V: 1983 & 2009 Part Three: 2009 Pilot Summary, Characters and Emerging Memes

The 2009 V starts with a comparison of 9/11, JFK’s assassination, and the arrival of the Visitors, as a means of foreshadowing for the generation that didn’t see the original. This version describes the state of Obama’s America with opening scenes discuss the ongoing housing crisis. However, the most important cultural aspect of V 2009 is the prevalence of terrorism and terrorist investigations in the show. In the first place, the show is set in New York City instead of Los Angeles like the original, and 9/11 is the second phrase shown during the introduction. Of course, it’s easy to see that the one terrorist cell that increases its chatter post-visitor arrival instead of dropping off like the others will turn out to be the beginnings of what becomes the Resistance. But this is not an Islamic terrorist group, it is composed of Visitor sleeper agents who disrupt the beginnings of the Resistance’s formation.

From the first scene it looks obvious that African-American buying the engagement ring will be the 2009 version of Dr. Ben, but this time he’s a Federal Agent, former militia member, and likely future Counter Revolutionary. It seems they’ve consolidated the two brothers into one this character, which makes a certain amount of sense because Dr. Ben was only in the miniseries for the first hour or so and Elias was in all 10.5 hours of the V marathon on SyFy. And the meme regarding struggles and competing visions seems to be resolved, at least in the writers’ minds.

The falling of the Catholic Crucifix inside the first 4 minutes represents two memes not especially present in the 1983 version, but which have gained increasing currency among conspiracy culture insiders. We’ll call Meme A the Fallen Christ Meme and Meme B the Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy meme. The Fallen Christ Meme is common among those who continue to suggest that the arrival of an extra terrestrial alien species would pose an existential threat to all religions, thereby causing mass chaos. It sometimes is cited as a reason justifying government suppression of any real evidence of alien visitation. The Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy Meme really didn’t emerge in America until after the publication of Graham Hancock’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the emergence of websites and books on Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus and mother of Merovee, the founder of the Merovinginian line of French Kings.

The “Question Authority Meme,” always favored among the now-empowered left until the Democratic Party has power in Congress and/or the Presidency, emerges 11 minutes into the pilot. This comes from the youngish priest character, whose doppelganger in the original version had served with anti-communist guerillas in Angola, but whose credentials on this front in the 2009 version are still in question.

Illustrative of women’s success in the intervening 25 years between the two series is that the sympathetic, ambitious reporter who becomes the Visitor’s spokesperson is no longer a woman using feminine wiles, but is now portrayed by a metrosexual male. Additionally, this character seems to have less backbone, and be much more compliant with the Visitors and their requests. Moreover, one primary protagonist is a female FBI counter-terrorism operative,

Significantly, the 2009 version's Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Though interestingly, the neighborhood kid who signs up as a Visitor "Brown Shirt" is driven to it due to maternal neglect by the FBI agent (thus reprising the "Law Enforcement is Hard on Families" Meme. In the original series, the character who joins is much like the guard in The Bridge at Andau: someone who is generally a loser, but has ambitions above his abilities. I preferred the 1983 motivation better because it puts the onus squarely on the child's decisions. Perhaps in our post-Columbine world they were afraid to portray similar a high-school character with these psychological motivations. The other explanation is that the "Bad Mother Meme" has picked up cultural relevance due to the ongoing culture wars.