The Visitors Are Back.

In 1983, the NBC network aired a scifi-thriller miniseries called "V", which I really enjoyed watching as a youngster.

The premise of the original show was about aliens calling themselves "Visitors", coming to Earth in the name of friendship and promising to help society progress, bringing great gifts of advanced technology and cures for medical diseases. They immediately form friendship associations, and even a youth movement, and soon even begin integrating themselves into governments around the world - all to better expedite the new era of progress, they claim. Some soon discover that the Visitors have a more secret, darker agenda.

Now the ABC network plans a re-imagining of this scifi classic, which it will begin airing in January:



Here is a clip which re-caps the original series:



And here is the intro for the old series, with its menacing theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GccknBnFfTk&feature=PlayList&p=BB7BB25C4FABD637&index=0&playnext=1

More info on the new series can be found here:

http://www.visitorsite.net/vcast.htm

 

That wasn't Willie rooting through the dumpster looking for a 'mousie'. That was some other minor character:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA1AZK-iCNc#t=1m36s

He was hungry after smoking some dope. In the novel, drugs like pot have a more potent effect on Visitors than on humans, even giving them hunger cravings stronger than humans would get. Some rebels were able to bribe Visitor personnel by supplying them with black market drugs.

 

Heh, that's okay, it's not like I remembered all that detail from so long ago. I only remember it now because I came across the series on youtube and re-watched it all last night.

 

Yup, I'm thinking that "V" will become the next Battlestar Galactica - ie. the next hot show on TV that wows audiences not just with its style but its thought-provoking content.

While Kenneth Johnson, the creator of the original show, has nothing to do with the new series, he is also trying to bring it to the big screen. I'll bet that if the new "V" does well, then Johnson's efforts for a big screen movie will get renewed backing, just as Glen Larson, the creator of the original BSG has gotten backing to create a big screen movie for BSG.