V (TV series)

V was a 1983 U.S. science fiction television miniseries written and directed by Kenneth Johnson and first shown on NBC. It starred Jane Badler, Marc Singer, Faye Grant, Michael Ironside, Michael Durrell, Jenny Sullivan, Richard Herd, Peter Nelson, David Packer, Blair Tefkin, Diane Civita and Robert Englund. It was followed by a sequel in 1984, The Final Battle and a TV series, V (sometimes referred to as The Series) during the 1984-1985 TV season.

Premise

Humanoid (and apparently human-looking) aliens arrive on Earth from the fourth planet of Sirius in a fleet of huge saucer ships that they park over the major cities of the planet. They appear to be friendly and seek the help of humans to obtain needed chemicals to aid their own world. In return, the Visitors promise to share their advanced technology with humanity. The governments of Earth accept, and the Visitors gain considerable influence with the native authorities.

However, strange things are soon noted, such as scientists that find themselves facing increasing media hostility and government restrictions on their activities and movements. This includes confessions of subversive activities by noted scientists, who are exhibiting unusual behavior, such as suddenly demonstrating the opposite hand preference to the one they are known to have. Persons who want to examine the Visitors more closely disappear without a trace.

Photojournalist Michael Donovan (Singer) sneaks aboard one of the Visitors' motherships and discovers that beneath their humanlike covering, the aliens are reptilian in nature and carnivorous, preferring to eat live food, such as white mice. However, when Donovan tries to air this exposé, the broadcast is blocked and Donovan becomes a wanted fugitive pursued by both the police and the Visitors.

As the series progresses, the true designs of the Visitors' agenda are revealed: they plan to steal all the water of Earth and harvest the human race as a food source, leaving only a few as slaves and as soldiers/cannon fodder for the Visitors' wars with other alien races. The scientists are persecuted both to discredit the part of the population most likely to detect the Visitors' secrets, and to distract the human population with a scapegoat they could focus their fears on. Furthermore, key individuals are subjected to a special mind control process called "conversion", which makes them obey the commands of the Visitors while leaving only subtle clues to their manipulation. However, there are numerous humans who willingly collaborate (including Donovan's own mother) who either are ignorant or refuse to accept the truth.

A resistance movement is formed, determined to expose and oppose the Visitors as much as possible. The Los Angeles cell leader is Dr. Juliet (Julie) Parish; eventually, Donovan joins this group. Together, the resistance strike their first blows against the Visitors. Meanwhile, there is a small group of dissidents among the Visitors (known as the Fifth Column), including their leader Martin, who are opposed to their leader's plans and attempts to help the Resistance by any possible means.

Influences

Series creator Kenneth Johnson has said that the story was inspired by the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, but a quick check at the library will show that several scenes from the original TV pilot were lifted directly from the Bertolt Brecht play The Private Life of the Master Race. The opening half-hour of the movie, though not the outcome, resembles the introductory chapter of Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 novel Childhood's End. A short story entitled To Serve Man (later adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone) had a similar theme of deceptively helpful aliens secretly cultivating humans for food.

In a commentary track on the DVD release of the first miniseries, Johnson reveals that V was originally intended as a straightforward political thriller, charting the rise of a Nazi-like movement in the United States. NBC wasn't interested, but was looking for a sci-fi miniseries to capitalize on the success of films such as the Star Wars trilogy and asked Johnson to re-write his script to include aliens.

The story remains a Nazi allegory, right down to the emblem used by the Visitors (which hints at the swastika). During the course of the series, the Resistance Network's TV news bulletins report stories of erstwhile enemies uniting in common cause against the alien occupiers, such as black and white South Africans (the series was produced when South Africa was still under apartheid), or Israelis and Palestinians. In addition, direct figure analogies are used, such as the senior Visitor scientist, Diana, who is a direct analogue of Dr. Josef Mengele.

The series ran for 200 minutes and was successful enough to spawn a sequel, V: The Final Battle, which was meant to conclude the story, and a television series in 1984–85 that revived it. Johnson left V during the sequel but went on to work on other science fiction shows such as Alien Nation. Perhaps as a result, the sequel and TV series had less of an emphasis on historical allegory, and were more action-oriented.

The cancellation of the TV series in the spring of 1985 appeared to have caught its producers by surprise, as the season ends with a cliffhanger. The show's single season was released on DVD in 2004. That same year, Kenneth Johnson announced plans to produce a sequel to the first V miniseries, but one that would disregard both the second miniseries and the subsequent weekly series. In October 2004, Kenneth Johnson made it known that NBC has decided it wants a remake of the original V miniseries rather than a sequel. The possibility of a sequel of the original would remain open, but would be contingent on the success of the remake.

The concept of lizard-like aliens who appear human, and who plot to control humanity, is similar to some fringe theories - see Reptiloid.

Characters

Episode Guide (V: The Series)

Episode #	Original Air Date	Episode Title
1-01	26 October 1984	Liberation Day
1-02	2 November 1984	Dreadnought
1-03	24 May 1985 (see Trivia, below)	Breakout
1-04	9 November 1984	The Deception
1-05	16 November 1984	The Sanction
1-06	23 November 1984	Visitors' Choice
1-07	30 November 1984	The Overlord
1-08	14 December 1984	The Dissident
1-09	21 December 1984	Reflections in Terror
1-10	4 January 1985	The Conversion
1-11	11 January 1985	The Hero
1-12	18 January 1985	The Betrayal
1-13	1 February 1985	The Rescue
1-14	8 February 1985	The Champion
1-15	15 February 1985	The Wildcats
1-16	2 February 1985	The Littlest Dragon
1-17	8 March 1985	War of Illusions
1-18	15 March 1985	Secret Underground
1-19	22 March 1985	The Return

Trivia

In the original miniseries and The Final Battle, the Visitors' voices were given a pitch shift effect in post-production, to give them an otherworldly demeanor even though they looked (outwardly, at least) like perfectly normal human beings. This was dropped from the weekly series, evidently due to budgetary concerns. No on-screen explanation was ever given for the change; it was simply treated as if the Visitors never had unusual-sounding voices at all. However this did create a plot conflict, as in the mini series part of the plot involved simulating an alien voice, but in the TV series aliens are mistaken for human without any effort to alter their voices. In certain dubbed versions, such as the French version, the Visitors had a deep bass voice, while in German, the pitch shift was kept throughout the entire series.
In the UK the miniseries and its sequel were shown concurrently, across five nights on ITV opposite the BBC's coverage of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, leading one critic to point out that the schedule presented a choice between "seeing a lot of people running and jumping in LA… or watching the Olympics".
An interesting aspect of the 1984-85 series which is never explained is the complete absence of any military or political authorities following the return of the Visitors. Although police are seen, as are Science Frontiers' own forces, at no point is any reference made to the military forces of any nation, or of the federal, state and civic governments of the United States and other nations (thus allowing businessmen like Nathan Bates to assume absolute power over parts of the country).
NBC initially refused to air the third episode of the TV series, "Breakout", as the network felt it was too violent for the intended family audience, even though the episode introduced the regular character, Kyle Bates. The next episode, "The Deception", was rewritten so that Kyle is introduced again. "Breakout" was finally aired in 1985 when NBC reran the series following its cancellation. As a result, viewers saw Kyle Bates introduced to the same Resistance fighters twice.
In 1989, Warner Bros. commissioned J. Michael Straczynski (who would later go on to create Babylon 5) to write a pilot screenplay for a proposed new series, tentatively titled V: The Next Chapter, that would have continued the V storyline. Picking up five years after the end of the NBC series, it would have followed the efforts of a new Resistance movement on a conquered Earth to make contact with the "Outsiders," the faction of the Visitors' own people who oppose their Leader, who had finally responded to a summons put out at the end of the original miniseries. The only character from the older V to appear in this script was Ham Tyler. After numerous drafts, the script, entitled "The Rebirth," was finally abandoned when the studio decided it would be too cost-prohibitive to produce.
Dominique Dunne was originally cast to play the role of Robin Maxwell, but was strangled and killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney after she refused to reconcile with him.

Books and Comics

V spun off a series of original novels, including a novelization of the first two mini-series combined into one story. Unusually, most of the original novels that followed did not feature characters from the TV series, but rather focused on battles against the alien invaders in other parts of the world. While the series was on the air, new novels were published once a month by Pinnacle Paperbacks. In 1987-88, a new series of novels was published by Tor.

Novels

V (Ann C. Crispin) - May 1984 ISBN 0-523-42237-3
East Coast Crisis (Howard Weinstein) - September 1984 ISBN 0-523-42259-8
The Pursuit of Diana (Allen L. Wold) - December 1984 ISBN 0-523-42401-9
The Chicago Conversion (George W. Proctor) - January 1985 ISBN 0-523-42429-9
The Florida Project (Tim Sullivan) - February 1985 ISBN 0-523-42430-2
Prisoners and Pawns (Howard Weinstein) - March 1985 ISBN 0-523-42439-6
The Alien Swordmaster (Somtow Sucharitkul) - April 1985 ISBN 0-523-42441-8
The Crivit Experiment (Allen L. Wold) - May 1985 ISBN 0-523-42466-3
The New England Resistance (Tim Sullivan) - June 1985 ISBN 0-523-42467-1
Death Tide (Ann C. Crispin) - July 1985 ISBN 0-523-42469-8
The Texas Run (George W. Proctor) - September 1985 ISBN 0-523-42470-1
Path to Conquest (Howard Weinstein) - September 1987 ISBN 0-812-55725-5
To Conquer the Throne (Tim Sullivan) - November 1987 ISBN 0-812-55727-1
The Oregon Invasion (Jayne Tannehill) - January 1988 ISBN 0-812-55729-8
Below the Threshold (Allen L. Wold) - March 1988 ISBN 0-812-55732-8
Symphony of Terror (Somtow Sucharitkul) - May 1988 ISBN 0-812-55482-5

The first three books were republished in 1994.

The first book novelises both the miniseries, but has subtle differences, including killing off several characters that do not die in the televised version. This includes Chris Farber, leading to confusion about his return in V: The Series.

Meanwhile, DC Comics published an 18-issue V comic book series in 1985-86, with stories set to be concurrent with the events of V: The Series. The editor of the comic reported at one point in the letter (fan mail) column that DC was working to acquire permission to continue the storyline of the television series should it not be renewed for a second season. In the end, either such permission was denied or DC decided not to pursue the matter further; the V comic ended without resolving any of the plot threads left dangling by the series' cliffhanger finale, though one of the comic's final storylines did lead directly into the events of the finale.

External links

Kenneth Johnson's Official Site
The Fifth Column
Ilana's V page
TheVisitors.info website
Chronology Central's V page - contains a chronological listing for the V series, mini-series and books.

NBC network shows | V (TV series) | Television miniseries | 1980s TV shows in the United States | TV shows produced/distributed by Warner Brothers