Corona | Coming Attractions

This past Tuesday saw the premiere of ABC's reimagined V series. Same nasty lizard space aliens, same concept but with a different cast of characters and an undercoating of domestic terrorism for its early 21st century audience. Considering that the original NBC mini-series was viewed by 40 million people when it first aired in 1983, could the new V ever hope to achieve ratings gold?

For the short-term the answer is yes. The new V propelled ABC to its highest ratings since the debut of the pilot episode of Lost back in 2004. 2009's V pilot attracted 14.3 million viewers and achieved big wins for the highly coveted 18-49 year-old demographic. While the network hasn't hinted whether it would pick up the show past its initial commitment of 13 episodes, ABC is likely holding back on making any sort of decision until it sees how the show performs next week. V is scheduled to show only four episodes during November sweeps and then it's remaining 9 episodes are on hold until the spring, the reason being that there's been a major shift behind the scenes. While it's common knowledge that the show's original showrunner/producer and pilot writer Scott Peters was let go a couple of episodes into V's production schedule, it's never before been mentioned by any news outlet (until now) that there has also been a reduction in the amount of money slated for each episode's production. The crew roster of V was trimmed after its fourth episode and sources have told Coming Attractions that the show's production hiatus served two functions: to get the series in a more budget conscious fighting shape and to give a break for a creative restructuring of the story department.

Regardless of the behind-the-scenes turmoil that V has gone through, if the show's ratings remain as strong as they did for the pilot then ABC will be sporting smiles all the way.