V, the remake of the 1980s-era miniseries about aliens coming to Earth, was the focus of a panel at Comic-Con on Saturday.

And while most of the one-hour event was taken up with a screening of the pilot episode, the most significant moment of the panel occurred when an audience member was censored from asking a relevant and thought-provoking question about race.

The new series, which has been booked by ABC as a mid-season replacement, stars Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) as FBI agent and single mother Erica Evans. Also starring in the series are Morris Chestnut (The Cave) as businessman Ryan Nichols, Joel Gretsch (The 4400) as Catholic priest Jack Landry, Scott Wolf (Everwood) as news anchor Chad Decker and Morena Baccarin (Firefly) as Anna, head of the alien visitors that call themselves the V.

The pilot does a good job of setting up the series, and seeding the idea that the V have been on Earth for years, living as humans, and suggesting that the world's economic and political problems are as a result of the efforts of these embedded V.

In the short question and answer period that followed the screening, executive producer Scott Peters said that people seem to still be excited about the show. "A lot has happened in 25 years," he said, but world events have made the themes of the original production just as relevant today.

Elizabeth Mitchell and Morena Baccarin were also on stage with Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch and Scott Wolf.

Baccarin said that she watched the original mini-series with her brother. "I was totally into V. I thought it was genius."

Mitchell also watched the show. "I have huge memories of the alien baby."

The panel was nearly derailed when an audience member asked how the producers planned on addressing the "racial overtones" of the show. The question met with groans from the audience and the questioner was quickly ushered away from the microphone. The cast responded with raised eyebrows and the producers called for another question, but I hope they give the question some more thought when they get back to their offices.

Because the person who asked the question has a very valid point, even if Comic-Con may not have been the perfect place to raise the issue.

In order to explain why, though, requires that I reveal a spoiler. It's a detail that has been discussed elsewhere, so I'm not the first, but if you really want to view the pilot untainted, look away now.

Here's why the question of racial overtones when it comes to the V remake has merit.

The only significant cast member of color in the pilot was Morris Chestnut. In today's environment, where genre shows are regularly casting Asian, Hispanic and other actors of color, we can expect that proportion to be higher.

Making matters worse, it is revealed in the pilot that Chestnut's character is actually an alien disguised as a human. So from a certain perspective, the black man is an alien. That's a dangerous and loaded representation.

And to further worsen the situation, the characters who are set up in the pilot to be the heroes are played by two white actors, Elizabeth Mitchell and Joel Gretsch.

The stated plan of their characters is to resist the V, who they believe intend to destroy humanity, which is effectively a genocide. Aliens versus humans is a race war, even if the aliens are reptilian invaders.

You see how uncomfortable all this gets when you start paying attention to the representations and the overtones?

I'm certain that there was no intent by the producers and writers, but someone should have picked up on this subtext, whether it was intentional or not, especially given that the original series was a loosely-veiled metaphor for the Nazi takeover of Germany — complete with swastika-like symbology and uniforms that could have been worn by the Hitler Youth — I'd expect the producers to be more sensitive to issues of race representation in their remake.

Yes, V is a science fiction television show and not a classroom, but maybe that's even more reason for the creators to be mindful of and responsible for their representations.