&ldquo;V,&rdquo; the last of the new TV shows to premiere this fall, imagines a takeover of Earth by an alien race, with Earthlings as their eager accomplices. </p><p>For all of its science fiction markings &mdash; the visual effects, the otherworldly politeness of the visitors, the action scenes in which the predator reveals its true nature &mdash; this is at its heart political drama, not sci-fi.</p><p>That makes it very different from &ldquo;FlashForward,&rdquo; the other ABC sci-fi thriller introduced to America this autumn. While there are some superficial similarities between the two shows, &ldquo;V&rdquo; &mdash; a re-imagining of a promising 1980s miniseries that eventually was turned into low-budget serial schlock &mdash; is not teeming with conspiratorial mysteries like &ldquo;FlashForward,&rdquo; and &ldquo;V&rdquo; lacks the first-act <em>deus ex machina </em>of &ldquo;FlashForward&rsquo;s&rdquo; two-minute blackout. </p><p>Like &ldquo;FlashForward,&rdquo; &ldquo;V&rdquo; begins on just another ordinary TV-drama day on the planet&rsquo;s west end. A man is buying an engagement ring. A woman is waking up next to someone she shouldn&rsquo;t be. A priest looks over his sorry flock. A news anchor is on the flat screen, speaking at a measured clip. (Barnhart&rsquo;s Rule: Newscasters on TV dramas always talk at least 20 percent slower than actual newscasters, use complete sentences and never work the channel&rsquo;s marketing slogans into their scripts.)</p><p>Suddenly, in 29 cities around the globe, enormous spaceships appear overhead. Their underbodies turn into massive projection screens that broadcast the same video message, each one delivered in the local language by the visitors&rsquo; alluring leader-slash-spokesbabe, Anna (Morena Baccarin), who brings a message of peace that most who see it immediately embrace. </p><p>But as we soon learn, these pod people have been living among us for years and are actually otherworldlybeings who have craftily insinuated themselves into the population, unbeknownst to us all. They&rsquo;re also enlisting thousands of teenagers in their fan club by throwing parties onboard their ships and filling once-empty churches with their message of global goodness. </p><p>Anna takes a liking to a pretty-boy anchor named, inevitably, Chad (Scott Wolf), and invites Chad to conduct the first worldwide TV interview of the commander-slash-flack of the visitors. But moments before the cameras are to roll, Anna asks if there will be any hostile questions, and when Chad says, well, maybe, she threatens to end the interview. Because this is TV, not the real world, he caves to her demand to play nice with her.</p><p>Leaving aside the fact that behind every celebrity journalist there is a barracuda producer who would never stand for such bleepity bleep from interview subjects, the aliens&rsquo; media campaign is preposterous. If this is indeed part of an orchestrated takeover by an intellectually superior race that knows how to push all our buttons &hellip;</p><p>&bull;How did they not know that humans have invented satellite feeds? An alien race that spends a fortune building 29 Jumbotrons for its fleet with a worldwide telecommunications system at its slimy fingertips can&rsquo;t be that bright, can it? </p><p>&bull;And how is it that Anna does not know the first rule of public relations, which is that no publicity is bad publicity? That if Chad the Anchor grills her too hard, <em>he&rsquo;ll</em> suffer the blowback, not her?</p><p>One of the built-in problems of &ldquo;V&rdquo; is that, oddly enough, it does not raise the stakes as dramatically as &ldquo;FlashForward.&rdquo; The viewer has spent his life watching TV dramas about a band of rebels who are fighting for the truth and justice against impossible odds. (&ldquo;Jericho&rdquo; did come to mind once or twice while watching &ldquo;V.&rdquo;)