VisitorSite: How do you adapt elements such as politics and religion into this series?
Scott Peters: To me, the main theme that runs through all of the storylines is about blind devotion.. Whether it’s blind devotion to your religion, or to your partner in life, or to your work, or to anything, really.. And so, the idea that Father Jack’s big question at the beginning is ” How can I reconcile the reality of spaceships outside my window with what I know of the Bible,” so his faith is shaken a little bit.. He’s in the business of asking people to devote themselves to their religion.. This is a guy who used to step outside, look up at the sky, and where in his mind God would be, now there’s a spaceship.. So, it’s those sorts of themes that are brought across the board..
VS: Can you talk about the controlling of the media by the Visitors?
SP: We try to bring new elements to the show that will certainly play for an audience in 2009 – 2010.. You heard ” universal healthcare “ get a laugh [ In the pilot ] because it’s so topical and in the news right now.. It’s been in the news for a long time, but it’s particularly topical right now.. Obviously, there’s the TMZs of the world – there’s such hugely driven celebrity that goes on in our society, and I love that Anna tries to basically ” rig the election before anything could happen,” and Chad is stuck.. He’s a guy who’s plucked out of obscurity.. She didn’t pick Tom Brokaw to do it; she picked a guy who wouldn’t get up and leave.. So, she’s pretty good at manipulating folks..
Jace Hall: All great science fiction, at least in my view, has a real opportunity to take a look at the human condition in various ways, and taking the media as an angle is a really good way to look at our obsessions, and what we are willing to do.. We’re living in a Facebook – Myspace age.. So you’re getting characters that Scott and the team are writing that are exploring some of those things..
VS: Laura VandervoortWas it intentional to get so many actors that had large genre followings cast onto the show, and on that note, will be seeing more of Laura Vandervoort on this series?
SP: Honestly, the first thing that we look for is the right actor for the right role.. Father Jack, for instance, was originally written as much younger, and as we started to go through the casting process, we started to realize that Elizabeth Mitchell was going to be involved, and we decided that maybe we need to go a little bit more of a man’s man, and what’s bizarre is that literally, when we came back from ABC and we had had that discussion, Joel Gretsch called me, and just said ” Hey? What’s happening? What are you doing right now?” Just out of the blue.. And I’m like, ” It’s funny you should call.. What are you doing right now?” So, there was no particular design to go out and look for genre actors.. It just so happened that A – folks were available, B – they were perfect for the roles, and C – they happened to be in genre shows in the past, and I think it’s wonderful for us.. We get 4400 fans, and Firefly fans, and LOST fans, and we’re hoping to get all of those fan bases and put it into one ginormous, take – control – of – the-world fan base..
You will absolutely be seeing Laura Vandervoort.. She was wonderful.. She’s joined the cast as a series regular, and you can expect to see a lot more with Tyler and Lisa as things move forward.. She has a couple of very interesting things up her sleeve as well..
VS: What’s the status of Alan Tudyk’s involvement in the series?
SP: We love Alan.. Clearly the audience loves Alan, and it would be awesome to find ways to maybe see him again somehow..
VS: What specific themes involving race relations did you set out to cover in your script, and were these themes different from the original incarnation of V?
SP: The idea is that, yes, certainly in the beginning, the Visitors are seen as these terrific people who come from another planet, and they’re bringing all kinds of gifts and everyone’s on board very quickly, and as we all know, the Visitors have a very different agenda about what it is they need to do, and that does not bode well for us.. You’ve seen in the pilot that there are protests.. Not everybody’s down for it.. There are protests of people thinking ” Wait a minute.. Everything’s happened a little too fast..” And we’ll see that grow throughout the beginning of the series.. We’ll see more and more people dissatisfied, and they’ll have to try to find a way to quell all of that.. You could look at the Visitors as a ” new minority “ that has shown up.. So you can sort of play to some of those themes in that they want to try to do something that we know not to let them do that, they can sort of say ” Well.. We’re bringing gifts.. We’re bringing you all of these wonderful things.. Then why wouldn’t you?” So this plays back and forth between the people who are protesting and the people who are not protesting.. In terms of race, I don’t know if the guy who asked a question about race [ In the Comic - Con panel ] realized that Morris Chestnut [ Ryan ], when he reveals himself as a Visitor, is a hero in our eyes, because he’s a traitor to the Visitors who are bad people and are trying to come take over humanity..
VS: Are you worried about the reaction you may get from fans of the original V?
JH: I wouldn’t say that we’re scared of their reaction.. I think, at least from my perspective, we want to engage them, and tell a story that has similar themes, but it’s just a very different show.. As Scott said on the panel, we’re not trying to retread what already was done for a specific timeframe that played well during that time.. We’re in a different period now.. Our audience has different expectations, so you want to build a show that touches on concepts that were in the original.. The aliens are here.. But, move it past in a different direction, to tell new stories to engage not only the original V audience, but also the new audience, and try to widen it out as much as we can..
SP: I think the audience that does remember the show, to me, if I had nothing to do with this, I would come just out of curiosity to see what’s the new version of this.. You can’t please everybody all of the time.. We can’t force anybody to watch the show, and if they feel like this is not doing the old one honor, they’re not going to watch the show.. The good news is for them is that there’s still the box set of the old V DVD’s, and they can watch the original as often as they want.. We hope before making that decision, they would at least give our show a chance, and come and look at it to see what it’s all about; give it a few episodes, and if you really hate it, you’re going to turn it off.. And if you don’t, then you’ll watch it and it will become a huge thing..
VS: Can you talk about the plan you have as far as story arcs go?
SP: There’s a pretty in – depth plan involved in terms of whether we’re doing 13 episodes or 22 episodes a season, that we want to call them sort of like ” chapters..” They have a beginning, middle, and end.. We’re looking to put game – changers throughout so that when we come back for another season, it changes things up dramatically.. I think that in terms of the mini – series versus series aspect, because we know right away we’re going for the long term, in success, that what we’re not going to do is go down the road the old series made in becoming sort of like a war picture where there were battles every week.. I think we’re doing things a little bit differently, that you get the idea that if you stick your neck out, you get it cut off, because they’re so good at blending in, and so good at spotting folks that don’t blend in.. In the next episode, Erica and Jack and everybody have to find a way to lead their lives and not join some resistance somewhere, because that’s how you identify yourself and get eliminated very quickly..
VS: There is a fight scene in the pilot, so how often will be seeing things like that?
SP: We’re not going to shy away from an action element by any means.. It’s just not going to be the driving force of the show..
JH: Plausability has played a pretty big role in the development of this, and you want people to act plausibly in situations. When you get into the “battle of the week,” how plausible is that to sustain for the audience?
SP: It kind of becomes a little less interesting to us.. To us, the characters are driving the show.. Yes, it’s setting in this huge science fiction backdrop.. I can watch spaceships for a couple of minutes, and be ” that’s cool, and now what have we got?” And I can watch an action sequence for a couple of minutes, and go ” that’s great.. Now what have you got?” To me, the characters have to be the thing that drive the show to really invest in, and then when you do have the action sequence and you do come to the new technology, it’s the icing on the cake, and it’s just super cool..
VS: Are we going to be seeing more of the characters of the Resistance, such as Georgie?
SP: Yes.. The Resistance will take a little time to grow.. Georgie will certainly be back, and we’ll certainly be introducing new folks along the way.. But, yes.. Elizabeth and Joel are not going to be the only ones fighting the war..
VS: Have there been any overtures made to getting anyone from the original cast on the series?
SP: I personally love the idea.. I think that there’s probably a world where that will occur at some point.. We still need to figure out in what capacity.. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made that are also predicated on factors above our creative needs.. There are studios and networks and so forth involved.. But I think personally it’s an awesome idea, and I would love to try and cycle in some folks as a tip of the hat to the old audience..
VS: How has 9 / 11 informed any of the events of the new V?
SP: You know, 9 / 11 really informs my storytelling.. The 4400 was very similar in that vein.. I think that’s maybe why I gravitated toward V when it came my way, because to me, I just remember sitting watching television in tears, having never been to New York in my life, and not knowing anybody involved directly with what happened, but everybody was affected by the exact same event and the exact same moment, and then to see all of these different aspects and stories that people brought to it was incredibly moving to me.. So, to me I love that storytelling, to have a large ensemble cast, who are all affected by one spectacular – and I don’t mean that necessarily in a good way – but in a huge event that affects everybody’s lives, and then to see how that trickles down to their existence and their realities.. In a show like this, what’s really fun is you get these unexpected crosses.. You’ll see characters that are completely in different storylines that will, through a very plausible way, cross each other in unexpected ways.. In fact, we’re discovering that in the writer’s room every day.. I think that’s going to be a lot of fun..
VS: Has there been any announcement made about when the show will be premiering?
SP: We’re told November.. We haven’t gotten an exact date yet, but what’s great for us is that it was originally announced at upfronts as a January show, and I think we’re pretty excited by the response people are giving to it.. I think for whatever reason, they split it up a few months.. It made us nervous for a second, because we were like ” We have to do when?” But we’re fine.. We’re actually really excited.. We start shooting August 10..
VS: How many episodes are written?
SP: We’re on our third episode right now.. I wrote the first one with an old mentor of mine, Sam Egan.. We have an awesome writer’s room.. Jeff Bell has some aboard the show, and I couldn’t be happier.. He’s a terrific guy.. He’s immensely talented.. And so we’re breaking #3, we’re talking about #4.. The first one’s written; the second one’s being written, so we’re moving along..
JH: I’ve been in the writer’s room.. It’s a very good, diverse group of people.. Very sharp.. Reading the next episode that came out of there, and the hotness – take it from me.. As a viewer, I’m looking at this as what I would like to see.. It’s really trying to capture the potential.. I think the people who’ve seen the pilot see the potential for how cool it could be, and we run with it.. They’re really doing it; Scott and the team, they’re really doing it..
SP: What’s really gratifying is when we turned in the first draft to the network and the studio.. We always knew this was a series, but now we really understand what kind of series this is going to be.. It’s like what people were saying, ” is it going to be a war picture every week?” And we told them, ” no, it wouldn’t be every week,” so they were asking what it was going to be? I think the first episode, we’ve realized after seeing two of them back – to – back, we start to understand the direction the show’s going..
VS: What kinds of technology and weapons do the Visitors use?
SP: As Jeff and I said at the beginning, there are some tweaks we’re still doing.. We’re doing a little bit of a re – shooting for the fight, because we feel like we want to make the Visitors even more formidable, and even more awesome, and we actually do want to introduce a tiny little bit of Visitor tech that comes in, because some of the thoughts when we did it – the original intent was that they would come in with silent weaponry.. They wouldn’t use guns, and they wouldn’t use lasers, because if they ever got captured, they wouldn’t want a piece of alien technology laying around.. They also don’t want to draw attention, so they don’t want anything that makes noise.. They’re very adept at hand – to – hand combat, which all makes logical sense, it’s just that the feeling was that it lessened a little bit the ability to have them be seen as formidable as they are, so we’re going to be adjusting that a little bit..
What we’re determined to do is introduce a new piece of Visitor tech, and try to do it every episode.. Certainly try to give a little bit of culture and peel back the onion on what their mandate is, and what they’re really behind, and what’s really going on, and to see the political stuff that goes on aboard the ship, just like we have political stuff underneath the ship..
VS: Who is on the writing staff?
SP: Jeff Bell, obviously.. Sam Egan.. Cameron Litvack.. Diego Gutierrez.. Angela Otstot.. Akela Cooper.. Christine Roum.. And Charles Murray.. It’s a fantastic group of people.. Everyone is so smart.. Everyone’s bringing their A game.. We spent the first two weeks just talking about the world..
VS: Are we going to be seeing more of the inside of the mothership?
SP: Hell yeah.. [ Laughs ] That’s also a mandate of ours for ourselves.. Yes, it’s mostly an Earth – bound show, but we love the candy of going up and seeing the inside of this place, and what we’re developing is the ability to show you the very different aspects of the ship.. We have a terrific piece of technology that basically, none of the ship exists.. It’s all green screen. So, it only exists in a computer, so when you see that hallway when Chad and Marcus had their talk, that hallway was constructed from a virtual reality world.. The technology gives us the ability to drop the camera anywhere in that map and point it, and we see on the screen exactly what it would be like if it were in a real world.. So, if somebody’s walking across and the camera tracks them, the background will shift as it should in a shot that would not be a virtual reality.. So, it really gives us the opportunity to explore that world, and not feel like one man against a green screen, and not be able to interact.. It’s really exciting..
JH: Great sci – fi always has this element of discovery, so what better place to do it than on this ship?
VS: Can you talk about the Visitor Youth aspect of the series?
SP: It was a little tip of the hat to the original, I think, as well.. Youth often will look at things in very black and white terms.. It’s either great or it’s terrible, or it’s good or it’s bad.. As you get older, you start to see the shades a little bit more between things, and so I think it’s very easy to get the youth interested and excited about something that’s new, and maybe it’s something where someone who’s a little bit older will pull back and go ” wait a sec..” There’s a great argument on both sides, seeing Tyler and Erica’s scenes.. Tyler just thinks his mom doesn’t get it.. ” You’re just set in your ways, you don’t want to explore anything, you don’t want to give a new idea a chance.. Why are you criticizing this so easily?” And her point is, ” Why are you embracing this completely?” So it’s an interesting divide of generations..
VS: What kind of mom is Erica Evans going to be throughout the series?
SP: One of the great dynamics is that Erica is accused by her son of never being there.. Because she’s an FBI agent in the counter – terrorism division.. So at 3 o’clock in the morning when the phone rings, she has to go, or if it’s in the middle of the afternoon and they were going to do something, she’s got to drop it and go.. And so, this has affected him for however many years, and it’s coming out, but now in addition to that, she needs to be falling into the leadership roles of leading the Resistance, and so she’s going to be struggling to find ways of keeping her son safe, and making sure that everything’s okay with him.. It’s going to be a huge struggle for her to try and keep that relationship viable, because she can’t really tell her son what’s going on..
VS: It seems like it will only get worse..
SP: That’s exactly going to be her issue.. It’s ” if I had a hard time fixing it before, how am I going to fix things now?”
Note: Scott Peters And Jace Hall are the Executive Producers of 
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