Elizabeth Mitchell of ABC's 'V'.
David Gray/ABC

Elizabeth Mitchell stars on ABC's V, which has chosen a very hazardous method of self-promotion.

ABC is warming up for the premiere of V, its remake of the 1980s sci-fi semi-classic in which mankind battled alien lizards as well as people who, underneath, were secretly alien lizards. (I am simplifying.)

The show will launch November 3, air four times, and then go on hiatus until next year, as part of the plan on the part of all major networks to drive viewers to the brink of insanity with scheduling hijinks. ("Did you like this show? Did you? Too bad; go watch something else for a few months and we'll see whether you still care when it finally comes back.")

But they've now come up with a marketing idea that will be cute and not very effective, providing it isn't terrifying and inappropriate.

The details, after the jump.

 

According to an ABC press release, skywriters will draw red "V" shapes in the sky near 26 major landmarks, several times a day, between this Friday and November 3. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the landmarks under consideration is the Statue Of Liberty.

Because what could go wrong when you decide to fly planes in an unusual pattern around major landmarks like the Statue Of Liberty? What capacity does that have to blow up in your face?

Don't get me wrong: it's not up there with the Air Force One debacle, but in my experience, people in New York get very jumpy whenever any plane of any kind is doing something over the city that they don't expect. It's as simple as that. It's hard to wrap your mind's eye around exactly how it will look or how high the planes will be until it happens, but if I were sitting on the viral marketing team for a network or any other entity, you couldn't get me to run a publicity stunt involving the words "plane" and "Statue Of Liberty" if you paid me in pure gold and foot massages.

There's enough skepticism and savvy about viral marketing these days that the implications may be immediately clear and not bother a soul, and as I said, it's hard to draw conclusions about it until you see it. But they're talking about doing this multiple times a day between this Friday and November 3, and if even a small number of overreacting worrywarts wind up getting nervous and calling 911, this is going to look really stupid really quickly.