Recap Attack: “Oy, V”

You voted on it, and now it’s here … this week’s “Recap Attack” turns to V, Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern tour-de-force debut that helped redefine the 20th century American novel. You all read it in preparation for our discussion today, right? It’s only 600 pages long.

Ha! Just kidding. We’re not talking about that V. We’re talking about ABC’s alien invasion sci-fi schlockfest, based off the classic 1980s mini-series.

I loved those two original mini-series, and even the misguided, short-lived series that emerged out of it. In fact, I’d say the original V was instrumental in kicking off an appreciation for – and in many ways unhealthy addiction to – so-called mythologized TV (“mythology” being the highbrow term that kicked off around the time of The X Files to refer to any serialized TV drama with sci-fi or supernatural elements.)

Over and over again, I find myself hooked on these shows, even though without exception they always, always disappoint. (Wait, there is an exception. If Joss Whedon has anything to do with them, then they’re sheer genius.)

It all comes down to what my wise husband Mark refers to as the giant spider problem …

This is something he first remarked upon with Stephen King. Mark hates Stephen King because he says his books always boil down to a giant spider in a cave.

While I’m not quite as harsh as that, I get his point. King has a tendency to come up with intricate, compelling premises that he’s able to lay out over the course of several thousand pages. Then he realizes he’s dug himself a hole he doesn’t know how to get out of, and to resolve it all, he plops in a giant spider (or magical crows or aliens or … you get the idea.)

I raise the giant spider conundrum because it seems to me central to the problem with mythologized TV shows. They all start out with great concepts – ones that wow studio executives, critics, and audiences alike, at least for the first few episodes that have been carefully mapped out by the creators. But then there always comes a point where you realize, with a sinking feeling in your gut, that there is no central plan in place, no guiding hand orchestrating events to a pre-determined end, that they’re just making this sh*t up as they go along.

After several weeks (or years) of that sort of aimless, messy misdirection, we get the hasty giant spider resolutions … Laura Palmer was murdered by “Bob,” Mulder’s sister became an angel, the Rambaldi device turns people into zombies, the castaways on Lost were – ugh, don’t even get me started.

And yet, like the gawky girl in a John Hughes movie pining for the popular boy who will only wind up being a dick to her, I can’t help but be drawn to these shows. Maybe it’s because I like big stories that can’t be neatly resolved CSI-style with a handy DNA sample or last-minute confession. Maybe it’s the misguided hope that with the huge, diverse casts these shows tend to favor, one of them may ultimately bat for our team. Maybe it’s those things.

More likely it’s because I like shows where characters routinely get killed off.

So even though I’d been burned many times over, I was willing to give the V remake a chance. Not only for wanting to find another mythology show to add to my schedule post-Lost (ugh, don’t get me started), but also out of sense of nostalgia for the original.

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of the remake is that it’s missing the campiness of the original – campiness that I have to admit I was completely blind to at the time. I was only a teenager, and it takes a while for a healthy appreciation of camp to develop. It’s not like we gays come out of the birth canal snapping our fingers and telling our moms, “You go girl!”

The first time I can think of that I demonstrated any sort of camp sensibility wasn’t until college, when I went with some friends to a Costco and saw a can of SPAM the size of a granite brick that I found utterly hilarious.

While I might be able to look back at the old V now and see the camp element in, say, an alien babe unlocking her jaw and swallowing a guinea pig whole, or a teenaged girl giving birth to a mutant Kermit the Frog, at the time all of that stuff scared the crap out of me.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the premise of V is that a bunch of alien space ships suddenly show up on Earth, and as alien ships are wont to do, park themselves above the world’s most scenic landmarks. The aliens look just like people and appear benevolent. But before long we find out their synthetic skin covers reptilian creatures inside, nasty aliens who view humanity as the ultimate all-you-can eat buffet, our oceans an unending free refills bar.