The first miniseries "V" aired in spring 1983. It was such a hit that NBC asked for another, and "V: The Final Battle" aired in spring 1984. NBC was so impressed that they ordered a weekly series. Only 19 episodes (with the original third episode rejected for several months) aired from fall 1984 to spring 1985.

All three featured Jane Badler, Marc Singer, Faye Grant, Michael Wright. The original and Final Battle also featured Richard Herd, Michael Durrell, Peter Packer, Neva Campbell.

In "V", 50 huge alien ships, each about three miles across, enter our atmosphere and take up holding position over the world's cities. After almost a day, they finally make contact, announce themselves as friends, and ask for our help - they need a chemical to save their dying planet.

Scientists start to look like villains, people are disappearing, and newsman Mike Donovan sneaks aboard a mothership and discovers the Visitors are not human: they're reptiles wearing human disguises, and overhears two of the Visitors (who are from Sirius, 9.0 light years away) talking about taking over.

The Visitors have come to take the water, every drop of it, for their own needs, and to take all human beings, some of them to be soldiers in the aliens' war, others for food. With the help of Martin, who leads a group of Visitors who oppose their leader, a Resistance begins to fight the Visitors.

In "The Final Battle", the Resistance tries to expose the Visitors' true nature, stop them from mentally converting their leader, destroys a dam to keep them from sucking California dry, and then uses bacteriological warfare to cause the Visitors to flee for their lives. Diana, the commander of the Los Angeles mother ship, decides to detonate that mother ship, an explosion that will scatter the Earth into fragments. Fortunately, the first and only child born of an unplanned interplanetary mating, Elizabeth Maxwell, has improbable powers and she stops the doomsday machine. Diana, however, escapes.

In V, The Series, Diana is quickly captured, and a year later, on the first anniversary of liberation day, she is coming to war crimes trial but is shot by an assassin and taken away in an ambulance. Mike Donovan and his cameraman, Martin (the friendly Visitors stayed), follow the ambulance and find that Diana has been captured by a greedy industrialist (Lane Smith) who will keep her alive, protected from the bacteriological weapon, as long as she provides her scientific knowledge to help the industrialist solve Earth's problems.

Diana escapes and brings back a small number of mother ships that have hidden behind the moon for the past year. The Visitors attack Earth, and the Resistance is active again. The industrialist forces a separate peace for Los Angeles, with him in control. Halfway through the series, that peace ends and the series continues to the end with that war in effect. In the final episode, the alien leader asks for peace, having been persuaded by Philip, Martin's brother. Diana and her lieutenant James (Judson Scott) are determined to sabotage the peace.

Nitpick in "The Final Battle" part two: Chris Barber has just explained that their explosives are stable only between 60 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit. One degree outside of that range, and you're history.

So what does Mike Donovan do? Duh! He sticks it inside his jacket.

Nice to know ya, Mike! KABOOM!

Why the heck did they change the Visitors' voices for the series? It sure made it a lot easier for one race to infiltrate with the other. How did they do the voice effect in the miniseries? - live or in post-production?

Another nit-pick: why did Mike throw away his voice-reverbing neck thingummy in part three? He should've stuck it into his suit for later use, if required.

I also like the novel's explanation of how Elizabeth Maxwell stopped the doomsday device. She had shown computer cleverness earlier with Diana, and she put the computer into an endless loop, giving Martin time to disarm the weapon. Lot better than supernatural powers!

I remember hearing that actress Dominique Dunne ("Poltergeist") was originally set to play the young girl who was impregnated by a Visitor. (Was the character's name Robin?) Miss Dunne was horribly murdered (by a boyfriend, who served only three years) and was replaced by Blair Tefkin. (Where is she now?)

"V" is coming soon to DVD for anyone who might be interested.

Visit Amazon.Com

The original miniseries is already out.

I think he means V: The Final Battle which appears on DVD Aug 6

Adam Bomb, you are correct about Dominique Dunne. She had a brief appearance in the first miniseries. When the Visitor spacecraft appears above the Maxwell family house, Robin is seen from behind, looking up. Kenneth Johnsons commentary says that this is the only footage that Dominique was able to shoot prior to her tragic death.

The original miniseries turns up occasionally on one of my digital cable channels (Starz/Encore Action, I believe.) In supporting roles were George Morfogen and the aforementioned Michael Wright, now on HBO's Oz.
I always thought the basic plot of the original miniseries was similar to the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man."

Here's a nit. Martin says when Mike asks him for help from the fifth column in the shape of equipment that he can't supply weapons as "They are all accounted for", but is able to supply uniforms. Fair enough. However, on the raid on the pumping station, the Resistance switch some of the visitor sentries with their own people in uniform and equipped with visitor weapons.

Haven't seen this in a while... but wouldn't they have simply taken and used the weapons they took from the sentries they replaced?

That's the thing, when the Visitors are shot, resistance fighters in uniform with Visitor rifles and pistols run up to relieve them.

I can think of one other problem with giving a squad of Resistance members Visitor outfits and weapons. The weapons they carry were among those known not to have gone down with the troops from the ship. Pictue it. They get into the uniforms and go out with the guns. If they go as a group, they'll probably run up and pop the Visitors immediately. If they plug holes in the line, they might fire and miss at their pals. Either way, when they give back the weapons, they will have been fired, and lost ammo. Eventually, the Visitors will notice that weapons that were left in the storeroom were used and begin to realize something weird's happening.
However, I can think of a possible solution. It seems likely they can refill their weapons from partly-used magazines/ batteries/ fuel tanks. The Resistance could siphon some rounds off, enough to fill their weapons and send them back up with the Fifth Column, along with ones "salvaged after driving off the Resistance." The rest get scooped up, though only partly loaded, for study so the Resistance can at least make the ammo.

I read something about one of the networks wanting to make a new V ( a continuation of the first mini-series, ignoring the second one and the series) but set twenty years later. The network wanted producer Kenneth Johnson to cast young leads, but he insisted Marc Singer and Faye should be in it. I must side with Johnson. I would be nice to see some of the characters from the old one if it is ever made. I don't want a new V with a cast more resembling that of Dawson's Creek.

Mark: In all fairness, there are some young actors out there who are actually GOOD. Unfortuantely most of them are doing movies like Donnie Darko and Seabiscuit.

V would be good if it were remade as an erotic musical. Adding music would only make it more memorable.

ya, right.

Hi folks,
I've just bought the complete collection of V, thru Amazon. Do you know some place where to download all this in DIVX?

The Visitor named William, or Willie (played by Robert Englund) was well-known for his shaky command of English. He had originally learned Arabic, but was transferred to the United States operations. Somehow, he never completely mastered the language, even though every other Visitor seemed to.

"I am just" was his very first "Willie" - he meant, "I am lost".

"Robert, you are a great, great zero." "That's 'hero', Willie."

"Ghalen? He is a confirmed pessimist." "That's 'pacifist', Willie."

"Charles is the leader's personal convoy." "'Envoy', Willie."

"Elizabeth has a pornographic memory." "That's 'photographic'."

"I am the outlook." "You mean 'lookout'."

"They are playing Del Mar." "Oh, they went to Playa del mar."

"I am now a veterinarian." (He meant vegetarian.)

(Hands in the air with a gun at his back "I am insolent!"

(Dressed in a Santa Claus suit) "You mean I don't get to hand out the pheasants?"

"He only injured my prize." ('pride')

Lost opportunity in the episode "A Reflection in Terror": "Say, Willie, where's Reverend Turney?" "He is downstairs... desecrating the Christmas tree."

What did you think of the premier Amr? I missed it and ABC isn't showing it online. Worth watching or just a fancy new version of the old one? From the previews I've seen it looks like at least two alums from Firefly are in it. I don't know their real names but they played Inara and Wash.

It will be online on hulu come Saturday.

Really enjoyed the pilot, which I saw today taped.

Where did Amr's post go? Thank you for the info bookwyrme, it is indeed on hulu today.

I too enjoyed the pilot, but it pretty much is just a fancy new version of the old one. Being a writer these days must be easy; just take an old TV show or movie, change the character names, add some modern sfx, and there you go. At the rate they're telling the story I don't see this show lasting long.

It was pretty funny when the ships arrived and on the news a kid says "this really is Independence Day," and his friend replied "which is a rip-off to any number of alien invasion stories." Good stuff, but I have to ask, if people are making that comparison on the show wouldn't appearing the exact same way cause more skepticism than we see?

I agree with Amr, the visitors referring to themselves as V's is incredibly lame. Nobody seems to want to know their species' real name. How did the leader of the underground know all about the visitors, and why not bring any proof? Why did they have to cut behind their ears and not, say, their arms?

I miss the red uniforms and voice reverbs. I hope when we see their weapons in action they sound like the old version

Andrew, AMR (aka Andre Reichenbacher) was banned from my boards several months ago after ignoring my repeated warnings to cease his attacks upon on other visitors here and other uncivil behavior, and it is our practice to removed posts from banned people, and in some circumstances, posts made in response to them. I did not remove yours in this case because their content for the most part focuses on this board's topic.

I figured it was something like that, it just surprised me because I was about to reply to his post. Well, while I'm here, I'll mention something I forgot last time. The mother, Erica I think, who's in the FBI, her badge isn't even close what to a real FBI badge looks like. These aliens claim they need resources Earth has in abundance, but when we see the inside of their ship it looks like they live pretty well. How about not build these ships, conserve what you have, and make everything else artificially, like it seemed the did. I'm sure that's part of the deception though.