V 1x1 - "Pilot"

V felt a little sparse. I wish the pilot were two hours. I wonder how it played to people who'd never seen the original miniseries when it aired in the 80's, on DVD, or on Syfy over the last few days?

Having refreshed my memories of V thanks to Syfy, it was interesting how the new V zigged where the original zagged:

• The Nazi/Jew parable is out in favor of a religious parable ("the Saviors of humanity") mixed with the hot button issue of "universal health care". Literally, in V's case.
• The Visitors looking more corporate and refined as opposed to military. I sort of missed the red uniforms, red sunglasses, and especially the amplified voices. Also the Visitors' modified Swastika logo.
• Elizabeth Mitchell's son, which eliminated the sociopath kid in the miniseries who joined the Visitors and sold his family out to them and merged that character instead with the girl who had the hots for a Visitor and ended up giving birth to the Starchild.
• The Visitors announcing right away via Anna's introductory video that they wanted Earth's water, which was a big secret in the original V, along with their being lizards, their plot to discredit and eliminate scientists,  and their intention to kidnap humans for food.
• The reveal that the Visitors are reptilian was kind of just tossed out there in dialogue. I suppose at this point the first thing anyone who knows anything about V knows is that the Visitors are lizards so they didn't bother to act like it was a big shock. Alan Tudyk's sudden appearance as part of the Visitors' raid on the Resistance meeting was pretty surprising though. And I was wondering what the point of Morris Chestnut's character was. I never saw him being a Visitor coming, so that was a cool spin on how some Visitors are part of the Resistance in the original V.
• The red V tag now being in support of the Visitors instead of as an act of support of the human Resistance = awesome.

Although I cringed at the implications that Visitors positioned on Earth for decades are responsible for all our problems (the "unjust wars" line was a bit of an eyeroller), I was wondering what the fuck all this plot about the FBI investigating terrorist cells was about when there are ALIENS in this story. I really liked the reveal at the end that the Visitors are the cell.

Elizabeth Mitchell said the Visitors were arming themselves with the most powerful weapon out there: devotion. Really? Because the word that came to my mind was "sex." Morena Baccarin and Laura Vandervoort? I'd walk a mile to kiss those reptiles.