Something about this looks familiar...

So I've been looking at the previews that ABC has released for the new version of the series V that is coming out next year. What they have shown looks good and a part of me is going "Yay! New V!", but another part is asking "But why are we doing this again?"

"Reimaging" seems to be the thing these days; apparently someone in Hollywood realized that if they call it a "reimage" instead of a "remake" then they wouldn't have to worry about staying true to the original source material. The new version of Star Trek seems to be enjoying a good deal of popularity. A new version of Land of the Lost is being released this summer. And we've just finished up the amazingly successful reimaging of Battlestar Galactica.

While Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica are both excellent (I'm not sure about Land of the Lost) I can't help but wonder if they would have been just as good, if not better, if they hadn't been Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. What made them good, the name or the story?

Look at it this way; J.J. Abrams has proven himself to be an extremely creative and successful producer. He has given us TV shows and movies like Alias, Lost, Cloverfield and Fringe. He obviously has creativity, imagination and the ability to tell a story. So, why did he decide to do a Star Trek movie as opposed to creating his own space opera story? Surely he could have done so.

Maybe he has always been a fan of Trek and wanted to tell his own story in the Trek universe. OK, fair enough. But that is just one example.

Has Hollywood become so risk-adverse that it will not greenlight anything that doesn't seem to have a built-in audience? And have audiences become so unwilling to try anything new that they won't go see anything that they don't recognize?

Maybe it's like how, when people travel, they always seem to eat at the same old chain restaurants they have back home. There may be an excellent, local restaurant around but they decide it is better to eat familiar, mediocre food instead of trying something new that may or may not be to their liking.

Of course, familiarity doesn't always equal success; just look at Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

There are exceptions of course. Joss Whedon, for example, has so far managed to stay away from the remake trap (for the most part anyway). Buffy/Angel (which, to be fair, was based on a movie though it was nothing like it), Firefly/Serenity, Dr. Horrible and now Dollhouse are all fairly original ideas. While their relative lack of success may be blamed on their poor scheduling, it may be that they are demonstrations of why we don't see more original programming on TV or in the theatres.

But maybe I'll be surprised. The new Battlestar Galactica was far superior to the original version, maybe the new version of V will exceed my memories of the original. Or, maybe a year from now I'll be watching rat-eating aliens who are a poorly disguised representation of Nazi Germany oppressing the resistance while I think of the myriad alien-invasion stories both written and unwritten that I could be watching instead.

Come on, Hollywood. Show us something new.