page_title: Pilot (V)
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Pilot (V) / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Morena Baccarin at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: "Pilot" is the series premiere of the 2009 reimagining of the 1983 miniseries V created by Kenneth Johnson. The episode's teleplay was written by Scott Peters, with story credit going to Johnson and Peters. Yves Simoneau directed the episode, which originally aired in the United States on ABC on November 3, 2009. The episode sees spaceships appear over 29 of the world's major cities. Though the alien "Visitors" claim to come in peace, it transpires that they have been infiltrating the planet for decades, and are planning on enslaving the human species.
  Parallels have been drawn between the Visitors and US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, though Peters and co-producer Jeffrey Bell refute that they were intentional. Bell feels that while the original series was more of a military show with a clear enemy, the reimagining focuses more on the paranoia of not knowing who can be trusted. The episode incorporates aspects of the original series, including the Visitors' giant spaceships, but is quick to reveal the Visitors' true motivations, as Peters felt awareness of the original story was already high.
context_section_description: The episode was watched by 14.3 million US viewers, and attained a 5.2/14 in the 18-49 demographic. It was watched by 2.16 million Canadian viewers, making it the first debut of the 2009 Canadian TV season to attain over 2 million viewers. The episode received generally favorable reviews, with E! Online rating it 11/10 and calling it "the best pilot we've seen in, well, forever." USA Today's Robert Bianco put V on his list of the top ten new shows of the TV season, stating that the remake is well-made and "quickly establishes its own identity." Comparing it to the original series, Bianco noted that the remake could easily have been a failure, yet managed to "contemporize the story without drowning it in paranoia." Maureen Ryan for the Chicago Tribune noted that the "character drama" in the pilot episode was "clunky" but overall found the episode "solidly entertaining and suitably suspenseful." Ken Tucker for Entertainment Weekly graded the episode 'B+' calling it "excellently acted" and noting that Mitchell is "fast becoming TV's go-to gal for strong, brainy women of action". Variety's Brian Lowry opined that the episode "busily races through too much business, but it dangles a tantalizing array of plots, and features a knockout performance (in more ways than one) by Morena Baccarin as the cool, beguiling alien leader." He called Baccarin the "real breakout" star of the episode, deeming Anna "TV's coolest alien since the invention of the Vulcan nerve pinch."
  Mary McNamara for the Los Angeles Times commented on parallels drawn between the Visitors and President Barack Obama, insofar as: "The instant adoration, the attractiveness and rhetorical skills of Anna, the idea that the Visitors will woo us with universal healthcare and then destroy us all seem a right-wingish take on the president's ascendancy." She continued: "Perhaps that is the creators' intent, but most successful science fiction contains an element of, if not outright humor, then the absurd. That the human race will be enslaved not through brainwashing or firepower but adequate healthcare is pretty hilarious in a dark and almost possible way. And Anna and her crew seem to embody more of a Wall Street deregulated/Bernie Madoff mentality—big returns for minimum investment. And we all know how that turns out." Linda Stasi for The New York Post conversely compared the Visitors to extremist Muslims. Though in the original series the aliens were a metaphor for Nazis, Stasi commented: "TV shows no longer have to rely on Nazis, because now we have the hated extremist Muslims to make all bad-guy metaphors with", adding on the Visitors' appearance: "Once you peel back the outer, good-looking shell, you've got your standard outer-space Nazi/Taliban lizard person lurking beneath."
  Matt Roush for TV Guide compared the V pilot to science-fiction shows Lost and FlashForward, noting that V is "undeniably more simplistic [...] in its us-vs.-them setup", but commenting that he was "instantly seduced and hooked by its lavish production values, the immediately gripping storyline and a strong cast", concluding: V may not initially dig as deep as FlashForward, but there's a juicy urgency to all of the interpersonal and intergalactic melodrama, with plenty of action and surprising reveals." King Features' entertainment reporter Cindy Elavsky called V: "the best new show on television, by far. The special effects are feature-film quality; the writing is intelligent and time-relevant; and the acting is first-rate. The first five minutes alone will hook you for the entire season."
  In contrast, Mike Hale for The New York Times commented: "The ideas in V, about alien encounters and mass delusion and media manipulation, are enticing. It's too bad that they're floating around in a show that at this early stage, is so slapdash and formulaic in its storytelling." Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com commented that plot points such as the Visitors attempting to create worldwide instability by printing fake IDs were unbelievable, and that talk of launching a resistance movement was "tiresome and p
caption: Variety's Brian Lowry praised Morena Baccarin as Anna, the Visitors' leader
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