V

Alien beings, seemingly human come to Earth saying that their planet is dying due to a lack of certain basic chemicals. They offer to exchange their knowledge for the chemicals needed.

It's later found out that their needs are more sinister, their planet is indeed dying, but the needed elements are water and food. The visitors are not in fact human in appearance. They disguise themselves with masks, hiding reptilian features and are for the most part, carnivores.

To this end they have started trying to drain reservoirs and rivers before they start on the oceans and 'disappearing' certain people to store on board their vessels in cryo-freeze.

The Visitors also seize control of the media and military bases using the pretext of a 'conspiracy of scientists' to stir up distrust and fear among the human populace.

V practically came out of nowhere but became a big hit. There were several themes running through the show, but the paralells with the Holocaust were unmistakable. The emblem on the Visitors uniforms and ships bore a fair resemblance to a stylised swastika, and the Jewish family where the grandfather was a death camp survivor. Along with the elements of Hitler Youth shown in the Visitors Friends organisation.

The original series was simply called V and was totally under the control of Kenneth Johnson. The second mini series was called V:The Final Battle and johnson stepped back from that as he didn't like the way it was going, however the fans still generally liked it.

With so much popularity it was perhaps inevitable that a weekly series would be written and so it was, but while there were some decent elements to it, it descended almost to soap opera levels at its' worst. Some of the little 'jokes' put in by writers, like the marriage of two visitors called 'Charles' and 'Diana', (remember this was the mid 80's) were cringeworthy. Many of the established characters either did not appear, were killed off or were treated poorly. The killing off of Frank Ashmore's popular character, Martin, did not sit well with fans and he was more or less brought back in a clumsy attempt by having a brother named Phillip.

Record 362 - universe - Last update 28 Mar 2007, 23:14:35

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