Along with Max Headroom, the 1983 miniseries 'V' (and V: The Final Battle) are among some of my favorite bits of media from the 80s.
Ahead of it's time with an epic cast, and surprisingly well done production values for 1983 network television scifi, it's an antifascist WW2 resistance allegory... with space lizards.
Anyway, the first miniseries is about as close to prestige scifi as you'll get on broadcast TV.
"V: The Final Battle" (basically 'Part 2') is ALMOST as great, but it veers away a bit from the original creator's vision for the series. But it introduces elements I would never NOT want to have in the story (Michael Ironside is DELICIOUS in it).
With two massive hits under it's belt, the next stop is clear: go to series and severely slash it's budget.
And it fuckkkkkking sucked.
I'm finally giving it a fair shake, and yeah, wow, it's exactly how I remember. Long, drawn out weekly TV cheese making use of all the props, costumes, sound effects, music, and lots of reused footage, while jettisoning the once great writing.
Some notes on how shitty this is:
- They kill off a beloved character from the miniseries, only to replace him with his twin brother. (Despite Visitors wearing human disguises.)
- Elizabeth, a young girl, a mysterious human/visitor hybrid gets aged up (via a mysterious cocooning) into a Totally Legal Now(tm) adult blonde. For the ratings, I assume. (Also, she has psychic powers now.)
- The breakout fan favorite character, Willy (played by Robert Englund) turns from a gentle, if possibly dyslexic Fifth Columnist and ally, into a doofus who pratfalls during combat and has been flanderized, where he constantly says the wrong word. ("You are a real zero." "You mean hero.")
- The story grows increasingly stupid and lore-thick as it goes. It doesn't even get to end on a cliffhanger. Apparently the ACTUAL final episode was only partially filmed before getting word about the series getting axed, so it ends on what was actually the penultimate episode.
