The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series (1984 - 1985): "The Littlest Dragon" (February 22, 1985)

In “The Littlest Dragon,” Inspector General Philp (Frank Ashmore) pursues Donovan (Marc Singer) on Earth, hoping to avenge the death of his brother, Martin.  He is unaware that Diana murdered Martin and has poisoned his mind against Mike.

Mike, Willie (Robert Englund) and Kyle (Jeff Yagher) are pursued to a garage by the Visitors, and run across a refugee Visitor couple.  The female is on the verge of delivering their baby, and needs Willie’s help.

Meanwhile, Diana plans to murder Philip and frame Lydia for his death.

V: The Series (1984 – 1985) is again suffering budgetary and writing pains in “The Littlest Dragon.” 

The heroes no longer have a base (the former Club Creole...) and each new episode sets up a new, ostensibly cheap location, and features only a few cast members. This week Kyle, Willie and Mike are back in the same town we’ve seen several times, and end up in a garage, surrounded by Philip’s shock-troopers.  

Similarly, the green Visitor baby prop from V: The Final Battle gets re-used here, representing a different baby.

Meanwhile, the intrigue on the mothership is not as intriguing as in previous episodes. Jane Badler’s Diana, however, again provides audiences a dramatic high-point.  This time, she acts in a physically seductive manner with a Visitor female (Angela).  At this point, Diana has demonstrated sexual interest in men of the human and Visitor races, and now female Visitors too.  “Bi-curious” doesn’t begin to adequately describe her, and I love that the series makes no apologies for Diana's sexually omnivorous nature.

“The Littlest Dragon” ends with the new Visitor parents discussing faith with Willie. “What is faith?” one Visitor asks.  Of course, by this point we know that the Visitors do possess a religious faith: the Brotherood of Zon, established in many previous episodes.  It may be only a cult, but certainly it is a faith that the Visitors know and understand, at least on general terms.  Therefore, the question seems odd.

Finally, a baby delivered on the fly, in a war zone, was a subplot in “The Rescue” just three or four episodes back. There, it was a human baby that Julie had to delivery.  Here, we get a Visitor baby that Willie helps deliver.  

But the whole episode just feels very derivative and slapdash.  Even the moments with Donovan and Philip learning to trust one another seem largely devoid of tension.

In two weeks: “War of Illusions”