TV Potpourri: Bye-bye 'Betty,' hello Visitors!

Grab a bottle of red spray paint and hide the gerbils — the Visitors of "V" are coming back to television.

Originally airing back around the same time I still thought Fred Flintstone was a real person, "V" was a hugely successful 1983 NBC miniseries about alien invasion and human resistance fighters. The aliens, called The Visitors, came here acting all peaceful-like, and even looked like us, but in reality looked more like giant lizards, ate rodents live, and wanted to go around enslaving everybody. Basically, the four-hour miniseries served as a foreshadowing of the Bush administration. (Zing!)

And now, according to Variety, ABC has greenlit a pilot for a new weekly series, to be written by "The 4400" co-creator Scott Peters. Will this update keep the original's brilliant allegories of Nazi Germany, or just be another run-of-the-mill TV sci-fi show? More importantly, will there be a guest spot for original star Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund?

In other ABC news, it looks like Betty Suarez is finally going to have time to balance her work life with her personal life, as Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello reports that the network is putting "Ugly Betty" on hiatus. It will be replaced by new episodes of "Samantha Who?" and a new Megan Mullally show, "In the Motherhood." "Betty" will be back once those shows run their course, which, Ausiello frets, would be sometime around June.

I don't watch "Betty," but appreciate it's gung-ho visual kineticism and wacky sensibilities. Plus anything that makes nerds look cool is fine by me. But apparently its ratings have been suffering, and that's the way it goes with the network suits. Still, I'd rather watch America Ferrera in dork glasses and falling down than "Samantha Who Gives a Crap" and anything with Megan Mullally.

In other other ABC news, the newly funny again "Scrubs" is moving to Wednesdays at 7 p.m., to be paired with some new show called "Better Off Ted," starting March 18. I've been loving the show once again this season, and hope this move is a show of confidence from the network.

— Adam Reinhard, areinhard@greenbaypressgazette.com