WHAT would happen if a giant, alien-filled mother ship suddenly hovered over New York?
Would gang-bangers from all boroughs immediately get out their illegal assault weapons and shoot that mother, um, ship out of the sky? Would the rest of us ignore it completely, thinking it was another mayoral intrusion like bike lanes and pedestrian malls?
Not likely if the spacecraft in question contained an “Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman”-sized supermodel god whose image was projected in the sky like Woody Allen’s mother in “New York Stories.”
Let’s face it, we New Yorkers — even those who make their living by killing and maiming for fun and profit — can’t resist the fabulousness of a skinny woman with short hair who can walk the runway — and run a spaceship.
And that’s almost what happens in ABC’s revival of the 1980s cult classic miniseries “V,” wherein the aliens are a metaphor for Nazis and, really, who doesn’t love a Nazi killer from outer space?
But, it’s not those good old greedy 1980s anymore, when all we had to fear in real life were gel-haired, coke-fueled Wall Streeters and Madonna changing identities. (Wait, maybe things haven’t changed that much!)
TV shows no longer have to rely on Nazis, because now we have the hated extremist Muslims to make all bad-guy metaphors with, which is what they’ve done with the “visi tors” from space in “V.”
Back in the ’80s, the aliens came promising love, peace and technology when, in fact, elimination of the entire human race was their real goal.
Again, things haven’t changed much. Idiotic humans all over the world are, at first, blindly devoted to the extremely trim and good-looking aliens, particularly their leader Anna (Morena Baccarin), who, like a real supermodel, isn’t what she seems to be.
Once you peel back the outer, good-looking shell, you’ve got your standard outer-space Nazi/Taliban liz ard person lurking beneath.
Only a few humans are smart enough to see through the thin skin of the creatures and must, therefore, save the rest of the blindly devoted. Look, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that when a “visitor” invites you for dinner, what he probably means is, “You’re dinner.”
The few, the proud and the clued-in include FBI agent/ single mom Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell of “Lost“), who first notices a spike in terror cell “chatter” when the Visitors land.
Erica and her partner Dale (Alan Tudyk) meet up with a Catholic priest, Father Jack (Joel Gretsch of “The 4400“), at a secret meeting of anti-Vs and all hell (literally) breaks loose. Some of the good guys start peeling and — oh God! — the horror!
Terrific special effects (except for the giant supermodel in the sky), good action, good acting, and, if they let them, the Visitors could probably put on a helluva good runway show, too!