In “The Rescue” -- the first
post-cast-massacre episode of V: The
Series (1984 – 1985) -- Lydia (June Chadwick) and Charles (Duncan Regher) realize that
Diana (Jane Badler) is a loose cannon, but that it will be immensely difficult
to remove her from Visitor Command since her attack on Earth has been
successful.
Before long, a scheming Charles devises a devious way to get rid of
Diana: Section 48 of the Code of Raman.
As Visitor royalty, he can select any Visitor woman as his bride by law, without fear of the woman's refusal.
Then, because Diana's primary job will be
child-bearing, his bride can be shipped back home to the Visitor home planet, out-of-commission
on the front line.
When Charles proposes to Diana, she realizes she has been (temporarily)
out-maneuvered. Charles intends to send her far away once she is "married...with
lizard."
However, this clever strategy goes awry when Charles catches a glimpse of the fetching Diana luxuriating in a glowing-green Visitor tub during a pre-nuptial ceremony.
As Diana swims in the nude alongside ceremonial eels ("may
the venom give you strength, and make your body fertile..."), Charles
realizes he isn't so keen to send the sexy Diana away after all. At least not
until he has enjoyed his honeymoon.
To that end, Charles has already "installed the most comfortable bed in the fleet."
But Lydia is jealous, and plots to
murder Diana with cat poison. Diana sees
through the plan, however, and sees to it that Charles drinks the poison
instead…
On July 29, 1981, Prince Charles and Diana wed at St. Paul's Cathedral in
London before a global TV audience of one billion people.
On February 1, 1985,
however, the real fireworks commenced when Diana married Visitor royalty,
Charles in “The Rescue.”
It was a match made in science fiction heaven. The
groom wore black. The bride wore...scales
The ceremony in the episode is officiated by a hissing lizard-man in a Cardinal
hat, and the wedding banquet consists of spiders, gerbils, rats and other small
animals. (And the banquet table is decorated with a statue of Godzilla
spray-painted white.)
Forget the traditional wedding cake, Diana and
Charles instead share their "ceremonial mouse.”
By this point in the franchise continuity, V: The Series has become
sort of wickedly-amusing high-camp, and yet one can’t help but feel compassion for
Diana as Lydia and Charles conspire against her. The material,
though silly on one level, also achieves relevance in 1980s America,
particularly about the role of women in Visitor society.
Even a female who has risen so high in a military
power structure as Diana has is ultimately undone by her society's expectations
of her as a biological female. Accordingly, everything -- from that
very command structure to the dictates of her religion -- subverts her
individual desire to "achieve" in what seems a "man's"
world. Even though Diana is unequivocally evil, you cheer when she defeats
Charles' thoroughly unfair plan for dispatching her.
Again, it seems worthwhile to point out that,
whatever its specific failings, V: The Series was a pioneer in terms of depicting strong
female characters, and even in an episode like this -- and with a character who
is ostensibly a villain -- these characters are written sympathetically. Yes, the series more closely resembles Dynasty or Dallas at this point than It Can't Happen Here, but there is still a strong connection between Diana and the audience. She is a character we love to hate, but we also don't like to see a person of such power treated shabbily.
At the very least, the intrigue and back-stabbing on the mother-ship
in “The Rescue” proves entertaining and droll.
The same can’t be said for the dire, hackneyed subplot with the Resistance. In this case, a family seeks Julie’s (Faye
Grant) help delivering a baby in the thick of the Los Angeles war zone. The story is incredibly clichéd and hackneyed, and once
more, Elizabeth demonstrates a new power that happens to help in the very
moment it is needed. She can now
perfectly recall and imitate any human or visitor voice.
But each time "The Rescue" returns to
Charles and Diana and their nuptials, viewers may find themselves smiling in
spite of themselves.
Badler, Regehr, and Chadwick keep (forked) tongues in
cheek throughout, and are clearly having the time of their lives with this material. The episode is outrageous, and yet it is also
fun. “The Rescue” sucks you in, despite
your better judgment. It many not be a great episode, but -- right down to the Charles and Diana wedding joke (art imitating life) -- it is an unforgettable one.
Next week the series' death spiral begins in earnest with "The Littlest Dragon."
Fun review John. And kudos for finding an interesting subtext (Diana and the traditional roles of women) amidst the DYNASTY-fication of V.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, you may have already addressed this elsewhere, but did they ever get around to providing an in-story explanation for why the Visitors kept on wearing their human disguises long after their real appearance was known? I mean, here we see Diana and company wearing their disguises while the officiant is in all his reptilian glory.Of course the real reason was budgetary, but I would like to think that some rationale was offered.
trajan23
You raise an excellent point, and one that was never addressed on V: The Series. Even though the secret is out, the Visitors don't shed their masks, even with each other on the mothership command deck. That fact established, as the series wore on, we did meet more Visitors on the craft who didn't wear masks. I think they realized that it was a concern, and began showing extras with the full lizard-head appliance in more and more scenes...
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