Television
The original miniseries debuted in the United States on NBC on May 1, 1983. Series creator Kenneth Johnson has said that the story was inspired by the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Also, several scenes from the original TV pilot resemble the Bertolt Brecht play The Private Life of the Master Race. Damon Knight's short story "To Serve Man" (previously adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone) had a similar theme of deceptively friendly aliens secretly cultivating humans for food.
In a commentary track on the DVD release of the first miniseries, Johnson reveals that V was originally intended as a straightforward political thriller, charting the rise of a fascist movement in the United States. NBC was interested in a sci-fi hit, to capitalize on the success of films such as the Star Wars trilogy.
The story remains a Nazi allegory, including the Swastika-like emblem used by the Visitors and their SS-like uniforms. There is a Visitor youth auxiliary with obvious similarities to the Hitler Youth and Visitor broadcasts mimic Nazi-era propaganda. The show's portrayal of human interaction with the Visitors bears a striking resemblance to stories from Occupied Europe during the Second World War with some citizens choosing collaboration and others choosing to join underground resistance movements.
Where the Nazis primarily persecuted Jews, the Visitors were likewise depicted to persecute scientists, their families and anyone associating with them and distribute propaganda in an effort to hide their true identity. Some of the central characters in the initial series were from a Jewish family and the grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, frequently commented on the events of the past again unfolding. The Visitors declared martial law to control the scientists. Later, throughout the TV series, the Resistance Network's TV news bulletins report stories of erstwhile enemies uniting in common cause against the alien occupiers, such as black and white South Africans (the series was produced when South Africa was still under apartheid), and Israelis and Palestinians. In addition, direct figure analogies are used, such as the senior Visitor scientist, Diana, who is a direct analogue of Dr. Josef Mengele.
The miniseries was successful enough to spawn a sequel, V: The Final Battle, which was meant to conclude the story, and also a television series in 1984-1985 that continued it. Johnson left the franchise during production of The Final Battle.
The cancellation of the TV series in the spring of 1985 appeared to have caught its producers by surprise, as the season ends with a cliffhanger. The TV series' single season was released on Region 1 DVD in 2004.
Read more about this topic: V (science fiction)
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)