I'm not sure how it works between two reptilian aliens.

Yes, I always considered Diana to be bisexual and her aggressive behavior just seemed very masculine to me. But, if she was a mistress of the Leader, then I suppose she wasn't actually male (which is clear in the TV series). Still, I did think that the gender vs. appearance bit was going to be explored somehow--otherwise, why bother to mention it?

IMO- Diana would have sex with anyone/anything as long as it propelled her further up the ranks.

Just a hunch, but if they even mentioned the gender/appearance thing, I would suspect that it would be more likely a female visitor who would appear male. I realize that is stretching it, but when the Visitors first arrived, there were plenty of females in the army and in positions of power. So they don't seem to have a problem with gender equality.

The same can't be said for humans. So if they had a detailed plan for world domination, they would have realized that humans would more likely accept words of authority from males, rather than females. Maybe some of the higher ups, like John or Stephen were actually female??

I realize I am reading WAY too much into what was probably just a throwaway line in the movie. Still recovering from the festivities last night. *wink*

I remember getting fed up with the series over time because I kept thinking, "These people SUCK at guerrilla warfare! I'm 14 and I know better!" They kept giving Ham grief for being realistic and effective and I sooooo wanted to reach through the TV and smack someone. Usually that scenery-chewin' Donovan - there was one scene where Mike actually takes out his gun to fiddle with the clip ONLY so he can dramatically slam it home to emphasize his point! Gaaaaah. Julie and Mike were so smarmy and self-important, although Julie had her decent moments. I quit watching after Ham left the show, and mostly caught the rest of the eps just because my brothers still watched. Just wasn't the same.

If I'm ever in a war against aliens who want to eat me for dinner? I'm going with Tyler. I knew that at 14, and I know that now. I'm just praying that any remake of V will at least agree with me on that point - sound tactics gooood, inviting known Converted children into HQ unsupervised while planning the Big Attack baaaaad.

In TFB, I think they knew Sean was converted, and let him overhear false information so he could pass it on to the Visitors. Ham was all for that idea, as was Julie, but Donovan wasn't. LOL Anyway through Sean, they led the Visitors to believe the Resistance was planning major attacks on different installations, so while they waited for the attack, the Resistance just released innocent looking balloons, filled with Red Dust.

But you are right that some of the Resistance tactics were a bit silly, and Ham and his friends were probably the only people who actually had any training in such matters.

I think that was the thing that bugged me most about the series. Every week, Diana would come up with some plan, and somehow, despite the greatest odds, the Resistance managed to foil it. I think it was only the last few episodes of the show, where the Resistance started taking a severe beating each week. Though my memory could be fuzzy on that.

I think the gender/appearance thing was to set up when Julie was being converted on the Mothership. There was an unsuccessful attempt to rescue her, and "Donovan" was killed. But it turned out later that it was a 5th Column Visitor wearing a Donovan mask. In the A. C. Crispin novel, Martin later tells Donovan that the dead Visitor was Barbara, who helped Donovan earlier. The miniseries doesn't say anything about that, but I think Crispin was working from an earlier draft (In the novel, Elisabeth isn't supernatural, either. She uses her l337 skills to dismantle the nuclear device).

Hey everyone. I am a HUGE fan of everything V. I was a bit too young to remember the mini series when it came out. Luckily, I saw ir run at some point in the late 80's, and have loved it since then. I only recently found out that it was a regular series as well. I already own both of the mini series. I have been searching the internet for people who have copies of the series, but every where I look it seems to cost upwords of 80 dollars for someone's personal copies. If anyone out there would be willing to make+send me some copies of the series for the cost of the tapes, shipping, plus something for your effort, I would really appreciate it.

If you listen to the director's commentary in V the miniseries, it is said repeatedly that the director purposely made Diana appear to be bisexual.

Could someone tell me more about the books?? I have no prior knowledge of them

TonyPSU, I read all of the books when they came out (almost 20 years ago - has it really been that long?) and if I recall correctly, they were about different resistance cells around the country. I remember one that was called "V: The New England Resistance". I think they were all new stories, and not a continuation of the characters in the original mini-series or series. You can find used copies at amazon.com - they are out of print. I'm not sure they are worth reading except for the most die-hard V fan. But if you're in this topic ...

ETA: Go here to see a full list of the books.

yup they were. I still enjoy reading fanfic online with V. Aren't they supposed to be looking into bringing the series back? NBC that is. At least that's something I read a while back on yahoo news...

Ah V.

I just bought everything on DVD and I'm watching it again with friends who've never seen it. It's the first time I've seen the shows since the mid-80's What a great bunch of television that was! I still own all the books but two of them, the comic books, and various memorabilia.

My favorite was always Lydia (but then, I used to have a thing for dangerous British women--Superman II's Ursa who was also on V as Pamela and Blake's 7's Servalan being two examples).

The current gossip I've heard about the new TV show is that Kenneth Johnson, always the topical guy, wanted to explore the difference between terrorism and resistance fighting...but NBC balked and have nixed the script, instead wanting to do a remake of the original script which is something KJ is not so keen on.

Just finished wathing the battle between Lydia and Diana on the DVDs with a gang of friends.

I still contend that Lydia would have killed Diana if Phillip hadn't stopped the fight!

A friend of mine said something funny: "The humans are in some sort of war show, while the lizard aliens are in Dallas."

Anyway, I'm filled with sadness considering the impending end of this show one more time. I was surprised to realize that I still had lines of the show memorized, even after 20 years.

Marta: "It's a lie, a sham! A vicious trick by those two fiendish hellcats!"
Diana: "Name calling will do nothing to dispute your guilt."

Lastly, I forgot how different the show became near the end of the season once they got rid of a lot of the ensemble cast. Without Ham, Elias, Robin, Nathan Bates, etc they show really had a different feel.

J. Michael Straczynksi is selling copies of the script he wrote back in 1989 for a new miniseries.

Diana had a marvellously ambivalent, corrupt edge to her. There's a scene where Diana is speaking to a human collaborator and gently touches the woman's shoulder and plays with her hair, subtly suggesting a hint of playful desire. Of course, Diana was a monster - a cross between Joan Collins and Josef Mengeles - with no boundaries. Who's to say that she wouldn't force a woman into inter-species lesbian sex??

I loved V. All for Jane Badler really.

The first mini-series is terrific. The Nazi allegory isn't executed with great subtlety, but it's still very well observed. The best bits of V are fleeting moments - where Mike goes to visit his son and finds him and a friend playing with action figures of the Visitors and when the Visitors arrive at the factory, the local high school band play a crappy version of the Star Wars theme - which is, when you think about it, exactly what would happen!

The second mini-series, The Final Battle, is more uneven, veering uneasily from gritty to camp in practically every scene. Fun though, and the scene where Robin Maxwell gives birth to alien twins is one of the great unintentionally hilarious moments of 1980's TV.

The series is just awful. The plots involving the resistance are sub-A Team rubbish, while the antics aboard the Visitor Mothership come off like Falcon Crest in space.

I actually bought the entire series on DVD and I think the whole sub plot was stupid in V: The Final Battle. I hate Juliet so much words cannot even express how much I hate her. However, that doesn't stop me from watching the entire series at least once a week (what? what?! Marc Singer's in it ok?). Actually I think that the writing was crap. However, I did have to laugh at Robin's gives birth to the twins as some have said it was unintentionally funny.

I LOVE Jane Badler! Thank goodness for her because I spent most of the series with my head in my hands asking the TV Gods why people were doing half the stuff they were doing.

Also I love Michael Ironside! He's so cool.

While I grew to love the V universe for its seriousness and the WW2 allegories, I admit it: one of my very first TV crushes--after Tegan Jovanka and Nyssa on Doctor Who--was Jane Badler's entirely-too-sultry-for-an-alien-overlord Diana. She worked that shit like crazy...oddly, all the "female" Visitors did to varying degrees (I'm a rebel, dammit--I <3 June Chadwick's Lydia), but Diana really was the alpha female of the group.

Hell--I watched The Highwayman because of Jane Badler!

Though, now that I'm reminded of it...I'm still pissed that the series, screwed up though it was, ended on a cliffhanger...

I was in high school when TFB originally aired (God, that's a depressing thought!) and our biology teacher was so offended by the concept of the hybrid babies that she spent an entire class going on about how it was scientifically inaccurate and wrong and unrealistic, etc.

Hee!

V when I saw it as a child of ten affected my writing more than I'd care to say. I was wrote my first fanfic on that prog. And Ironside! Always to the good.

When I saw the entire thing as an adult, it really hasn't aged well.

But I love Benny.

V was the project that started my long-time fandom of Michael Ironside. Really liked the comraderie that he had with Ruby, and the spectacular revenge that he extracted for her death.

I was also a fan of the whole Donovan/Julie thing. Loved Faye Grant. She's taken good care of herself too... still looks quite good, considering it's been over 20 years.

Did the Vistors always maintain their original sex when they were disguised as humans? I guess it's rather difficult to tell for reptiles, but that is intriguing...

See that's what I wondered too! Did they maintain origianl sex or not. Hmmm....

V was a lot of fun as a mini-series, not so much as a series. And for some reason, I could never get over how they danced around nudity with dream sequence body stockings and 'food' draped in towels. Twas fun though.

Holy Crap! I went to IMDB to see if I could find some recent images of Faye Grant (who I totally had a crush on back in the day) and found this V: The Second Generation.

It's listed as being in "development hell" so who knows if it will ever see the light of day, but apparently they have signed some of the orginal stars (Grant, Singer, Badler and Englund).

That's been up there for a number of years, but has yet to even go into production. I've been hoping they would either remake it or do a second generation one.
I loved the original mini series. I liked The Final Battle, although I think it would have been much better if Kenneth Johnson had been kept on as producer/writer, because I enjoyed his vision so much more. I thought the series was awful and hated some of the new characters they added (like grown Elizabeth, who I thought should not have been rapidly aged, as that was really stupid, as well as her powers) and Kyle, who annoyed me to no end. And I didn't like them killing off Robert in the beginning (also, what happened to his other two daughters? It's like they forgot he had any other children besides Robin). Also, they started off with Mike and Julie in a relationship, then forgot that they had been in one. And getting rid of Ham was a lethal mistake. He and Willie (along with Diana) were the best characters of the series.

Rumor has it that Kenneth Johnson originally pitched V:TSG to NBC Universal as something somewhat socially relevant to the here and now (occupying forces, resistance, etc.), but they apparently nixed that and wanted/want to do more of a straight remake or rehash of the original miniseries. I suppose the guys that greenlighted Battlestar Galactica were out of the office that day...

I just pulled out my DVD copies of V the series. First I'd like to mention that I feel no shame in admitting that. Secondly, I can't help but bring to the attention of my fellow TWOP posters that V is about as snark-worthy as it gets. Like many other viewers, as a child, I thought this show was the shit. The first mini-series was downright scary with the whole Nazi allegory. "The Final Battle" was good too, but it started to get a little far fetched with the whole hybrid baby/red dust scenario. The series was pure unadulterated cheese. Diana gets a frizzed out curly perm and becomes an alien Joan Collins. If that's not enough we get a Linda Evans like foil in british alien Lydia. The oversaturation of Nathan Bates and his uber-shirtless son Kyle was a downer. By the time the series came around, the lack of chemistry between the actors that played Donovan and Julie could not be denied and their relationship fizzled. A lot of people blame the "star child" scenario for killing the show. It wasn't the concept of the starchild that was so bad. It was the actress that played her. The strange "O" faces she made when using her special "mind powers" were priceless. Acting in general wasn't a high priority on a series that had the main hero, Donovan, strike poses in the middle of combat and gun battles. He'd pop a clip in his gun, spread his legs, flex his gluteus and turn toward the camara. The only thing that could have remotely saved this series was Michael Ironside as Ham. Dude could act and kick ass well. He was the only member of the resistance who had a brain. When they shipped him away with the starchild's mother, it killed off any hope of the show being anymore than Dynasty with peeling skin and laser guns that made whoosh-poo noises.

Hee, Scarletbegonia.
Great post.



Hee, again.
So true, but Diana is still one of my favorite villains of the last 25 years!!

I still harbor fond memories of both the TV series and the mini-series, even after watching both again recently. (God bless the DVD industry!)

And I used to have such a mad crush on Kyle and his tight pants!

Very true, she was an all time super tv villain. I'm just not so sure why they had to screw with her hair. It was pretty, when it was straight. Guess it was a sign of the times(1984)



He was a hottie, no doubt. But the plots became oversaturated with him. The love triangle with him, the starchild and her mom was pretty skeevy.

Ah, I had a crush on ... was it Michael? The black guy in the Resistance who used to be a thief and had a doctor brother who died? He was pretty.

I thought the tv series was horrible. I hated the whole Star Child thing. It made absolutely no sense why she'd have powers. They should have just made her a regular being with abilities of both species. I also hated Nathan Bates and I never found Kyle attractive. His nose looked funny to me.
However, I loved the mini series (both, although I prefer the first one). And Diana was an awesome villain.

Every time anyone on these boards mentions V, I just have to point out that it includes my all-time favorite stupidest line of any tv show or movie I've ever seen. The alien leader is boasting about how good she is at duelling, which she proves by announcing proudly, "I've never been beaten in mortal combat!"

Teehee... I guess not.

I noticed on IMDB that there was a possibilty of a V the 2nd generation. They even secured Marc Singer, Faye Grant, and Jane Badler. But the word around it makes it seem like a no go. It would be awesome and the prospect has much potential. I am not one for remakes,but if this were done the right way, it could be huge. Finding some decent actors to go alongside some of the old school actors combined with good writing and access to a cable network, could be magic.

The Sci-Fi channel UK just finished airing the mini-series and the series the other night. I don't understand why they insisted on putting Jane Badler in a white pantsuit that did absolutely nothing for her.

I had such a crush on Kyle back in the day. *nostalgic sigh* Re-watching the series now, I can't decide whether or not Marc Singer was a truly terrible actor or if he'd just given up caring by the time the series rolled around. I mean, who thinks standing with bent knees and hands outstretched is any way to appear heroic before jumping from around a corner to fight the bad guys? It just made me giggle.

Ghahahah! Oh, god, yes! Or he'd fiddle with the clip just so he could have it halfway out for no good reason other than to slam it back home to melodramatically make a point.


I was in junior high then and my friends and I knew Ironside was a way hotter badass than Singer ever could be and were vastly amused that they were trying to pawn Mike off as the studmuffin of the show. Puh-lease.

I read the novelization before I saw the movie (stupid parents, trying to protect me from violence and lack of sleep), and I knew Ham Tyler was a badder ass than Donovan. When I finally saw it, that began my man crush on Michael Ironside that continued through Total Recall and Starship Troopers.

The difference between Mike Donovan and Ham Tyler is simple: Mike was macho with a minor badass streak. Ham was a badass first and foremost.

Thank god! I thought I was alone in my psuedo-crush on Michael Ironside. I always wondered why the character of Julie didn't try to get a little "on the side" resistance lovin' from Ham. I've read that Marc Singer is a good guy in real life. He seems to be nice to his fans at conventions and what not. But as an actor Ironside blows him away. I often wondered why half the cast, including Ironside bailed 2nd season. Did they know the show was shit? Or did the removal of all those characters cause the show to become shit?

Dream casting for a remake? Ideas?

Never. I think that whole year sparked my love of the post-apocalyptic. Ironside was in V, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone and Neon City - if world war three ever started, I was all set to make my way to Toronto to become his leather-pants-wearing spunky gal sidekick.

They kept killing off the people who had survival potential and keeping the ones who were always on the verge of autodarwinating. Eventually, it was all idiots doing stupid things. I think at the end, the only respectable one left was Kyle and he'd get momentarily stupid when Daddy or Elizabeth was involved.

So true.
I read on one of the V fansites that there was one last episode for the series that was written but never shot. It involved killing off Julie. Vaporizing her and nobody really giving a shit. If another season had been written they'd have killed Donovan and made it the Kyle and Starchild show. That sort of answers my previous question. Shitty budget and writing killed the show.

That's a tough one. Instead of a remake I'd like to see a sequel of sorts with some of the old cast passing the torch.

For some reason, I could never stand Kyle. Or Elizabeth. Which means I would have hated this:


I thought the writing was seriously awful for the series. The dialogue was cringeworthy.
I wish they had kept Kenneth Johnson on. I thought the first mini series was the best.

Remember when they used a modified "Baby Thataway" that was left on for the reveal of the Starchild?

I was a hardcore tomboy who shunned dolls so I had to google Baby Thataway. Yes I remember. V special effects were cheesy even at times, during the two mini-series. The special effects budget was blown to shit by the time the series rolled around. Those perms, aqua-net, hair glitter, and sparkly vest/croutch gaurds Diana wore cost big bucks.

Most obnoxious Kyle/Elizabeth moments are found in the final episode of V the Series. Anybody remember when "The Leader" was channeling through Elizabeth. Kyle was all freaked out because she was talking in a man voice. When the actress used her regular speaking voice instead of the dubbed in leader voice, it was all sorta british. Like Madonna circa 2001-the present.
And did Kyle and Elizabeth ever do the horizontal mambo? If V the series was around now we'd so be dealing with a half alien/human's sex life. Come to think of it V was very true to the Reagan era sensibility in TV entertainment. Oodles of violence is ok but even a little sex is questionable....

You just reminded me of another reason I didn't like Elizabeth and Kyle and don't think they should have aged her so much--it creeped me out that she was really only like 2 years old and they were involved.

The problem the series faced was that is was produced at a time when prime-time soap operas were huge in the ratings. Shows like Falcon Crest, Dynasty, Dallas and Knots Landing were consistently in the top 10, and each of them had a big-haired female villain. I didn't mind the character of Lydia so much, but it was obvious she was only introduced to appeal to the people who liked watching woman fight on television. Dynasty was famous for it's female catfights. Still is to this day. V fell prey to the thinking of the time and the producers tried to turn it into a campy soap opera with SF overtones. It didn't need to be that but that was the consensus at the time. I even remember NBC heavily promoted the "fight to the death" between Lydia and Diana, which of course turned out to be nothing at all.

For those that are interested, Kenneth Johnson is coming out with a V: The Second Generation book which you can pre-order on Amazon.

I also found a teaser clip on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thPv5sbjdUo

Yeah, but June Chadwick was hawt...

Are we still playing "cast the remake"? For Diana, I vote...Shannen Doherty.

Quit laughing:

• she's about the same age now that Jane Badler was then;
• she can pull off bad-ass;
• she wouldn't look all that bad in spandex;
• she has nothing better to do.

Got a better idea?

I think Shannon Doherty would be a nightmare replacement for Diana should they go that route. She may have the look and attitude but she is horrible to work with. Even though Aaron Spelling fired her from 90210, he gave her a second chance with Charmed, and she got fired again!

They would do better with an unkown. Hell, I would rather see Dakota Fanning as Diana instead of Shannon.

Heh. And lord knows poor Dakota could use the work. Six movies in a row have come out that she hasn't been in.

And Marta was played by Gela Jacobsen, who is now known as Gela Nash, aka Juicy Couture creator and John Taylor from Duran Duran's wife.

I think, if they really wanted to give one of the highest-profile roles to a relative unknown, Donna Feldman (Fashion House) could actually do a decent job as Diana. A bit young, perhaps, but they can chalk that up to simple vanity in choice of human suits. Failing that? Anybody got Nana Visitor on speed-dial?