V (1983) — How Space Lizards Taught Us To Fight Fascism
In spring 1983 a series of posters appeared in US subway stations showing a smiling man in sunglasses above the phrase: “The Visitors are our friends.”
Days later, every one of these posters had been defaced with a giant red “V”.
They announced the arrival of V, a rollicking sci-fi mini series where space lizards ate our guinea pigs and Beastmaster star Marc Singer leapt around in the tightest jeans known to man.
This influential series was also a chilling allegory of the rise of fascism.
Forty years later, V’s warnings seem more relevant than ever.
Note: to avoid the spoilers below, jump straight into V: The Original Miniseries.
Arrival
Kenneth Johnson, creator of TV series The Bionic Woman and the TV adaptation of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, was keen to bring the 1935 bestseller It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis onto the small screen.
This disturbing novel charts the rise of a populist US politician named Buzz Windrip, who charms his way into power then swiftly discards all his pledges in favour of devastating authoritarian rule.
Johnson adapted the novel into a screenplay entitled Storm Warnings in 1982 — but TV network NBC rejected it, claiming it was too “cerebral” for the average American viewer. The original Star Wars and Star Trek movies ruled the box office at the time, so NBC would only green light the project if the fascists were re-cast as aliens from outer space.
Johnson agreed, and the $30m “television event” quickly went into production, first airing in May 1983.
Cure for cancer
The series opens with the Visitors descending on Earth in 50 huge motherships. The world takes a collective gasp.
As they step out to greet us, the Visitors resemble humans — albeit with wraparound shades and a snappy red and black uniform. On seeing Visitor leader John, the son of hero Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) complains: “He doesn’t even look like Mister Spock!”
The Visitors explain they urgently need to harvest minerals from Earth in order to save their dying planet. In return they promise us a better life by sharing their intergalactic knowledge, including a cure for cancer. The world gasps again, and tries to ignore the fact that every mothership contains thousands of Visitors, all marching in unison behind a swastika-style insignia.
Donovan later discovers the Visitors are actually lizards in human disguise, with tongues that spray acid and a taste for live animals. Rather than harvesting our minerals, the Visitors want to harvest most of us for food, enslave the rest and drain our planet of its water. Yes this does resemble one of the barmy conspiracy theories subsequently formulated by David Icke doesn’t it?
But for a while the Visitors are welcomed with open arms, as families are fascinated and sometimes seduced by their otherworldly charms.
A common enemy
However, events take a darker turn when any scientist who attempts to research the true nature of the Visitors mysteriously disappears.
And when Donovan tries to expose the truth about the Visitors’ reptilian identity live on TV, they suddenly block the broadcast.
The Visitors subsequently take control of all media outlets, using them to stress their benevolence while silencing any criticism. Streets are plastered with propaganda posters, matching those used in NBC’s subway ad campaign.
This is a turning point in the series. “Fascism” is notoriously difficult to define, but a controlled mass media is widely-held as a key indicator of fascism. Respected writer Laurence W Britt listed 14 defining characteristics of fascism in secular humanist magazine Free Inquiry. As V progresses, we watch the Visitors demonstrate many of them.
When the Visitors use those media outlets to discredit and demonise all scientists — who could discover their true nature and motives — they display another characteristic of fascism: disdain and suppression of intellectuals.
The Visitors claim an underground global network of scientists is conspiring against them, so the Visitors will regrettably have to withhold sharing their cancer-curing knowledge until the conspirators have been defeated. This establishes a common enemy, another characteristic of fascism. It’s a tactic often used by leaders keen to deflect attention away from their own immoral activity.
In V, this tactic results in scientists initially being shunned and ostracised, then hunted as enemies of the state. Arrested scientists are sent to “processing centres” not dissimilar to Nazi concentration camps, and few are ever seen again.
But even as human rights are systematically disregarded by the Visitors, everyday life continues for many.
At one point elderly character Ruby reassures her friend Abraham, a Holocaust survivor: “Abraham, don’t get so wound up. Nothing’s going to happen. Not to you or your family. They’re not doctors or biologists or even scientists. You’re not involved. Anyway, it’s going to pass.”
Abraham replies: “That’s what I said in 1938, back in Berlin.”
Brainwash
Unfortunately Abraham’s suspicions prove to be well founded.
The Visitors gain control of the police and army, supposedly to protect us from vague dark forces. They then broaden their definition of “enemy of the state” beyond just scientists — now anyone who defies the Visitors risks being shipped off to a processing centre.
Those lucky enough not to be frozen as food are experimented on by the Visitors’ deputy leader Diana, who is spectacularly played by Jane Badler. With a callous approach reminiscent of the Nazi “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, Diana tries every means possible to brainwash her human captives and make them subservient to the Visitors.
Collaboration
It Can’t Happen Here, the novel which inspired V, followed everyday people over a number of years as fascism slowly but surely gained a stranglehold over their home country.
V takes a similar approach. While some of its key characters resist, others collaborate with or capitulate to the authoritarian Visitors.
Most notably, Donovan’s vain mother Eleanor welcomes the social influence her close association with the Visitors gives her. She would happily hand her son over to them, had he not jumped out of the nearest window.
And Abraham’s feckless grandson Daniel joins the Visitor Youth group (mirroring the Nazis’ Hitler Youth) which suddenly gives him status, a uniform and a gun. Daniel abuses his new power on a regular basis — in one scene he humiliates a science student in front of his friends, by forcing him down onto his knees to lick his boots clean.
The fact that neighbours are willing to turn on each other to gain favour from the all-powerful Visitors leads to widespread suspicion and paranoia, another by-product of a fascist state.
In one of V’s most powerful scenes, Abraham’s son Stanley protests as his father tries to shelter the family of a scientist neighbour in their garage. Abraham takes a deep breath and says it’s time Stanley learnt the truth about his mother’s wartime death.
“Your mother didn’t have a heart attack in the box car. She made it with me to the camp,” Abraham explains. “I can still see her, standing naked in the freezing cold. Her beautiful black hair was gone, they’d shaved her head. I can still see her waving to me as they marched her off with the others to the showers. The showers with no water.”
“Perhaps if somebody had given us a place to hide,” Abraham adds. “Don’t you see Stanley? They have to stay, or else we haven’t learnt a thing.”
Resistance
While V shows us how to identify signs of fascism, it also shows us how to resist it.
For every Daniel or Eleanor who is happy to collaborate with the Visitors, there is a defiant Ruby or handyman Sancho.
An underground Resistance movement is slowly formed by kickass biochemist Julie (Faye Grant) to shelter people from the Visitors, rescue captives from processing centres and expose the aliens’ true agenda.
They use the power of imagery against the Visitors, by defacing every propaganda poster with a defiant red “V” for “Victory”.
But unlike other 80s epics, V doesn’t pretend resistance is easy or that success is rapid or guaranteed. Julie’s team effectively pools their collective skills, but they suffer as many failures and tragedies as they do victories. It’s also notable that the resistance leader is female — although stereotypical action hero Donovan also joins them by the end of the first series.
The Resistance gains vital assistance from a small number of Visitors who oppose their leaders’ Master Plan to eat or enslave all humans. Known as the Fifth Column, these genuinely benevolent Visitors include Willie, played by Nightmare On Elm Street star Robert Englund.
V: The Original Miniseries is dedicated “to the heroism of the resistance fighters — past, present and future”. It closes with Julie and fellow Resistance member Elias sending a distress signal out into space.
“So we just hang in there for a couple more years right?” Elias says.
“The reality we have to face is that help may never come,” Julie cautions. “We may end up having to rely completely on ourselves.”
Elias then sprays a V for Victory sign on the nearest door, a mark of defiance in the face of terrible odds.
The Final Battle
If you’ve not watched V before, you may want to leave it at the end of the original miniseries.
It was followed by The Final Battle (1984), another two-parter which has its moments but becomes increasingly nonsensical.
Tellingly Kenneth Johnson stepped away from V during production of The Final Battle, citing creative differences with Warner Bros. Among other acclaimed projects, Johnson would go on to write and direct TV spin-offs from the movie Alien Nation.
If you make it all the way to V: The Series (1984–85) you’ll see a load of camp low budget nonsense that’s been kindly described as “Dynasty in Space”.
In 2008 a reboot of V failed to seduce viewers, even with cameos by Marc Singer and Jane Badler, and it was cancelled after two seasons.
Influence
Despite some very shonky special effects (Diana’s poor guinea pig never stood a chance), V retains its impact, influence and relevance 40 years later.
Entertainment Weekly named V one of the 10 best mini series on DVD, noting: “As a parable about it-can-happen-here fascism, V was far from subtle — but it carved a place for lavish and intelligent sci-fi on TV.”
Fascism continues to seep into our daily lives as political leaders gaslight us and threaten to remove our hard-won rights, including our right to protest. And I’m not sure what it’s like where you are, but here in the UK our government routinely tries to pit us against one another so we don’t challenge those in power.
We have to stay alert to the signs of fascism — whether through a flawed sci-fi series from the 80s or a piece of investigative journalism from the 2020s. And we must continue to resist fascism, in whatever way we can. Or else we haven’t learnt a thing.
“We must fight this darkness that is threatening to engulf us. Each of us must be a ray of hope and do our part, and join with the others so we become a blinding light. More than anything you must remember always which side you are on, and fight for it.”
Abraham Bernstein, V
