V - Is The Pope An Alien?

There's a new show on ABC (that's a remake of an old show) called V. V is for visitors; that's what they call the aliens. It premiered last night and one of the main characters is a priest! Basically the plot is a bunch of alien spaceships arrive over 29 major cities in the world. They say they come in peace. But some people think they're lying!

Father Jack is a young(er) priest at St. Josephine's a small parish along with an older priest. Apparently their parishioners include only a couple of homeless people and a guy in a wheelchair who later takes advantage of the visitors' medical technology and universal (literally) health care. After the visitors arrive, though, the church is packed.

So far ABC seems to be doing an alright job with their portrayal. Although there does seem to be a vestment issue in the premiere (where's your chasuble, Fr. Jack!?). Very early on they let us know that the Vatican's answer to the existence of aliens is basically "we are all God's creatures." Fr. Jack appears to have some doubts about reconciling the existence of aliens with the existence of God as he has known Him. The elderly priest at St Josephine's takes the "don't question the Vatican" stance and sees the visitors as benign. Fr Jack is suspicious of them and preaches about it in his homily (sans chasuble).

Later we find out that the visitors aren't what they appear to be and that many of them have been here for years and infiltrated the important positions of authority in government, military, and yes - religion! So we'll see where this goes, but my bet is that the elderly priest may be an undercover visitor and if the pope turns out to be one I'm gonna flip - channels that is. Also, we'll need to see if ABC can resist the temptation for the relationship between the very attractive single mother FBI agent (played by Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell) and Fr Jack goes anywhere further than co-conspirators.

My message to ABC - we're watching you, so if you want us to watch, then watch how you portray our faith.

You can see video here.