Greetings, Attractive Twenty-Something Terran Males! Well, we’ve managed to get the mother-ships to achieve a low Earth orbit despite all the floating junk surrounding the planet; for a species that hasn’t walked on the moon since 1972, they’ve certainly cornered the market in airborne space-crap. Anyway, now that our huge spaceships have squeezed into Earth’s sky space (sure, a fleet of twenty-six spaceships each three kilometres long impresses the bejeebus out of the natives, but they’re a bitch to parallel park) remember, we’re supposed to be nice guys; so everyone put on your best face (if you’ve yet to be assigned a face to wear, see our makeup department) file down your fangs, and if anyone asks you ‘are you actually conquest-minded alien lizards in cunning human disguises?’ remember to say ‘No’. And absolutely no abusing of small rodents in front of the humans- we can’t keep using the same cover story, people – Richard Gere can’t be everywhere at once. So let’s all sit back with a nice glass of stolen Earth water, order a pizza with extra mice and surreptitiously take over the planet as we review V (Sundays, NINE- 9:30PM).
Those of you who were alive during the Eighties and still admit to it without water-boarding may remember the time in mid 1984 when Earth was invaded by aliens. No, I’m not talking about the little botany-fixated foetus with a glowing finger and a love of both M & M’s and gratuitous product placement, I’m talking about an insidious, conquest minded, duplicitous evil hiding behind a mask of charm and wealth that was a great threat to the entire world’s stability in the mid-Eighties. But enough about the Reagan administration, let’s talk about V. Yes folks, once again the gigantic alien mother-ships are hovering in an epic manner over our planet’s most photogenic tourist attractions and promising us all kinds of medical and scientific advancements- a cure for the common cold, a cure for cancer, how to turn off the gene that predisposes a baby from becoming a Fundamentalist Christian- in return for some small goods and services from our planet that they don’t have- such as all our water and the tastier members of our population.
The Visitors are beautiful humanoid aliens with a marked aversion to bright light (daylight, in particular, freaks them out in an almost vampiric way- and, no, that doesn’t mean they sparkle!) and oddly reverberating voices that sound kind of like they’ve swallowed a couple of iPod nanos. Their benevolent acts mask (quite literally) their true form and purpose; they are evil, alien reptiles that have come to Earth to take our fresh-water and oxygen and also stock up their home planet’s lack of food by using humans as the Other White (or Black, or Asian) Meat.
The 1984 version of V was created by Kenneth Johnson, the TV producer extraordinaire who also created THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THE BIONIC WOMAN and DALLAS. V is arguably his best creation, with a mixture of high camp (Jane Badler’s bitchy alien commander Diana distending her jaw to devour a guinea pig); superb sci-fi (the gigantic alien mother-ships floating over prominent Earth landmarks were clearly paid homage (Hollywood speak for ‘ripped off’) in INDEPENDENCE DAY, and social allegory- the Visitors were basically extra-terrestrial Nazis on a global scale, which was made clear with the character of Abraham Bernstein (Leonardo Cimino), a concentration camp survivor.
The re-imagined version of V for the 21st Century dials down the camp somewhat (No more big hair and mouse-devouring) and also updates the social commentary. Instead of Nazism, the Visitors now stand in for terrorist sleeper cells; once the less savoury aspects of the beautiful aliens start being brought to light by the Human Resistance, it is revealed that the Visitors have visited the planet before, leaving human-disguised troops behind to infiltrate society and kill and replace people in positions of power.
Original V cast members Jane Badler (alien leader Diana), Robert Englund (nice alien Willie) Marc Singer(male lead Mike Donovan) and Leonardo Cimino (Grandpa Bernstein- he’s not only still alive, at ninety-nine, he’s still acting!) are rumoured to have been approached for cameos in future episodes.
Eat your pet bunny and watch it!
