With so many new shows premiering each season, and most of them destined for quick cancellation, each network usually chooses only a select few to give a big promotional push to. This year, ABC has chosen to put most of its marketing minions behind V, an update of the 1980s sci-fi miniseries, and if you haven’t been inundated with the V marketing blitz, well, chances are you live in a cave and don’t have eyes.

But, to give the network some credit, the media hype they’ve created around V isn’t because they’re worried it’s crap. V is easily one of the best new shows of the fall season and succeeds in creating high-tension drama in ways that FlashForward hasn’t been able to achieve.

Warning: Spoilers abound!

In case you’re too young to remember the original miniseries, V was about a race of aliens called the Visitors who arrive on earth, promising peace and offering to share their technological advancements with the human race. Humans are eager to accept the Visitors’ help because not only have they arrived on Earth at a time when the planet is it turmoil, the aliens happen to be totally hot. Of course, it turns out the Visitors are neither peaceful nor hot – they’re alien lizards in disguise, planning on taking over the world. See, the Visitors haven’t just arrived; they’ve been around for years and have infiltrated much of human society. In case you need a refresher, here's a famous clip from the original series, in which a human woman gives birth to twins -- and she had been impregnated by one of the Visitors:

The main problem with remaking V for 2009 is that most viewers are familiar with the original miniseries – at the very least, they know that the aliens are lizards. And who wants to sit through weeks of the human characters slowwwwly figuring out what the audience already knows? (Kind of like how everybody hated Will on the first season of Alias, since the viewers already knew Sydney was a spy and thought Will was stupid for not figuring it out already, dammit.)

But the writers have anticipated that and decided to jump in with both feet. Elizabeth Mitchell (formerly of Lost – RIP, Juliet) plays FBI Agent Erica Evans, who notices that when the Visitors arrived, most of the terrorist cells around the world went quiet… except for one. Her investigation comes to a head about three quarters of the way into the pilot, when the Visitors’ lizardish tendencies are revealed, showing the audience that the new V is going to move at a much faster pace than the original.

And, despite the ubiquity of the original, the 2009 V still has a few twists that show a lot of promise. Even more impressive, the supporting cast actually seems to have stuff to do, unlike much of the cast of FlashForward, who seem to be there just because the writers thought they needed more people. Joel Gretsch plays Father Jack Landry, who can’t reconcile his belief in God with the existence of the Visitors, while Morris Chestnut is Ryan Nichols, a former member of underground resistance who realizes he needs to keep fighting. And Scott Wolf is as cute as ever as news reporter Chad Decker, whothe Visitors want to manipulate to promote their peaceful image (“Just don’t ask anything that could paint us in a negative light,” says the Visitors’ leader, Anna). Decker wants to be a responsible journalist but also can’t pass up the career boost his cooperation will afford him.

The one weak link in the new series is Logan Huffman as Erica’s son Tyler; not only is Tyler an annoying, wannabe rebel who falls for everything the Visitors tell him, Huffman isn’t that great an actor, so the character falls flat. Unfortunately, Tyler is quickly manipulated into becoming an unwitting spy for the Visitors, mostly because he has a thing for a pretty blonde Visitor named Lisa, so his story is going to stick around for a while. (I’m willing to bet, though, that Lisa will eventually realize that she does love Tyler and will go betray her alien overlords for lurve. Barf.)

The V pilot ends with a surprising amount already revealed, but not in a way that makes you wonder what else they can do. This isn’t the original miniseries, and the writers seem to have a pretty good plan for where the show is going.

V premieres Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 8 p.m. ET on CTV and ABC.