Dear Network Executive: Scott Peters V Re-Make or Why can’t Hollywood be a little more original?

In the last few years, I’ve been hearing a lot of news about original V creator Kenneth Johnson attempting to re-make the series himself. From that, spawned the novel V: The Second Generation, and while we at IGP felt the novel needed a little work, we were still eager to see Johnson helming a new V series. So if Kenneth Johnson, a man that of course knows the source material backwards, has spent the last several years trying to get the go ahead on a new V series, how is it that ABC, in a complete slap in the face to the show’s creator, decides to bring Scott Peters on board. It’s not like Battlestar Galactica where Glen A. Larson wasn’t actively trying to bring back Galactica. It’s not like anybody was doing anything with it so they may as well re-make it. We at IGP are strong believers in letting the creators, whether it’s of a book, or TV series or a movie have control over their work.

This version will likely be a re-imagined version of V having very little to do with the original Nazi allegorical tale that it was intended to be. Instead this one will follow a Homeland Security agent named Erica Evans and what happens to her family as the aliens arrive. Homeland Security? Not very V-ish, actually it sounds like another show we know of, involving Scott Peters. I’m a V fan, make no mistake. And I would love to see a new version of it. But I honestly cringe at the thought of what ABC might do with a version of V. The original V miniseries has already spawned a cheesy sequel miniseries and an even worse TV series. And after seeing how terribly ABC adapted the BBC’s Life on Mars, I don’t really want to see what they’ll do with V.

This whole re-make idea worries me in another way. What is a ‘re-imagining’ anyway? Why do we need to do it? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if you want to break away that much from the source material, then you ought to just call it something else. Why is Hollywood so loathe to come up with a single original idea?

What’s more, while I understand Scott Peters’ desire to jump on board with such a series, he already has a huge following by way of The 4400. Rather than writing a TV show that essentially belongs to someone else, shouldn’t he be trying to find a home for that show? I know there’s a lot of fans out there that would take a proper ending to The 4400 over a ‘re-imagined’ version of V any day.

Johnson’s own website disputes this news that V will be coming back, stating that it is purely a script development deal, and that he will continue with his own plans to remake his original classic as a movie. I can only hope that Johnson is successful bringing his version back to people’s screens before Peters/ABC’s series is made. As Johnson has himself pointed out, when people have re-made one of his shows, such as V or more recently, Bionic Woman, it hasn’t done well, so I can only appeal to you, network executive, to make the right decision.

Sincerely,

IGPNicki

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