TV series you should own on DVD: V

I only remembered the TV series V from when I was little. Very little, as it first aired in 1984, so I was just 7 years old. In retrospect I can’t believe my mother let me watch it, then again, I can believe it, because she let me watch almost anything.

V is the miniseries about an invasion by aliens. One day the whole world gets invaded by aliens in huge space ships, who land on earth and tell the people they have come in peace. They are just out of resources on their planet, so they have some to earth to borrow some of ours.

The aliens even look exactly like humans, they only talk a little funny, so they can’t possible mean any harm, right? Wrong. It is soon apparent that the plan of the aliens is to not just borrow some resources, but to drain the entire earth of all its water.

Oh and they are also planning on taking a few thousand people. For food. Yes, you read that correctly. The innocent human looking aliens are really some kind of reptiles that live on anything made out of meat. Meat that is still alive!

As if this part of the series isn’t disturbing enough –watching them eat rodents alive or their creepy reptile skin and tongue hidden behind their human like appearance – there’s also a creepy totalitarian brainwashing thing going on.

From the first moment the aliens start the indoctrination that all scientists are evil and are up to no good. They claim there is a conspiracy going on, where scientists are trying to harm the innocent aliens.

Pretty soon this turns into a manhunt and scientists first get fired, and then aret arrested and some disappear never to return again. Soon there is alien police everywhere and there are even humans spying for them to make sure no one is misbehaving.The parallels with Germany during World War II are easily made. Even if I had not thought about it myself, it is rammed down our throats by the older people on the show making the comparisons of what is happening to them now with what happened during the war.

Lengthy story telling about the horrors of WWII is not really something you expect to find in the campy eighties show. Neither is the amount of people who just die in lots of dramatic ways.

None of these things I noticed when I watched it when I was little. All I recalled was the creepy alien skin beneath the human skin oh and of course the teenage girl who was stupid enough to let herself get pregnant by one of the aliens.

Not sure how much I knew about sex and having babies at such a young age, I just vividly recall I thought there was nothing more creepy than having to give birth to an alien reptile baby lol. I was such a smart girl.

The other thing I never noticed before is how very very gay Diane – the second in command – is. Ok technically she isn’t supposed to be, and we see her get it on with guys, but there is something in the way she interacts with all the women on the show that’s just so…gay.

I bought both miniseries on DVD expecting to watch some bad campy eighties TV show, but instead I was pleasantly surprised to have bought a really cool show. Ok don’t get me wrong, it still looks very dated and there are a lot of WTF moments, but it’s also a really fun watch.

If you, like me, haven’t watched V since the eighties, go check it out, I bet you’d like it!

Comments

Mayra Rienties said…
Oh! V! I watched this on r-runs when I was about 12. LOVED it. I've been raised on Sci-Fi and V was the coolest of the cool in my world.

I watched parts of it again a while back and dang, it's still good! With the re-make coming, I can't wait to re-capture the feeling of 'V', scared out of my pants but sooo intrigued!

Plus that rodent scene? Nightmarevile! Can't wait to see Morena Baccarin do that ;)