TV is the New Reading

TV a blast

from the past

The ’80s have exploded all over my set in a way they haven’t since I stopped watching VH1’s “I Love the ’80s” a few years back.

First off, in my ongoing efforts to digitize my extensive VHS collection, I encountered a tape from quite a long time ago that had “Pop Up Videos.” In that it had music videos at all, of course, the tape was quite dated. Pop Up videos featured standard music videos with snarky little bits of trivia and factoids about the song, the shoot, costs of various items in the video and so forth.

This of course was more of a ’90s upgrade, designed to keep people interested in music videos, which were starting to lose out to game shows, contests and reality television like “The Real World.” The newest assault on music videos I’ve encountered are “literal” videos where new audio is dubbed in to make fun of overwrought, ‘80s visuals. One of the funniest I’ve seen is “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which gets a little racy at times but is mostly a fun redirect. Enter “literal videos” into a search engine and you can see what I’m talking about.

Then while programming a premium cable entry I encountered Olivia Newton John’s “Xanadu.” I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen that so I hit “record.” And Tuesday morning I saw that the Syfy Channel was airing a marathon presentation of the 1983 series “V,” so I set that to record as well.

I’ll talk about my reactions to that a little bit more in my podcast this weekend, but just in passing, if we thought ’80s music videos were overwrought, I saw the Visitors’ leader, Diana, in big, big hair and a gold lamé pantsuit that made her look like nothing so much as a Werther’s caramel.

‘V’

The remake, also called “V,” updates the wardrobe quite a bit. The role of Anna, the leader and public face of the Visitors, is taken on by Morena Baccarin. I described her recently as impossibly beautiful and indeed she’s perfectly cast as something otherworldly.

Anna is an envoy of the Visitors, travelers from a distant planet who say they need “water and an abundant mineral” from ours, and in return they’re willing to share some of their advances in health care, technology, world relations and environmental stability.

The world they encounter is in desperate need as well, and welcomes the Visitors -- or Vs, as they are called -- with open arms.

Not everyone is so easily impressed. Skeptics Elizabeth Mitchell as FBI agent Erica Evans and Joel Gretch as Father Jack Landry meet when an underground resistance movement they encounter uncovers critical evidence about the Visitors’ efforts to infiltrate human society for unknown ends. A gang of aliens swoops in, traps and tries to kill them. But at the same time their worst suspicions about the Vs seem to be confirmed in this attack, they meet Morris Chestnut as Ryan, a V who helps them survive the fight and win.

Meanwhile, rebellious teen Logan Huffman as Tyler Evans, Erica’s son, is forging Erica’s name to become a peace ambassador to the V ship -- but mostly so that he can hang out with Lisa, a pretty blonde V assigned to the New York ship who appears to have taken a shine to him as well.

Tuesday’s pilot episode had a lot of work to do, setting the stage for what, in the ‘80s, unfolded as a satisfyingly complex storyline. We’ll be able to see if it lives up to its predecessor as “V” continues Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on ABC.

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