC's upcoming reboot of the alien-invasion series V at San Diego Comic-Con may not have seen the final version (spoilers ahead!).

Executive producer and writer Scott Peters said that he is still tweaking the first episode, particularly a fight scene between visitors and human resistance near the end of the hour.

We're doing a little bit of reshooting for the fight, because we feel like we want to make the visitors even more formidable and even more awesome," Peters said in a group interview last month at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Like the original 1983 miniseries, the new show deals with the arrival of alien Visitors who promise advanced technology in exchange for water and minerals. But as viewers of the original miniseries know, the Visitors turn out to be something more sinister.
Peters (The 4400) said that the new show sets up a bit more backstory for the aliens' presence, requiring the final fight in the pilot to be more extreme. "The original intent was that they would come in with silent weaponry," Peters said. "They wouldn't be [here] with guns, and they wouldn't be with lasers, because if they ever got captured or anything happened, they didn't want a piece of alien technology laying around. They also didn't want to draw attention. So they're very adept at hand-to-hand combat, which all makes logical sense. The feeling was it lessened their ability to seem as formidable as they are. So we're going to be adjusting that a little bit."

The fight scene as it was initially shot shows humans doing their best to brawl the alien visitors, who can jump higher and move faster, thanks to wirework. Peters wants to give visitors additional weaponry to make them even deadlier.

"We actually do want to introduce a tiny little bit of Visitor tech that comes in," Peters continued. "What we're determined to do is introduce a little bit, a new piece of alien tech, Visitor tech, try to do it every episode. Certainly try to give a little bit of culture, peel back the onion of what their mandate is, what's really behind it, what's really going on, and just see the political stuff that goes on aboard the ship, just like we have political stuff underneath the ship."

But Peters doesn't want to turn the show into a "battle of the week." "Oh, we're not going to shy away from an action element, by any means," Peters said. "It's just not going to be the driving force of the show. It kind of becomes a little less interesting to us. To us, the characters drive the show. Yes, it's set against this huge science fiction backdrop, but I can watch spaceships for a couple of minutes and be, 'Yeah, it's cool. Now what have you got?' I can watch an action sequence for a couple of minutes and go, 'That's great. Now what have you got?' Characters have to be the thing that drive the show and that you really invest in, and when you do have the action sequences and you do come to the new technology, it's just icing on the cake. It's super cool."
The characters include FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch), the investigator and the skeptical priest who discover the resistance in the first episode. "It'll take a little time [for the resistance] to grow, but Georgie [David Richmond-Peck] will certainly be back, and certainly we introduce some new folks along the way," Peters said. "But, yes, Elizabeth and Joel are not going to be the only ones fighting the war."

Erica will face an additional challenge dealing with her teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman), who finds himself recruited by the Visitors, or "Vs." "That's exactly going to be her issue," Peters said. "'If I had a hard time fixing it before, how the hell am I going to fix it now?'"

Tyler is tempted by Visitor recruiter Lisa, played by Smallville's Laura Vandervoort. "You will absolutely be seeing more of Laura Vandervoort," Peters said. "She was wonderful. She's joined the cast as a series regular, and you can expect to see a lot more with Tyler as things move forward. She has a couple interesting things up her sleeve as well."

Getting back up to the spaceship also adds a little pizzazz to the weekly political and religious metaphors. "That's also a mandate of ours for ourselves," Peters said. "Yes, it's mostly an earthbound show, but we love the candy of going up and seeing the inside of this place."

Meanwhile, Father Jack is dealing with religious implications of alien visitors. If the visitors can cure our diseases and provide technological answers, why would people turn to God?

"He's sort of in the business of asking people to devote themselves to his religion," Peters said. "This is a guy who used to step outside, look up at the sky, where in his mind God would be, and now there's a spaceship in the way."

Another aspect of V deals with the media. Anna (Morena Baccarin) opens up to a journalist, Chad Decker (Scott Wolf), giving him exclusive access. That is, of course, as long as he asks only the questions she wants him to.

"Chad is stuck," Peters said. "He's a guy who was plucked out of obscurity. She didn't pick Tom Brokaw to do it. She picked a guy who wouldn't get up and leave. So she's pretty good at manipulating folks."

The pilot also leaves the fate of Erica's FBI partner, Dale Maddox (Dollhouse's Alan Tudyk), up in the air. Peters only hinted about plans to bring him into the fold. "That's a hard question, because I don't want to give anything away," Peters said. "We love Alan. Clearly the audience loves Alan, and it would be awesome to find ways to maybe see him again somehow."

V premieres in November.

sci-fi wire...

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Enjoy The Prologue From My Upcoming Book.. "Strolok"............by R.Goldberg

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR RACE WAS TARGETED FOR EXTINCTION?"

The Sun is a powerful force in our Universe. It brings us light, warmth and a promise of a galaxy beyond the stars. Often we associate massive flashes of light with the reflection of our Sun's light bouncing off of another surface.

This is not always the case though, especially if you believe that we are truly not alone in the Universe. When we witness things that we can't readily explain we sometimes turn our heads and shrug our shoulders in a display of apathy.

A display such as this occurred on Friday January 29, 1982 at the Crater Lake National Park just outside of Chemult, Oregon. The snow had been falling steadily for a period of four days. The winds had been whisking about at 40 miles per hour.
Then there was one of those unnatural flashes of light. This created an eerie silence as a lanky boy, just nine years old, seemed to appear from out of that flash. If he had walked to this point there would have been a distinct trail in the newly fallen snow.
There was no trail and as a matter of fact the only tracks in the snow were the ones that outlined his feet where he was standing.

He began to trudge through the snow wearing what could only be described as dark brown long johns. He seemed dazed yet, at the same time, very clear about the direction that he was travelling. This boy with no identity or name seemed to be on a mission that would take him to places he had never been before.
His main goal was to reach Chemult, Oregon and he had no intention of stopping until he accomplished this. As strange as it seems the extreme cold seemed to have little or no effect on him at all.

Why Chemult? What was so special about this town located at an elevation of 4,758 feet above sea level in a frozen winter wilderness in Oregon?

The town of Chemult was first opened to the local traffic in 1926 and here in 1982, with its population of only 241, offered little in the way of comfort for a nine year old boy who was all alone. This journey, although prompted by something deep inside of him, did not provide a feeling of comfort and yet he had hoped that he would at least experience a feeling of accomplishment once he reached the town.

The wind was getting stronger and he noticed a small piece of yellow paper tattered and torn from whipping about in the snow. He only stopped long enough to
pick up this paper..........it read:

.....With the winter season here there was a lot of fun to have. Travelling miles of open trails on snow mobiles skiing or simply hiking, but there are dangers of doing so. Please remember safety first. Do not travel alone and be sure someone knows where you are and where you are going before travelling our trails, and please read the safety rules and codes of ethics before hiking the trails...

Nightfall was near and he had already walked 38 of the 40 miles needed to reach Chemult. He was just off of Route 97 when he spotted an old barn just about 200 feet NE of his present location. Making his way to the barn he went in and found it to be totally deserted, it was a perfect place to rest for the night.

Morning had arrived and once awake the boy started to look around the barn in the daylight light to see if there was anything that was lying in the barn that he could use to assist him on his trek.

Over in the far corner of the barn he found an old metal locked box that had long been forgotten. It was all rusted out and the key was nowhere to be found. After several failed attempts to open the box the young boy closed his eyes, sat back on his tired limbs and placed the palm of his right hand on top of the box. All of a sudden a dull red glow appeared from his right palm and the box lid flew open. Strangely enough once the red glow disappeared all that remained was a faint thin black outline where the outside of the red mark had appeared on his palm. Inside of the box he found several items all of which were unfamiliar to him and it was obvious that they had been there
for a very long time.

The contents included a tattered passport with the picture missing, a pocket knife, a compass, an antique pocket watch with a broken crystal, a time-worn souvenir porcelain coffee mug with the words; "Atlanta, Georgia, The Peach State, A Perfect Place to Live", on it and a frayed map of the Metro Atlanta Area It was difficult to make out the name on the passport but with a couple of light brushes with his fingers he saw the name Jason Tredmore. This is now who this boy would become.

Sci-Fi Blast

Monday, August 3, 2009