“This series is respectfully dedicated to the heroism of resistance fighters – past, present and future.” Thus the mini-series Vfirst broadcast in 1983 in the United States, announced its intentions right from the credits: more than just another variation on an alien invasion – in this case that of horrible lizards with a taste for human flesh – it is a fiction, which has become cult, on the way in which individuals behave in the face of the barbarity of occupation.
A theme developed throughout two excellent TV films, offered for the first time in a remastered version this Saturday, August 24 on Paris Première, from 9 p.m. The success of this double work (40% of the national audience!) logically gave birth to a slightly less successful sequel in three parts, V: The Final Battle – broadcast on August 31 on the same channel –, then a whole, disappointing season of 19 episodes.
A political parable…
The story begins when gigantic spaceships land on Earth and park above the world’s major capitals. The aliens claim to come in peace, offering their medical knowledge and advanced technology in exchange for chemicals needed to survive.
READ ALSO “Lost”: the hit series arrives on NetflixBut their arrival is quickly accompanied by strange disappearances and the revelation of a so-called conspiracy. After mass arrests, they establish martial law under the guise of security. Because behind the Visitors’ beautiful promises (and human skin) hides a single goal: to pump all the water from the Earth and make its inhabitants snacks for their dinner. Juliet Parish (Faye Grant), a biochemist, and Mike Donovan (Marc Singer), a reporter, discover the truth and organize the resistance to fight the invaders…
Any resemblance to actual events is not coincidental. Kenneth Johnson, the creator and screenwriter of the original miniseries, has indeed multiplied the references to the Second World War (the Visitors’ emblem clearly evokes the Nazi swastika) to support his political allegory on resistance to tyranny.
Initially, this specialist in the fantasy genre, who worked on The Six Million Dollar Man et The Incredible Hulkhad also imagined a story devoid of any extraterrestrials. Inspired by the dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here (It Can’t Happen Here) by Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis, it explored the rise of a fascist movement in the United States until the advent of a dictatorship.
But looking at the success of Star WarsNBC asked him to make a science fiction program. As a nod, Kenneth Johnson paid homage to George Lucas’s Interstellar saga by having his famous anthem played by a fanfare band welcoming the aliens.
Facing the occupier, resistance fighters and collaborators
If the register has changed, the substance has remained consistent with the initial project. V indeed questions the attraction of power and the trivialization of evil that lead to totalitarianism. The series thus dissects the mechanisms of propaganda, using mass media as a weapon of indoctrination and annihilation of thought. The reptiles do not impose themselves by force: they advance – literally – masked, investing television to broadcast their message of “peace”, before launching a vast disinformation operation, as a prelude to the conditioning of the population, then encouraged to denounce.
READ ALSO Why the High Republic Universe Is the Future of the Star Wars FranchiseSome collaborate with conviction, such as Eleanor Dupres (Neva Patterson), Donovan’s mother (inspired by Kenneth Johnson’s own bigoted and racist mother), driven by the lure of gain. Or Daniel Bernstein (David Packer), a frustrated and uncomfortable teenager who enlists in the militia (modeled on the Hitler Youth) and goes so far as to denounce dissident friends and relatives to please his new idols.
Others simply lower their eyes, for fear of reprisals. Finally, the last ones take to the bush to fight, to write a V – the one for victory – on propaganda posters or to offer refuge to the persecuted. “They must stay or else it would mean that we have learned nothing!” thus advocates Abraham Bernstein (Leonard Cimino), a survivor of the Shoah, to his family, terrified at the idea of sheltering them.
So many characters, sometimes ambiguous but endearing, and depicted without Manichaeism to reflect the multiple reactions to the occupier. Which is symbolized by the figure of Diana (Jane Badler), a cruel scientist, in whom many see the frictional alter ego of the “Nazi angel of death” Josef Mengele. All are solidly played by actors who were then unknown but inspired. We think of Robert Englund, the interpreter of the kind Willie, a rare friendly visitor, who will ironically play Freddy, the most evil serial killer in the history of cinema in The Night Claws !
A feature film coming soon V ?
Beyond the quality of its writing, V also seduced by its impeccable production. The costumes and makeup are neat; the ship sets are impressively realistic. And if the special effects (like some incrustations) seem a little dated today, they remain revolutionary for the time. The most sensitive still remember with emotion the shock felt when Diana opens an oversized mouth to swallow a rodent. Behind the scenes, it was necessary to build a mechanical head for this legendary sequence which revealed the true face of the Visitors.
READ ALSO We found Jane Badler (you know, Diana from the series “V”)! Result: the budget of 8 million dollars allocated to the first two TV films is largely exceeded and reaches 13 million. The price of excellence proves too high for Warner Bros. which produces the series. It therefore decides to do without the services of Kenneth Johnson, who had already worked on the sequel. The screenplay of V: The Final Battle is a little rewritten, abandoning the political side to favor action, adventure and twists, sometimes worthy of prime time soap operas.
It won’t get better in the V: la series subsequently commissioned by the NBC channel. This is evidenced by the character of Diana, who from a disturbing strategist will end up transforming into a hysterical clone of Alexis Morell Carrington, the main character of the recent series Dynasty.
Due to lack of audiences, the fiction was cancelled in 1985 after 19 episodes. The remake released in 2009 with Morena Baccarin and Elizabeth Mitchell (seen in Lost) would last two seasons before suffering the same fate. However, Kenneth Johnson continued to believe in the strength of his work. In 2008, he published the novel V : the Second Generationwhich picks up his story, just after the first mini-series. And since he holds the film rights, he is now looking for funding to end it on the big screen. In the meantime, the small screen remains to (re)discover a captivating work, still relevant in a world increasingly tempted by extremes.
