I think this series shows a lot of promise. I'd never seen the original miniseries or TV episodes but I'd heard enough about it to know a few of the basics of what the series was about. So this meant I could watch this series with no real pre-conceptions of what to expect and could hope it would be a solid science fiction series that would replace the void left by the ending of Battlestar Galactica earlier in the year (with one of the most phenomenal final episodes ever I must say).
In this first episode they don't waste any time introducing the Visitors and their ships and the special effects do look good - as you would expect for a pilot episode. The characters introduced include an FBI agent and her son, and a vicar who sees the Visitors coming as dangerous to religion. I liked the general feel of the show and the designs of both the interior and exterior of the ships, but I felt at times some of the story elements were a little clumsy. I think what they were trying to do was to set up some mystery to start with and to also shed some light on why the Visitors arrival would be a bad thing. The way this comes about is that both the lead characters end up at the meeting of a resistance cell for different reasons and soon find out that the Visitors have been here for years and are hiding something. The meeting is interrupted and the majority of the people there are killed except for the FBI agent, the Vicar, and a rebel Visitor.
Whilst this is going on the FBI agents son has joined the New York chapter of the Visitor's peace corp due to him lusting after Laura Vandervoort's character (understandable really). So this is obviously setting the series up for some mother - son conflicts later on. I'm expecting this series to become very similar to Earth: Final Conflict, which was probably based on the original series anyway.
Overall I would say the series show promise and I'll no doubt continue watching it, but it is now making me start to wonder what the original series was like. I think one of my main concerns for this show is that it is already showing signs of having some strong political agenda in the show and sometimes this can be too overpowering for the rest of the story. Anyway, I'll look forward to watching the next episode.
