When I think of “V” I think of watching it in Columbia, Missouri in 3rd grade on our crappy black and white kitchen TV (not sure why, I’m sure the other one was previously occupied with a Celtics / Lakers game or something. References.). If memory serves it came out around the same time as “Thriller” (interesting that MJ’s back in the news as well, you guys hear about that baby balcony thing?????) and I think John Marshall and I actually made toy guns similar to Mike Donovan’s gun. I love that NBC gave us a week of something that sorta felt like Star Wars — and, like “The Day After” or “Thunderdome” gave Humanities and Ethics professors great fodder to take a week off and let everyone enjoy some pop culture before spring break. At Drake, Schad’s own Stephen Schmidt and I took an entire snow day and watched all of V in his dorm room in Herriott Hall on old Minnesota Channel 9 WGN tapes playing on a 12″ TV/VCR combo. And tonight ABC’s resurrecting the series, BSG-style, and I just can’t wait. I’m skipping the DVD purchase of Transformers 2 and am saving this on Amazon. I’m not sure who’s even in this thing, I just know it had better be super hot. I guess it has Juliette from Lost and that guy from Party of Five playing the new Mike Donovan and some lead woman playing the new version of John, which, let’s face it, is basically a redux of Hey, Look, Starbuck’s a Girl Now. They shoulda gone from broke and cast Jin and Sawyer and Ben and John Locke. I’m serious. If ABC woulda stacked “V” with half the cast of Lost you know the entire nation would cancel plans tonight. They have those guys locked-up for years on ABC anyway, so why not throw Jin a few extra grand for running around as a guy who’s kinda like Jin on the new “V.” I don’t know why they don’t invite me to these casting meetings. Rereading this, I’m realizing I’m pretty inconsistent with my italics and quotes when referencing titles, but that’s okay because when Diana ate that bird in the original series, her fake claymation head was pretty inconsistent with her actual likeness. Stephe, you still got those tapes? Anyone have a VCR?
Formed in 1997, Schad began performing sketch comedy on Chicago’s north side. The troupe has since performed at countless venues around the world including The Goodman Theatre, The Second City, Steppenwolf, Lollapalooza, ImprovOlympic, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (LA), HERE (NYC) and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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All content © 2010 by Schadenfreude.
I don’t know if it was because I was young or if it as because there was no such thing as “spoilers” –but I was blown away when the Visitors true identity was revealed. Does anyone out there NOT know about the Visitors? Will it be as cool? How can it be? And will there be anyone as bad ass as Michael Ironside?
Who wins in a fight – Michael Ironside or Powers Booth?
“See you at da party, Richter!”
I think ABC would be smart to bring back Michael Ironside for this one…
That depends, Fred: Are we talking “Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone” Michael Ironside or “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling” Michael Ironside? That choice could make all the difference.
“Total Recall” Ironside vs. “Tombstone” Powers Booth
I am inclined to agree that the absolute shock of discovering the Visitors were lizard people who ate live animals will be unable to reproduce. Having watched some of the original over the weekend on SciFi (I refuse to go along with their “people are stupid” name change), I hope they try to recreate the acting styles of the early 80s miniseries.
JoJo Dancer Ironside, hah.
And good call about actually finding out that the Visitrs were Lizards IN THE ACTUAL SHOW IN REAL TIME. plot twist! I guess audiences have to know ahead of time now or they won’t watch.
I’ll be happy for a jump back from the TV screen moment like the one where the hybrid human-visitor baby, who looks human, suddenly reveals it has a forked tongue and then a lizard baby crawls out of Robin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TufUH1T-F18
Yes – the birthing scene was definitely something I talked about at school the next day. You didn’t see THAT coming. I think the first 2 hours of V was people sitting around saying “Birds sure act funny around the Visitors” and “Where did Dr. So-and-So go? He said he had important news about the Visitors and now his car has weird burns in it.” Just when you are getting bored– The Beastmaster gets the shot of Diana eating the hamster. Awesome. And don’t forget Freddy Kruege w/o his makeup.
PS – “Community” had Chevy Chase dressing as The Beastmaster for the Halloween episode. 4 of my favorite words: Chevy, Chase, Beast and Master.
“Who grows there?”
Great call on Community, I wonder if NBC realized that they probably accidentally pre-plugged the premiere of V to the superfans out there…
I just caught at few minutes of V tonight and had to shut it off. Cheesy special effects, predictable writing, not so good acting….I flipped to another station and saw the 90210 remake (or “reimagining”) and thought “wow, equally bad.” Sorry, Sandy.
But I do have a VCR.
Steve, all points well-taken and all components I fully expected in “V.” For an ABC prime time show featuring aliens who visit every city on earth in a story truncated to fit into 40something minutes of air time, I’m not expecting snappy writing or great special effects or good acting. I’m expecting the guy from Party of Five to hit on the hot main alien and for a lot of ships to turn into big TV screens and then for Juliette to run around for a while with the guy from Serenity.
I may need to borrow your VCR…