V (1983 miniseries)
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This article is about the original 1983 miniseries. For other versions, see V (science fiction).
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| V | |
|---|---|
 2001 DVD cover | |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Written by | Kenneth Johnson |
| Directed by | Kenneth Johnson |
| Starring | Marc Singer Faye Grant Jane Badler Frank Ashmore Richard Herd Michael Wright Robert Englund Andrew Prine Richard Lawson |
| Composer(s) | Joe Harnell |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 2 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Kenneth Johnson |
| Producer(s) | Chuck Bowman |
| Cinematography | John McPherson |
| Running time | 197 min |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | May 1, 1983 – May 2, 1983 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | V: The Final Battle V: The Second Generation (novel) |
V (or V: The Original Miniseries) is a two-part science fiction television miniseries, written and directed by Kenneth Johnson. First shown in 1983, it initiated the science fiction franchise concerning aliens known as "The Visitors" trying to gain control of Earth.
Contents[show] |
[edit] Plot summary
A race of aliens arrive on Earth in a fleet of 50 huge, saucer-shaped motherships, which hover over major key cities across the world. They reveal themselves on the roof of the United Nations building in New York City, appearing human but requiring special glasses to protect their eyes and having a distinctive resonance to their voices. Referred to as the Visitors, they reach out in friendship, ostensibly seeking the help of humans to obtain chemicals and minerals needed to aid their ailing world. In return, the Visitors promise to share their advanced technology with humanity. The governments of Earth accept the arrangement, and the Visitors, commanded by their leader John and his deputy Diana, begin to gain considerable influence with human authorities.
Strange events begin to occur and scientists become objects of increasing media hostility. They experience government restrictions on their activities and movements. Others, particularly those keen on examining the Visitors more closely, begin to disappear or are discredited. Noted scientists confess to subversive activities; some of them exhibit other unusual behaviors, such as suddenly demonstrating an opposite hand preference to the one they were known to have.
Television journalist cameraman Michael Donovan covertly boards one of the Visitors' motherships and discovers that beneath their human-like facade (they wear a thin, synthetic skin and human-like contact lenses in public), the aliens are actually carnivorous reptilian humanoids preferring to eat live food such as rodents and birds. Donovan records some of his findings on videotape and escapes from the mothership with the evidence, but just as the exposé is about to air on television, the broadcast is interrupted by the Visitors who have taken control of the media. Their announcement makes Donovan a fugitive, pursued by both the police and the Visitors.
Scientists around the world continue to be persecuted, both to discredit them (as the part of the human population most likely to discover the Visitors' secrets) and to distract the rest of the population with a scapegoat to whom they could attribute their fears. Key human individuals are subjected to Diana's special mind control process called "conversion", which turned them into the Visitors' pawns, leaving only subtle behavioral clues to this manipulation. Others become subjects of Diana's horrifying biological experiments.
Some humans (including Mike Donovan's mother, Eleanor Dupres) willingly collaborate with the Visitors, seduced by their power. Daniel Bernstein, a grandson of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, joins the Visitor Youth and reveals the location of a scientist family to the alien cause. One teenager, Robin Maxwell, the daughter of a well-known scientist who went into hiding, has sex with a male Visitor named Brian, who impregnates her as one of Diana's "medical experiments".
A resistance movement is formed, determined to expose and oppose the Visitors. The Los Angeles cell leader is Julie Parrish. Donovan later joins the group and, again sneaking aboard a mothership, he learns from a Visitor named Martin that the story about the Visitors needing waste chemicals was a false story. The true purpose of the Visitors' arrival on Earth was to conquer and subdue the planet, steal all of the Earth's water, and harvest the human race as food, leaving only a few as slaves and cannon fodder for the Visitors' wars with other alien races. Martin is one of many dissidents among the Visitors (later known as the Fifth Column) who oppose their leader's plans and would rather co-exist peacefully with the humans. Martin befriends Donovan and promises to aid the Resistance, and gives Donovan access to one of their sky-fighter ships, which he quickly learns how to pilot. He escapes from the mothership along with Robin, who was a prisoner there, and a man named Sancho.
The members of the Resistance strike their first blows against the Visitors, while procuring laboratory equipment and modern military weapons from National Guard armories to carry on the fight. The symbol of the resistance is a blood-red letter V (for victory), spray-painted over posters promoting Visitor friendship among humans. The symbol was inspired by Abraham Bernstein, another Holocaust survivor and grandfather of Daniel.
The mini-series ends with the Visitors now virtually controlling the Earth, and Julie and Elias sending a transmission into space to ask for help to defeat the Visitors from other alien races.
[edit] Origins
Inspired by the Sinclair Lewis novel about fascism in the United States, It Can't Happen Here (1935), director–producer Kenneth Johnson wrote an adaptation titled Storm Warnings, in 1982. The script was presented to NBC for production as a television mini-series, but the NBC executives rejected the initial version, claiming it was too "cerebral" for the average American viewer. To make the script more marketable, the American fascists were re-cast as man-eating extraterrestrials, taking the story into the realm of science fiction to capitalize on the popularity of science-fiction franchises such as Star Wars. The new, re-cast story was the mini-series V, which premiered on May 1, 1983.[1][2]
[edit] Influences
Aside from It Can't Happen Here, several scenes from the original TV pilot resemble the Bertolt Brecht play The Private Life of the Master Race. A short story by Damon Knight entitled To Serve Man (later adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone) had a similar theme suggesting that deceptively friendly aliens were secretly cultivating humans as food.
The story became a Nazi allegory, right down to the Swastika-like emblem used by the Visitors and their SS-like uniforms. There is a youth auxiliary movement called the "Friends of the Visitors" with obvious similarities to the Hitler Youth, and Visitor broadcasts mimic Nazi-era propaganda. The show's portrayal of human interaction with the Visitors bears a striking resemblance to stories from Occupied Europe during World War II with some citizens choosing collaboration and others choosing to join underground resistance movements.
Where the Nazis persecuted primarily Jews, the Visitors were instead depicted to persecute scientists, their families, and anyone associating with them. They also distribute propaganda in an effort to hide their true identity. Some of the main characters in the initial series were from a Jewish family and the grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, frequently commented on the events of the past again unfolding. Once they are in a position to do so, the Visitors later declare martial law to control the scientists (and resistance fighters) as well.
[edit] Legacy
The two-part miniseries ran for 200 minutes; the first part earned a 25.4 rating or more than 40 million viewers.[3]V: The Final Battle, which was meant to conclude the story. In spite of the apparent conclusion, this itself was then followed by a weekly television series, V: The Series, from 1984 to 1985 that continued the story a year after The Final Battle. Johnson left V during The Final Battle due to disagreements with NBC over how the story should progress.[4] Its success spawned a sequel,
In November 2005, Entertainment Weekly named V one of the ten best miniseries on DVD.[5] The article noted, "As a parable about it-can-happen-here fascism, V was far from subtle, but it carved a place for lavish and intelligent sci-fi on TV. Its impact can still be felt in projects like Taken and The 4400."[5] In December 2008, Entertainment Weekly put V on its list "The Sci-Fi 25: The Genre's Best Since 1982", and called Visitor leader Diana's devouring a guinea pig "one of the best TV reveals ever."[6]
A reimagining of V premiered on ABC on November 3, 2009.[7][8] Though Johnson is not involved and the new series features all new characters, executive producer Scott Peters says that it will nod to the most iconic moments from the original franchise and may potentially include actors from the original in different roles. Johnson has also said he is still moving ahead with his plans for a big screen version of the original franchise.[9][10]
[edit] Cast
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