Some 25 years later, I still remember the main characters from V: The nice, shy, sweet alien (played by Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street). The beautiful but evil Diana. And our main hero, the adventurous cameraman. The miniseries spawned a second miniseries and then a one-season TV show, but for its brief lifespan it sure had an impact.

I recently watched the original V miniseries again and also the new ABC version of V, which premiered as a one-hour television episode. I was surprised at how well the old V held up, though the new V is also quite promising.

Old V

The old V does look dated now (if just that everyone watching news of the aliens is doing so on old console TV sets), but it is still a very compelling story. The basic plot is that aliens (the “Visitors”) land on earth, promising peace and harmony, but they are hiding a sinister plot instead.

The original V, dedicated to “resistance fighters,” shows parallels between the transition to martial law under the Visitors and Nazi Germany. Scientists are the Jews in the original V, and we are shown scenes of families hiding out and being persecuted as scapegoats as the Visitors use a concocted plot to clamp down on American freedoms.

The original V, despite being born of a more innocent age on television, does a surprisingly good job at showing the differing reactions and motivations of people living under the new regime. Some help others, while others turn their neighbors in to the “authorities” due to ego and a lust for power.

The special effects of the original V are actually surprisingly good for 1983; while the spaceships are a little clunky, the flying scenes are decent, and I actually kind of miss those obvious blue laser beams used in old sci-fi.

One thing we loved as kids when the original V came out were the alien voices. The strange reverberation is a neat effect to this day. As a 13-year-old in the 80s, this was seen as pretty darn “cool.”

(SPOILERS!) The original V also had some great reveals missing in the new version. The alien Diana eating a live mouse and guinea pig was probably one of the most shocking and surprising things ever shown on TV. And who can forget the alien hybrid baby that came about later?

New V

Of course, one of the main things that gets updated with a redo of an old sci-fi show is the special effects. The new V, of course, benefits from the enhanced special effects of our day, but these still would mean nothing without decent characters and plot. Special effects done for their own sake can get tired. Fortunately, the special effects in the new V are used to good effect. The visual of the alien commander Anna giving her initial greeting to the world through a big screen created on the bottom of each spaceship was exceptionally memorable.

It was also quite dramatic to show the city undergoing an earthquake as the large mothership descended.

As for the plot, so far, the new V keeps the general theme of the old, with some new twists.

The new V, for example, does not hit you over the head over parallels between the Visitors and Nazi Germany in the way the old V did (at least so far). Instead, the Visitors are greeted with a hysteria that some journalists have compared with the Obamamania that hit the nation in 2008. I personally did not see the first episode of V personally attacking Obama per se (except for one obvious “HOPE” sign). Still, you could find some vague parallels to the Obama craze with the selling of V t-shirts and merchandise. The show seems to caution against getting too enthralled before all the facts are known. But the parallels with Obama end there.

My feeling is this: It’s not that the show was trying to say that Obama was like the Visitors; rather, I think the show was trying to say: Look at what might happen should blind devotion be given without critical thought.

The biggest threat, we are told, is that the Visitors have a powerful weapon…”devotion.” So it looks like we’ll be seeing more exploration of the idea of “celebrity hype” and the Visitors.

(Perhaps we are lucky Obama isn’t secretly a reptile – though David Icke and other conspiracy theorists might dispute that!)

As for the Visitors themselves, they are updated from the original in that they are sleeker and better dressed. The old red uniforms, hats and cheesy sunglasses are out: Fashion-forward beige dress suits are in.

The alien commander, “Anna,” is a beautiful woman with a trendy pixie haircut. Diana’s big 80’s hair is out.

They are still lizards underneath the human-looking skin, but instead of showing us rigid masks underneath the fake skin, we just get to see glimpses of reptile in a more subtle fashion. Sometimes less is more.

As for our dear alien leader: The casting of Anna was perfect. She manages to give the creepiest smiles in her role as Supreme Stepford Wife.

As for the plot itself: Instead of the aliens going after scientists as in the original, we have aliens acting as terrorists who are infiltrating all aspects of American life and government. A counter-insurgency group is the only resistance at this point. This is a sophisticated and modern update of the original V story. I find both versions interesting.

I would say the only thing that I missed about the old V in the new V was the lovely pacing. The old V took a bit of time to do its revealing – of course, that was due in part to the mini-series format. The new V hit us over the head in a single episode with the whole shebang: “Here are the Visitors. They are promising peace. Whoops, they are actually evil reptiles. Surprise!”

So the new V has a little less mystery than the old V…but that’s OK. It seems to be starting off in a good direction.

If I have one minor gripe it’s that they flipped the use of the spraypainted Vs in the new version. In the old version the “V” spraypaint was a sign of the resistance – it meant “Victory.” In the new V, the “V” stands for the Visitors, and for some reason they are encouraging their followers to “tag” with it. Kind of silly, really.

Otherwise, I think the new V looks really promising.

P.S. Doesn’t Joel Gretsch (the priest from the new V) look like the long lost brother of Marc Singer (the cameraman of the old V)? Maybe that’s just me.

Voltron was probably the first thing I watched that introduced me to the concept of the giant robot. I wasn’t so much into the Transformers but Voltron I dug. I’m not sure why…maybe it was the way the lions roared when Voltron swung his mighty fists out.

At any rate, you can enjoy Voltron episodes, in order, on Hulu, for free. And when you are done, watch He-Man and She-Ra. Yeah!

Here’s the first episode of Voltron…which, ironically, doesn’t actually include a real appearance by the big bot:

I love this movie. Right from the start, with the librarian dealing with a ghost who likes toying with books and card catalogs, it’s a ton of fun. I remember when I first saw it and the Stay Puft Marshallow Man appeared. I was laughing so hard, I was crying. The 80s was such a great decade for big, fun movies.

I guess there’s a Ghostbusters III in the works, scheduled for 2012….just in time for the end of the world per the Mayan Calendar!

The Fifth Element
Now a classic sci-fi film from the 90s, The Fifth Element is on Hulu in its entirety with only a few short commercial breaks. Boy, how I miss the 90s and how freakin’ over the top we were. Sci-fi was just a lot more colorful and humorous back then. Now it’s all grey and dreary and “realistic.” Blah. The Fifth Element is so totally wacked in moments that it would have been a complete failure were it not for Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, and a surprisingly good performance by Milla Jovovich (in her trademark white bandages and skinny little bod).

Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
OK, not really sci-fi for the most part, but these are really worth a watch. I remember seeing them a long time ago and forgot how good some of the episodes are. While a few are predictable, many are well-written with surprising twists and turns. Hitchcock himself makes the show with his goofy black humor. Keep an eye open for stars before they were stars.

Regenesis
A Canadian TV show about biotechnology and all the gory things that go along with it (such as massive viral outbreaks), Regenesis is OK – something to watch while you are doing something else. The first two episodes featured a deadly virus run amok and a mysterious boy who claims he is a “clone.” I wasn’t blown away by the two episodes I watched (it seemed like a cheesier version of House meets CSI meets the movie Outbreak), but some reviewers loved it. I’m willing to give it a few more episodes before making my final decision on it.

Starring Nicholas Young, Peter Vaughan-Clarke, and Elizabeth Adare

For those of us who tuned into “Nickleodeon” on weekday afternoons in the 1980′s, the US-formatted DVD release of “The Tomorrow People” is a blast to our Gen-X retro past. Yeah, the special effects were cheesy and the acting amateurish in that special British sci-fi way, but the stories were powerful and spoke to those of us who felt “different.” For those who value style over substance in a sci-fi series, just compare the forty-plus year run of “Doctor Who” to the twenty-seven year run of the Roddenberry “Trek” franchise. Which one is still currently in production? That’s right. “Doctor Who.” And the Lucasing of TOS Trek doesn’t count.

The premise of “The Tomorrow People” is one explored extensively in the Marvel Comics universe: people developing powers through natural mutation and evolution. In the series, the powers manifest themselves at the onset of puberty in a traumatic process called “breaking out,” a metaphor for the whole junior high experience if ever I heard one. While powers acquired in the Marvel universe are usually singular and specific (laser eyes, control of the weather, etc.), the powers displayed by the Tomorrow People include telekinesis, telepathy, and teleportation. Each of the People display all three abilities, but some have a greater degree of speciality in one of the other. One characters is adept at picking locks, while another is able to project images of ghosts through telepathy.

 A mainstay of the series is the characters’ ability to teleport, or “jaunt,” a term borrowed from the novel The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Just by thinking about it, they can teleport to any location they can imagine. I never did get why they had to be mechanically assisted by the “jaunting belts.” I guess it so the “TIM” character could play a greater role in the series. TIM is the biomechanical computer, voiced by Phillip Gilbert. Gilbert’s is one of the classic sci-fi computer/robot voices, right up there with Roddy McDowell, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Douglas Rain, and Dick Tufeld.

The episodes in the DVD sets are presented in their original 30-minute “serial” format, with opening and closing credits between each episode. While this makes for disjointed viewing of the entire story and can be tedious when viewing the “flashback” sequences from the previous episode, the format keeps the entire set true to the original series. The lack of original series artwork on the box makes it hard to spot on the shelf. For some reason, A&E elected to go with original art on the box and DVD cases.

It’s a set worth owning. Here’s to A&E for finally bringing this series to DVD on our shores.

LarryJP

While Starfleet was a Japanese production over-dubbed for the English market, Mighty Orbots was a joint American/Japanese production. I only realise this now, looking back, but I must have had quite a thing for the Japanese aesthetic.