Resistance (V TV series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Kyle Bates
Kyle Bates, played by Jeff Yagher, is introduced in V: The Series. He is the son of Science Frontiers head Nathan Bates. Kyle reluctantly becomes a member of the Los Angeles Resistance cell. He falls in love with Elizabeth (which may have something to do with encouraging his involvement). He kills Mr. Chiang, who killed his father. He is last seen stowing away on the Leader's shuttle as the creature prepares to depart with Elizabeth. As the series was cancelled prior to this storyline being concluded, the audience never finds out Kyle's fate.
[edit] Bernstein family
The Bernstein family:
- George Morfogen as Stanley
- Bonnie Bartlett as Lynn
- Leonardo Cimino as Abraham
- See: Daniel in The Collaborators
Abraham and his son Stanley survived the Holocaust, while Stanley was an infant. (Abraham's wife died in the gas chambers.) Stanley represents the dogged middle-American "it can't happen here" mindset, vainly hoping for things to return to normal even while his own son is keeping tabs on the family for signs of subversion. Abraham though remembers what life was like leading up to the Holocaust and views the Visitors' increasingly authoritarian presence in parallel with the growth of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, and shelters the Maxwell family.
It is Abraham who first gives the series its name when he interrupts teenagers spraypainting anti-Visitor slogans on propaganda posters. Abraham takes one of the spray cans and admonishes them, "If you are going to defy them, do it right." He then spray paints a large red "V" on the Visitor propaganda poster, which he explains stands for "Victory".
Knowing he will die when the Visitors take him, he leaves a letter that encourages Stanley that they must aid the Resistance. As explained to them by Robert Maxwell, the Bernstein's home, already "struck by lightning", and with a collaborator living in it, is a perfect safe house for the Resistance. Lynn and Stanley keep a low profile over the next year, and are elated to see liberation day, when balloons spread the Red Dust.
[edit] Maggie Blodgett
Maggie Blodgett, played by Denise Galik, is introduced in V:The Final Battle. Maggie poses as a nurse to seduce Daniel Bernstein to obtain intelligence. Her relationship with Mark is strained by this. Maggie is part of the final resistance assault force on the Los Angeles mothership. She does not appear in V: The Series and her final fate is not revealed.
[edit] Josh Brooks
Josh Brooks, played by Tommy Petersen, is introduced in V. He is Sean's best friend. He was the only one left when the Visitors removed the entire population of the town where he, Sean, and Sean's mother lived. He helped Mike find the Visitor security key that Mike acquired earlier and was later taken in by a restaurant manager that Mike knew. Later, Josh is among the family members staying with the Resistance cell as it moves around the Los Angeles area and is bunked near the Maxwells.
[edit] Mike Donovan
Mike Donovan, played by Marc Singer, is introduced in V. He begins as a television reporter. Mike was talking to resistance forces in El Salvador when the Visitors arrived. He reports for his network on the evening when John introduces the Visitors to the world, and is one of the few reporters who can go aboard the mothership to report for all of the world’s media. Mike becomes close to Martin. Mike starts to become suspicious when his sound operator, Tony, notices that two scientists of the "conspiracy" are suddenly left-handed. Tony and Mike both try to sneak aboard a mothership, though only Mike succeeds. He discovers the Visitors’ true nature, but is unable to broadcast the truth, and is forced to become a fugitive. He is further galvanized into action when the Visitors empty the small town where his son, Sean, and ex-wife were living, and is then captured by the Visitors. Martin and the Fifth Column help him escape the ship and he manages to be found by the Los Angeles Resistance, who he then tells about the Visitors’ reptilian nature. Mike sneaks aboard the ship again while the Resistance makes its first strike, and discovers the plans for harvesting water and humans. He rescues Robin Maxwell and Sancho Gomez, and flies to the rescue while the Visitors are attacking the Resistance’s mountain camp. He tries vainly to get his mother, Eleanor Dupres, to support the Resistance.
As the series begins, his reputation as a freedom fighter has spread around the world and has even gained him grudging respect from The Visitors themselves. His son, Sean, is kidnapped again by the Visitors and his prior conversion used to interest him into becoming a member of their youth corps.
[edit] Andrew Doyle
Father Andrew Doyle, played by Thomas Hill, is introduced in V: The Final Battle. A Roman Catholic priest, he served in South Africa during the years of apartheid and had to deal with South African guerrillas. He is quite willing to go into battle for the Resistance and serves as chaplain for the Los Angeles cell. Fearing for the life of the newborn Elizabeth Maxwell, he leaves the Resistance cell's base and takes Elizabeth to Diana. He offers his Bible for Diana to examine, but Diana draws entirely unexpected conclusions from reading it and kills the priest.
[edit] Arthur Dupres
Arthur Dupres, played by Hansford Rowe, is introduced in V. He is the second husband of Eleanor Dupres, and Mike Donovan's step-father. Arthur's chemical plant is used to help the visitors collect the chemical they need. Arthur eventually leaves Eleanor because of her collaboration with the Visitors. He left after she claims Sean Donovan, Mike Donovan's son while disowning Mike. He is not seen with the Resistance, but he shows a strong distaste for the Visitors. The Dupres house becomes a social stop for various Visitors as the occupation of Earth stretches to a year. It has become the visitor security headquarters for the Los Angeles area and is given (in the weekly series) to the Visitors by Nathan Bates to serve as an embassy.
[edit] Ruby Engels
Ruby Engels, played by Camila Ashlend, was introduced in the V miniseries. She is a retired actress and a friend of Abraham Bernstein. After Abraham willingly goes to his death at the Visitors' hands, she dedicates herself to fighting the Visitors. One of her first acts was to throw a Molotov cocktail into a Visitor squad ship. She is the central part of the plan to recover Julie from the Visitors during Diana's attempt to convert Julie; Ruby is already working as a cleaning lady at Visitor Security Headquarters (the Dupres house). Although the rescue is successful, Ruby is shot and killed by Daniel Bernstein as she tries to leave the headquarters.
[edit] Chris Farber
Chris Farber (Chris Faber in some sources), played by Mickey Jones, is introduced in V: The Final Battle. He is the soft-spoken, burly associate of Ham Tyler who is an explosives expert. After V: The Final Battle he went to work with the desert unit of the Resistance. After that unit is destroyed, he works with an underground railroad to transport orphan children to the safety of Los Angeles, where he is reunited with Ham Tyler and briefly rejoins the Los Angeles team. He later departs with Ham and Robin Maxwell for Chicago. In the novelization of the two V miniseries, the character is killed off, however this is not considered canon.
[edit] Sancho Gomez
Sancho Gomez, played by Rafael Campos, is introduced in V. He is a yard worker in the neighbourhood where the Maxwells, Dupres and Bernsteins live. He is forced to give up his gardening job for the Maxwells, and regrets having to tell Kathleen that he cannot continue working for them because his other employers do not like him working for a scientist. However, when the Maxwells need to get out of the city, he does not hesitate to help.
Using tactics learned while smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States, he smuggles the Maxwells out to El Tepeyac. He is arrested on his return to the checkpoint, becoming a Visitor prisoner where he is brutalized. His grandfather fought with Zapata, and he honours his grandfather by also spitting at the enemy; rescued by Mike Donovan, he uses the Visitor skyfighter's weapons to bring down one of the skyfighters that is pursuing Mike (despite being injured and disfigured by experiments conducted on him by the Visitors, which he managed to survive unlike Tony) and joins the resistance after his escape. Sancho is subsequently seen as an active member of the resistance in V: The Final Battle but his eventual fate is unclear.
[edit] Fred King
Dr. Fred King, played by Mark L. Taylor, is introduced in V: The Final Battle. He is a doctor at the Los Angeles Medical Center. He helps the resistance obtain medical supplies and equipment, gets them the plans for the center, tries to help carry out an abortion on Robin Maxwell, and dies trying to help Julie escape.
[edit] Maxwell family
The Maxwell family:
- Michael Durrell as Robert
- Penelope Windust as Kathleen
- Blair Tefkin as Robin
- Viveka Davis as Polly
- Marin May as Katie
- Jenny Beck as Elizabeth (aged 8)
- Brandy Gold as Elizabeth (aged 5)
Robert Maxwell is a married anthropologist and father of three girls (Robin, Polly and Katie). He notices the Visitors' traits at a dinner party at the Dupres house: mosquitoes will not go near them, they avoid cooked foods, and birds in a cage panic when a Visitor walks by. Later, when the Visitors secretly orchestrate a public smear campaign against the world scientific community, Maxwell finds himself required to register himself and his family with local authorities as a "suspected conspirator." When scientists start to disappear or be ostracized, and his daughter Polly is attacked at school, Robert decides they have to leave, but a police/Visitor checkpoint will not let them.
His wife Kathleen knows they can count on their neighbour, Abraham Bernstein, to shelter them, who offers them the Bernsteins' pool house. They abruptly are sent away by Abraham when Daniel tips the Visitors, and now the Maxwells are hiding at a mountain camp, while Robert and oldest daughter Robin get in touch with the LA Resistance. Robin leaves the hideout that is Resistance headquarters and is captured by the Visitors, who blackmail him to help them "take" the mountain camp in order to guarantee Robin's safety. Robert later decides that too much is at stake and he must warn the camp, even if it costs Robin her life. Kathleen, at the camp with Polly and Katie, dies from wounds sustained in the attack, but Katie and Polly survive. Robin is returned to him in the aftermath of the attack on the camp.
Robert sacrifices himself in episode two of the series while piloting a mothership on a collision course.
[edit] Robin Maxwell
Robin Maxwell is introduced in V. She begins the miniseries as an impulsive teenager who frequently makes dangerously foolish decisions. When she leaves the protection of the Resistance's hiding place, she is captured and taken aboard the Los Angeles mothership. It is at this time that she becomes pregnant by Brian. Robin is later rescued by Mike Donovan and is returned to her father.
After realising she is pregnant with Brian's child, she attempts to have the child aborted, but it is unsuccessful as the foetus is tied too much into Robin's body. She gives birth to twins: one largely human, one largely Sirian. The Sirian infant dies of an infection whilst the human infant, Elizabeth, survives and grows rapidly. It is implied that the hybridization process used to impregnate her accidentally created the organism used in the "red dust", which killed the Sirian baby.
Robin later kills Brian while he is being held for a test using the Red Dust.
In the series, she becomes jealous of Elizabeth's relationship with Kyle with whom she also is in love. Eventually, Robin starts to grow up and becomes a valid member of the Resistance and reconciles with her daughter and Kyle. After a second attempt is made to impregnate her by a Visitor, she chooses to leave Los Angeles and go to Chicago where the Visitors cannot survive due to the "Red Dust".
[edit] Elizabeth Maxwell
Elizabeth Maxwell is introduced in V: The Final Battle. Also know as "The Star Child," she is the daughter of human Robin Maxwell and Visitor Brian. She is the only successful offspring of the two races and the survivor of twins (her brother is more reptilian, but dies soon after birth.). Elizabeth grows rapidly in a matter of days to approximately five years of age and has venomous sacs in her mouth, but is highly intelligent and decides that peace is the preferable option to end the conflict between Earth and the Visitors. Elizabeth is gifted with extraordinary telekinetic powers and uses them to disable a Visitor doomsday weapon, thus saving the Earth from destruction. (In the novel, she employs her insight to create an endless loop in the computer programming, giving Martin time to disable the devices that the countdown would trigger.)
As the V:The Series begins, she is a young child, but experiences growth spurts that result in her becoming a quickly maturing young woman in her late teens (played by Jennifer Cooke). She bears the mark of Zon on her hand, which identifies her as the Starchild, a creature that will bring peace to The Visitors. Her psionic powers displayed in the series include telekenesis, levitation, second sight, and telepathy. She also has the ability to "record" conversations and recite them back like a tape recorder (complete with the original voices). The Leader of the Visitors creates a mind-link with her in the final episode, and convinces her to join him in order to fulfill her destiny. When last seen, she is entering a shuttle to go away with the Leader, not knowing that the ship has been rigged to explode.
[edit] Harmony Moore
Harmony Moore, or Harmy for short, played by Diane Civita, is introduced in V. She works at a catering stand at the plant where Arthur Dupres and Caleb Taylor work. The Visitors choose the plant as one of their cover operations where she befriends Willie, the Visitor, after helping him when he becomes lost. Captured with Willie by the Resistance, she does not believe the Visitors are reptiles until Mark peels off some of the covering on Willie's hand. She joins the Resistance at that point but reconciles with Willie. She is part of the resistance raid on the Los Angeles mothership at the climax of V: The Final Battle, but is shot, saving Willie's life in the process. Whether or not the injury was fatal remains unknown.
[edit] Dan Pascal
Dan Pascal, played by Dick Miller, is introduced in V: The Final Battle. He is a counterfeiter who helped the resistance by making a fake entrance pass to a gala held by the Visitors. He is known to Mark as a crook he'd want to bust, known to Elias as an ace he'd trust to help him out. Pascal's work apparently can be identified by crime experts. The police turn him over to the Visitors for questioning, and he is killed by Brian.
[edit] Julie(t) Parrish
Dr. Julie Parrish, played by Faye Grant, is introduced in V. She was a medical student studying under Dr. Rudolph Metz (David Hooks) at a hospital in Los Angeles. Her apparent talent is obvious to Metz, who intends to get her into research full time. When the Visitor ships arrive, Julie is extremely curious about the Visitors’ biology, and becomes alarmed when colleague Ruth (who obtained a sample of Visitor "skin") disappears, and is shocked when Metz is implicated in an international conspiracy against the Visitors. She disappears to join others in discussing Resistance, and they form the Los Angeles Resistance cell.Julie in the conversion chamber Julie finds herself the reluctant leader of the cell, thrust into a role that echoes that of WWII French resistance leader Marie-Madeleine Fourcade A year after the Visitors arrive, Julie leads a daring assault that exposes John, on international television, as non-human. When she is captured by the Visitors during the mission, Diana attempts to convert her, but Fifth Columnist Martin arranges an apparent security breach that gets Julie moved down to the ground where her cell can recover her. Julie fights her partial conversion while attempting to continue to lead her cell to an apparent victory over the Visitors.
Parrish spends most of the first year after "victory" and into the next Visitor invasion (V: The Series) working undercover at Science Frontiers, keeping an eye on Nathan Bates' tenuous relationship with the Visitors while fending off his romantic advances, and later goes underground when her duplicity is discovered. The pressures of war have led to her decision not to pursue a romance with Mike Donovan (something that was indicated in the second mini-series when she declined his proposal for a commitment). An unproduced script for the second season suggests that the character could have faced a tragic fate (see Notes).
[edit] Taylor family
Taylor family:
- Jason Bernard as Caleb
- Richard Lawson as Benjamin
- Michael Wright as Elias
Caleb is a widower with two sons, Benjamin and Elias. Benjamin, a doctor, is the first in the family to join the Resistance. Caleb works at the chemical plant where Arthur Dupres is a manager, and which is chosen by the Visitors as a cover to hide their stealing of water. Caleb is injured in an accident at the plant, is rescued by Willie, and they become friends. When Benjamin is killed by the Visitors while helping the resistance get medical supplies, Caleb joins the Los Angeles resistance cell with Elias. Caleb and Elias disagree over the final liberating attack, with Elias supporting the attack while Caleb fears nuclear annihilation, but Caleb respects his son for speaking so eloquently. Caleb's future is unknown after Liberation Day.
[edit] Elias Taylor
Elias Taylor is introduced in V. He starts as a hood, breaking into houses for valubles and fencing them. When Benjamin is killed by the Visitors while helping the resistance get medical supplies, Elias eagerly joins the Los Angeles cell with his father. Elias shows the resistance a headquarters site, and gets a street gang to help the Resistance, calling himself the "Henry Kissinger of East L.A." Elias exploits his black market and street connections to undermine Visitor activity, including selling marijuana or such to Daniel Bernstein to gain entrance to Visitor-guarded human facilities. A hero of the Resistance, Elias has completely left behind his past as a street thug, now owning his own restaurant as the TV series begins. Built over a hidden speakeasy from the Prohibition era, the restaurant becomes Resistance headquarters after the second invasion, and remains so for a time even after the restaurant itself is destroyed. Elias is killed by a disintegrator ray while investigating the abduction of several Resistance members.
[edit] Ham Tyler
Ham Tyler, played by Michael Ironside, is introduced in V: The Final Battle. A Vietnam veteran turned resistance fighter, Tyler appears a year after the Visitors landed to "restrain" the Los Angeles cell, calling their unmasking of John a stunt. He brings new ammunition that overcomes the Visitors' toughened body armor and other useful devices, and reluctantly stays to aid the Los Angeles cell's "unorthodox" methods of striking at the Visitors. Tyler doesn't show emotion very often, but grows close to Donovan and his colleagues. He leads the assault on the Dupres house while Mike Donovan leads the attack on the Los Angeles mother ship.
With the end of the original Visitor occupation, Tyler started a security business, and Nathan Bates hired him to kidnap Diana from her first day in war crimes court. When Diana escapes, Tyler quits working for Bates and keeps his bad deal to himself. He rejoins the revived Resistance cell. It is revealed that Tyler's Cambodian wife and child were killed in a botched air raid near the end of the Vietnam conflict. This was used to "convert" Tyler into an assassin. Midway through the season, Tyler leaves Los Angeles in order to escort Robin Maxwell to Chicago and is not seen for the rest of the series. It appears the character might have returned had the series been renewed for a second season. (see Notes)
[edit] Brad
Brad, played by William Russ, is introduced in V. He is a Los Angeles policeman who is one of the first, along with Ben Taylor and Julie Parrish, to form the Los Angeles resistance cell.
[edit] Mark
Mark, played by Sandy Simpson, is introduced in V: The Final Battle and is a Los Angeles policeman. Mark and Elias Taylor decide that Dan Pascal is the best counterfeiter in the area to help in the plan to infiltrate the Los Angeles Medical Center for John's announcement. Mark loves Maggie Blodgett, another resistance member, but their fresh plans to get married are ruined when he is wounded in the assault on the Visitor waterworks project. He stays behind to slow down the Visitors while the others escape and is killed.
[edit] Tony
Tony, played by Evan C. Kim, is introduced in V. (The novel version gives Tony, an East Asian possibly of Korean extract, the unlikely full name of Tony Wah Chong Leonetti.) As Mike Donovan's sound operator, he alerts Mike to the oddness about the scientists Jankowski and Duvivier, but he trips while following Mike into a Visitor shuttlecraft, getting left behind. In a second attempt to board the Los Angeles mother ship, they are captured, and Tony is tortured to death, an "experiment" ordered by Diana.
[edit] Howard K. Smith
Howard K. Smith is a real-life newscaster who introduces many episodes with a fictional "Freedom Network" news broadcast on the TV series.
[edit] Notes
There are other, unnamed members of the resistance who help out in many other ways. A restaurant owner provides a room where Mike and Martin can meet, for example.
Although the series-ending cliffhanger was never resolved on screen, a first draft script for the second season premiere episode was written before the show's cancellation. Entitled "The Attack", the episode would have launched a story arc in which renegade Visitor leader Diana would have pursued the Resistance across America (in similar fashion to The Fugitive) in search of an artifact stolen by Elizabeth the Star Child following the events of the cliffhanger. The early script included the death of Julie Parrish (shot while trying to escape the mother ship) and the return of Ham Tyler. It is not known if this was an indication that actress Faye Grant (Julie) intended to leave the series or that Michael Ironside (Ham) intended to return.
| Characters of V |
|---|
| Resistance | Visitors | Fifth Column | Collaborators |
