V (science fiction)

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V is a science fiction franchise created by American writer, producer and director Kenneth Johnson about aliens known as "The Visitors" trying to take over Earth.

It debuted in 1983 as the two-part television miniseries V, written and directed by Johnson; and starring Jane Badler, Marc Singer, Faye Grant, Michael Durrell, Jenny Sullivan, Richard Herd, Peter Nelson, David Packer, Blair Tefkin, Diane Civita and Robert Englund. It was followed in 1984 by a three-part miniseries, V: The Final Battle, introducing Michael Ironside, and a one-hour weekly television series, V (sometimes referred to as V: The Series) during the 1984-85 TV season.

A number of novels, comic books, video games and other media have been spun off from the franchise. Johnson's novel V: The Second Generation, an alternative sequel to the first miniseries which disregards V: The Final Battle and V: The Series, was released on February 5, 2008.[1] Johnson is currently in negotiations for a TV adaptation.

Contents

[edit] Television

The original miniseries debuted in the United States on NBC on May 1, 1983, airing for a total of about 200 minutes on two nights. Series creator Kenneth Johnson has said that the story was inspired by the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Also, several scenes from the original TV pilot resemble the Bertolt Brecht play The Private Life of the Master Race. A short story entitled To Serve Man (later adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone) had a similar theme of deceptively friendly 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 fascist movement in the United States. NBC was interested in a sci-fi hit, to capitalize on the success of films such as the Star Wars trilogy.

The story remains a Nazi allegory, right down to the Swastika-like emblem used by the Visitors and their SS like uniforms. There is a Visitor youth auxiliary 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 the Second World War with some citizens choosing collaboration and others choosing to join underground resistance movements.

Where the Nazis primarily persecuted Jews, the Visitors were likewise depicted to persecute scientists, their families and anyone associating with them and distribute propaganda in an effort to hide their true identity. Some of the central 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. The Visitors declared martial law to control the scientists, something akin to the rise of the fascists in Germany. Later, throughout the TV 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). In addition, direct figure analogies are used, such as the senior Visitor scientist, Diana, who is a direct analogue of Dr. Josef Mengele.

The miniseries was successful enough to spawn a sequel, V: The Final Battle, which was meant to conclude the story, and also a television series in 1984-85 that continued it. Johnson left V during The Final Battle.

The cancellation of the TV series in the spring of 1985 appeared to have caught its producers by surprise,[citation needed] as the season ends with a cliffhanger. The TV series' 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 Final Battle and the subsequent weekly series. In October 2004, Kenneth Johnson made it known that NBC had decided it wanted a remake of the original V miniseries, rather than a sequel. The possibility of a sequel to the original would remain open, but would be contingent on the success of the remake. This may have been reversed, however, as Johnson wants a filmed version of the book V: The Second Generation to be released sometime in the future, even though no network has greenlit the project as of March 2008.[citation needed]

[edit] Novels

V spun off a series of original novels, including a novelization of the first two miniseries 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.

A basic adaptation of the original miniseries, as well as The Final Battle. There are some differences between the novel and the televised miniseries, including the deaths of several characters who are still alive in the televised version. This includes Chris Farber, leading to confusion about his return in V: The Series.

  • East Coast Crisis, Howard Weinstein, September 1984

Set in New York and Washington D.C., the book begins with the gargantuan Mothership (aka the New York Mothership) entering Earth. The commander, Roger, and his subordinates, Angela and Jennifer, arrive and after the Visitors are revealed to be something evil, the resistance group named White Christmas is formed to combat them. They now have to face Roger's devious plan: to surpass the human food storage by emptying one of New York's neighborhoods next to their chemical plants.

  • The Pursuit of Diana, Allen L. Wold, December 1984

The LA resistance tries to revive those stored on the mothership after capturing it in the events of the first book. However they are faced with the converted government, and several of the "sixth column", survivors on board the mothership still loyal to Diana, who has escaped capture on board.

  • The Chicago Conversion, George W. Proctor, January 1985

In Chicago, the Visitors grip on the Earth has been freed with the release of the Red Dust. Prior to this event, High Captain Gerald manages to finally storm the resistance, but with little success, as they were currently liberating the Chicago Art Museum, the Visitors ground base. Seconds before the commander of the Chicago Mothership, Alicia, calls him back for withdrawal (after the Red Dust is deployed), he is able to distribute anti-toxin from the resistance base into his shock troopers.

Though Alicia is frustrated at her subordinate, she gives him a chance to redeem himself, which Gerald jumps at, as unknowingly to Alicia, Gerald is in love with her. Her plan is to convert the resistance, and "unlock the key" to regaining Chicago.

The Visitors undertake a plan to create a human-reptilian hybrid in the Everglades to wipe out the resistance.

  • Prisoners and Pawns, Howard Weinstein, March 1985

Lydia and Diana try to wrestle power from each other while trying to get the resistance out of the way. The resistance find that their might be collaborators in their group.

Tomoko Jones is revived to become the consort of the fearsome Fieh Chan, Visitor Commander of Tokyo. Meanwhile, her husband finds a plot to capture the Earth's martial arts masters for conversion.

The first three books were republished in 1994.

[edit] Other Spin-offs

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.

In Japan, Go Nagai wrote a manga adaptation of the series with art by Tatsuya Yasuda[2].

In 1986 Ocean Software released a video game based on the series for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.[3]

[edit] Notes

  • The concept of lizard-like aliens who appear human, and plot to control humanity, is similar to some fringe theories — see Reptiloid.
  • In a variation on "Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome," the character of Mike Donovan's son Sean inexplicably aged 4-5 years between the miniseries and the weekly series, despite the fact that the weekly series takes place only one year after The Final Battle miniseries ended. It is presumed that this was not a planned plot change, but rather just an age difference between the original miniseries actor, Eric Johnston, and Nicky Katt, the series actor.
  • Due to budget constraints, the weekly series reused a lot of action footage from the miniseries. This was especially blatant in the Visitor fighter craft chase scene in the pilot episode, where nearly all external shots were lifted from the climax scene of the original miniseries.
  • In the original miniseries and The Final Battle, the Visitors' voices were given, among other post-processing, a pitch shift effect - to give them an otherworldly demeanor even though they looked (outwardly, at least) like normal human beings. This was dropped from the weekly series, evidently due to budgetary constraints. No 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 miniseries, part of the plot involved simulating alien voices, but in the TV series aliens are easily mistaken for humans. In certain dubbed versions, like the French, the Visitors had a deep bass voice, while in German; the pitch shift was maintained throughout the entire series.
  • Frank Ashmore's popular character "Martin" was killed off in the weekly series' pilot episode, angering many fans[citation needed]. When the series struggled in the ratings, Ashmore was brought back as Martin's twin brother, Philip.
  • 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
  • Shots of mother ships over various foreign cities were paintings made before the model of the ship was finalized and built; as a result, the foreign mother ships appear different from one another, with different edge-on profiles.

[edit] References

  1. ^ V History
  2. ^ Page on the manga version with covers of the two books (Japanese)
  3. ^ [1]

[edit] External links

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