At Flashbak: They're Not What They Appear to be (Enemy 'V' Visitor Action Figure; LJN)

This week at Flashbak, I remembered the Enemy Visitor Action Figure, from V (1983).

Here’s a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/theyre-not-what-they-appear-to-be-remembering-ljns-enemy-visitor-action-figure-1984-367182/)

“Back in 1983 Kenneth Johnson's science fiction mini-series V was event television. It aired over two nights on NBC in May, and everybody was buzzing about the scene in which the leader of the alien Visitors, Diana (Jane Badler) devoured a gerbil.

It wasn’t long before LJN had an action V "Enemy Visitor" action figure on the market.  This 12-inch alien soldier was the embodiment of Visitor evil. He hid beneath a human face and sun glasses while wearing his red space Nazi uniform. He was also armed with a laser weapon.

Designed for ages four and up, the Visitor figure's box came emblazoned with the legend "THEY'RE NOT WHAT THEY APPEAR TO BE!" 

A graphic below the figure revealed that youngsters could "unmask the Visitor to reveal his lizard face," and made note of his "extendable [forked...] tongue."  

On the back of the box, LJN noted: "The Visitor keeps his true identity hidden behind a human face.  Unmask him and reveal the lizard creature!"  It reports too that "The Human Mask is worn whenever you want to disguise the Visitor's true identity.  To remove the mask, grasp one corner between your thumb and forefinger and gently pull off."

The box also suggests: "To make the Visitor's tongue move in and out, push the hidden button on his back." 

Yes, you could actually extend the figure’s forked tongue by pressing a lever on the back of his neck.”

Please continue reading at Flashbak.  

At Flashbak: Diana vs. Lydia

My newest article at Flashbak tallies my five favorite moments of the Diana/Lydia rivalry on V: The Series (1984-1985).

Here's a snippet, and the url: (http://flashbak.com/peel-you-a-goldfish-diana-and-lydias-5-most-outrageous-moments-on-v-the-series-1984-1985-18198/)

"V: The Series (1984 – 1985) -- the continuing saga of reptilian alien “Visitors” occupying 20^th century Earth -- aired on NBC in America thirty years ago, and this anniversary affords us the perfect opportunity to remember the series and its often over-the-top (but nonetheless delicious…) brand of storytelling.

In creator Kenneth Johnson’s hands, the original V mini-series (1983) was a serious, thoughtful allegory about fascism taking hold in America, and it aped Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here.

Yet by the time the weekly series aired, Johnson was gone, and the new producers opted for a more soap opera approach to the alien and human intrigue.

In short, the series suddenly had to compete in the mid-1980s with the likes of popular programming like Dynasty, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and Dallas. 

So while the mini-series had focused on the ways that the sneaky Visitors assumed control of our hearts and minds (via the media, government, propaganda, and scapegoating), the ensuing NBC series focused on fireworks of a more personal nature. 

In particular, many of the series’ most dynamic and involving moments involve the sparring matches between Jane Badler’s brilliantly-drawn villain, Diana and June Chadwick’s equally charismatic Visitor opponent, Lydia. 

The primary reason to watch the series -- especially following a behind-the-scenes cast massacre mid-way through -- very quickly became this character interaction.

Diana and Lydia battled over war strategy, peace, and romantic lovers like Duncan Regehr's Visitor, Charles.  They always attempted to gain ultimate power, making their opponent look bad in the process.

Tallied below are the five of Lydia and Diana’s best moments from the program."

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series: "The Betrayal" (January 18, 1985)

In “The Betrayal,” Willie (Robert Englund) is wounded while attempting to contact another Fifth Columnist, Simon, and Diana (Jane Badler) presses her case for John (Bruce Davison) to impregnate Robin Mawell (Blair Tefkin) for the purpose of creating a second Star Child.

While the Resistance attempts to abduct a Visitor doctor to help Willie, Kyle (Jeff Yagher) learns that Chiang (Aki Aleong) is the real power in Los Angeles now, standing-in for his terminally-wounded father, Nathan Bates (Lane Smith). 

After Nathan is killed in a confrontation at Science Frontiers, and Robin learns she is not pregnant, all-out war comes to the once “Open City.”  

Accordingly, Ham (Michael Ironsides) and Robin makes plans to leave Los Angeles.

The cast massacre that commenced with Elias (Michael Wright) in “The Hero” culminates in “The Betrayal,” as the series loses three main characters and actors: Lane Smith’s Nathan Bates, Blair Tefkin’s Robin Maxwell, and most devastating of all, Michael Ironside’s Ham Tyler.

It’s fascinating that all the “pain” lands on the human side of the equation, but it would have been unthinkable to remove Diana, or Lydia from the format.  Badler's Diana is a series lynchpin (and the break-out character).  And without Lydia (and June Chadwick) the great Jane Badler would have had no one of consequence to play against.

It’s not difficult, perhaps, to see why Tefkin’s Robin gets cut.  She is not a fighter or a doctor, like Julie, and does not possess a unique set of abilities like Elizabeth.  Furthermore, she is not involved in any sort of romantic duo.  

Furthermore, writers have done her character no favors, especially in her last, brutal space in the spotlight.  She is nearly impregnated by a Visitor for a second time in "The Betrayal, and there’s an old saying: fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice…shame on me.  Robin doesn't transmit as either especially likable or especially smart.  She is no longer fits the "Anne Frank" character-type of the mini-series.

The loss of Nathan Bates occurs, I suspect, for pure cost-cutting reasons. I wonder if the producers knew the series was going to be canceled at this point, and so it was necessary to prune the cast.  If the Open City concept was done, there is simply no reason for the unaligned Nathan Bates to be involved in the series.  

The most grievous loss here, is, of course, Ham Tyler: one of the most popular and beloved characters in the V franchise.  

For me, Ham is a dramatic necessity because he often adds a sense of realism to the episode conflicts.  He’s not an idealist, he’s not a hero, and he's not a romantic lead.  He’s just a guy getting things done the best way he can, and trying to avoid layers of moral conflict.

I suspect Tyler was cut loose at this juncture because if you just look at the characters from a distance, he and Kyle serve what could be mistaken for the same purpose.  They each play the role of the guy reluctant to join the group.  If this is your viewpoint then Ham is redundant, especially given Kyle’s importance to Elizabeth.

What’s missed, largely, by the brutal cast/crew massacre of V’s mid-season is that every-time you remove a character of interest, like the morally-ambiguous but dedicated Ham, or the suburban girl grown up and trying to make her way, or the businessman just looking out for his bottom line, you start to subtract from the reality of the program, and often substantially.  Since we also lose Howard K. Smith of the "Freedom Network" in this episode as well, that's another net-minus.  His short news briefs made it feel that there was more to the world war than the action in Los Angeles.

So now -- suddenly -- you have two male action leads, a female lead, the resident alien, and the comic relief…and that’s it.  You don’t even have a person of color, anymore, among the human resistance.  

And so V’s resistance looks a lot less like real America, and more like a traditional Hollywood B-movie.

By subtracting these characters, the producers also removed the sources of almost all inter-character conflict.  Although the Robin-Kyle-Elizabeth love triangle was dropped long before “The Hero” and “The Betrayal,” losing morally ambiguous characters like Nathan Bates, Ham Tyler, and even to a degree Elias, means suddenly that the surviving characters have no one to rub up against, or chafe against.  Kyle can''t battle -- for form alliances with his father.  And Mike and Julie can''t argue a course of action with Ham.

At this point in V: The Series, the dramatic interest and initiative clearly moves to The Visitors, especially in terms of the next several episodes (“The Rescue,” and “The Champion,” especially).  Now the conflicts on the Mothership involving Diana’s ousting from power and (arranged) marriage to Charles become far more compelling than anything that happens on Earth, where everything is sort of…vanilla.

Other than the scenes involving Diana, Lydia and the Visitors, the final episodes of V are generally poor.  The L.A. Resistance seems to consist of five characters riding around Southern California in a van, and that’s it.  It’s just very underwhelming.

In a sense “The Betrayal” is really a betrayal because what V: The Series gains in terms of economy (and in terms of cut-throat drama…) it loses in terms of realism and interesting characters.

And yet this is undeniably a strong episode in context, and one followed by an even stronger one: “The Rescue.”  

The series has short term success here for the next few weeks, and then all the cast/character/budget cuts start to really hurt V in a dramatic fashion.

Next week: The unforgettable marriage of Charles and Diana in “The Rescue."

Television and Cinema Verities

"My original vision for V was something different from what the show has become. I’ve been with it since its inception, and my idea for it as a series was that it could be sort of like Mission: Impossible mixed with a little Hill Street Blues, suspense combined with interrelationships between the eleven main characters.  I really felt that it would be more effective if, instead of smashing heads, we used intrigue and disguises and infiltration as our main weapons.”

-Faye Grant discusses V with interviewer Robert Strauss, in the midst of making the series in the 1980s. At the V: Out of Print Archives.

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series: "The Hero" (January 11, 1985)

In “The Hero,” Diana (Jane Badler), Charles (Duncan Regher) and the other Visitors adjust to a new reality in Los Angeles. 

Strong man Nathan Bates (Lane Smith) has been fatally wounded and is on life support at Science Frontiers.  This means the Visitors most work with his assistant, Chiang (Aki Aleong), who proves all too willing to collaborate with them. In return, the Visitors provide Chiang with software to create a kind of virtual Nathan Bates, one who immediately declares martial law.

With Los Angeles under draconian rule, Charles sets out to “break the back of the Resistance” once and for all.  He immediately takes hostages in Los Angeles, and promises to execute them one at a time with a deadly disintegrator gun. 

Among the captives is Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin) and John (Bruce Davison), a Visitor masquerading as a war photographer.

The Resistance plans to rescue Robin, but Elias (Michael Wright) is murdered by the Visitors and their new weapon…

Although V: The Series (1984 – 1985) rarely lives up to the standard for excellence set by the 1983 miniseries, there are a number of memorable episodes.  “The Hero” certainly falls into that category.

There are two factors that make this episode work effectively.  One is the totally unexpected and sudden death of Elias (Michael Wright), a regular character.  And the second is the plot-line involving Robin Maxwell.

I was fifteen years old when I first saw “The Hero” and most television up to that time, at least in America, was “safe” in the sense that you knew regular characters were going to be survive harm week in and week out.  

I had not yet seen Blake’s 7 (1978 – 1981) at that juncture, so it wasn’t a valid comparison point.  Suffice it to say I was quite shocked when in “The Hero,” Elias stepped out from the shadows, took a courageous stance…and was promptly disintegrated by the Visitors.

Elias’s death was shocking, not just because it occurred, but because of when it occurred in the drama.  His death wasn’t even the climax or high-point of the story.  It was just one more “event” in an action-packed episode, and it transmitted quite fully, the danger of life in the Resistance, and during the War.

The only antecedents I knew at that time for this kind of “cut-throat” approach to TV characters were Edith Bunker, who died between seasons of All in the Family/Archie Bunker’s Place, and Colonel Henry Blake on M*A*S*H who also died off-screen.  Victor Bergman had disappeared from Moonbase Alpha on Space: 1999, but viewers were never told definitively on-screen if he had died, though it was the logical assumption.

There’s just something incredibly savage -- and random -- about Elias’s death and it really stuck with me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  

In years to come, beloved characters died (on-screen) in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Power, The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I believe that it’s fair to state -- at least in terms of American genre television -- that Elias’s death represented a beginning point for that kind of storytelling…where nobody was safe.

Elias’s demise is a gut-punch that suddenly raises the stakes on V: The Series.  The program often comes across as silly, and Diana’s antics waver between menace and camp.  But then there’s this episode and the no-nonsense murder of a beloved character.  It just kind of rocks you back, almost as if the series has lulled you into a sense that nothing is for keeps.

Suddenly, it's all for keeps.

The other reason “The Hero” remains a strong episode is that Robin falls for another Visitor, though this time one in disguise. She believes he is human, and sleeps with him, but the truth is that he is a double agent tasked by Diana with impregnating Robin and thus creating a second Star Child.

This plot-line works so well, I believe, because it’s just so damned evil.  Robin has gone through Hell and who -- in a million years -- would believe she might have to go through it all again?  It’s just so cruel and horrible, yet perfectly in keeping with Diana’s despicable and diabolical nature.

I remember vividly watching “The Hero” in the mid-1980s and being blown away by it. 

Elias murdered? Robin impregnated again?  

After weeks of diffident storytelling and silly old tropes like the evil twin suddenly V: The Series seemed surprising, dangerous, and willing to take crazy chances in terms of its narrative.  Accordingly, I feel that the run from “The Hero” to “The Rescue” may just be the series’ strongest.  The original concept -- It Can’t Happen Here -- is long gone, of course, but the back-stabbing, murders, and reversals of this portion of the series are nonetheless enough to keep the audience off balance and in the dark.

After weeks of the Visitors getting their asses kicked and the action getting re-set to the status quo, suddenly everything is up for grabs in “The Hero,” and that’s a very good thing.

Next week: “The Betrayal.”

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series (1984 - 1985): "The Conversion" (January 4, 1985)

In “The Conversion,” Lydia (June Chadwick) returns to Earth, having survived Diana’s (Jane Badler) attack on her shuttle. 

And worse for Diana, Lydia returns with the imposing Charles (Duncan Regher): a decorated Visitor leader renowned for his successful campaigns and his larger-than-life…persona.

Charles takes command of the fleet on Earth, demoting Diana in rank to chief science officer.  His first order of business is to discredit the L.A. Resistance. 

When Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) and Kyle Bates (Jeff Yahger) are captured, Charles has just the means he seeks to accomplish that goal.  He forces Ham to undergo Diana’s conversion process, and transforms the resistance fighter into a secret assassin working for the Visitors.  His plan is to have Ham assassinate Donovan on live television.

When Lydia is captured by the Resistance, a prisoner exchange is arranged: Lydia for Ham and Kyle.

But the Visitors and Nathan Bates (Lane Smith) are in league, and plan to assassinate the Resistance leaders by using the converted Ham as their shooter.

At the tense prisoner exchange, however, Ham shoots Bates instead of Donovan…and all Hell breaks loose.

A fearsome (and fun) new enemy, Charles (Duncan Regher) arrives in “The Conversion” and he is just the injection of fresh blood that V: The Series (1984 – 1985) so desperately required at this particular juncture. 

In short, Charles scrambles the power structure aboard the Mothership and confounds the Resistance in Los Angeles.  The arrival of Charles, Willie (Robert Englund) reports, also means that “The Leader intends to win.”

Charles is always seen garbed in black -- and never in Visitor uniform -- and this is just one character quality that distinguishes him a bit.  

We also learn that he has a reputation among his own people as being especially well-hung, though Diana believes that this description is just a rumor and mere self-promotion.  One on hand, this sort of material is far astray from the It Can't Happen Here origin of the franchise, and a further symptom of V's Dynastyification.  On the other hand, as mentioned previously, it's sort of fun.

But Charles represents real trouble for Diana because he is flippant and condescending to her.  She means nothing to him. So when Diana warns him about Lydia’s frailties, Charles responds that it is his perception of Lydia -- not Diana’s -- that matters.  By failing to take Diana and her concerns seriously, Charles clearly sets himself up for trouble with the scheming lead lizard.  She doesn’t take challenges to her authority well…

Diana, meanwhile, proves as kinky as ever in “The Conversion.”  She attempts to seduce the captured Kyle Bates, and informs him that she “learned much” from human “mating rituals.” 

Yikes. 

Honestly, I love it when V: The Series isn’t afraid to be bold in terms of Diana’s avarice for power…or sexual satisfaction.  The stories on the series simply aren't that good or that distinctive, but Diana's character is one of a kind, and she adds dynamic colors to otherwise lackluster narratives.

“The Conversion” is also a strong episode for Ham Tyler, as he is forced to endure the torturous conversion process. In V: The Final Battle, Ham counseled the others that they could never trust Julie again because she had been through the process.  Now Ham must reckon with the fact that he may not be as strong as Julie was, and may not be able to shake off his murderous programming.  I find Ham's self-doubt here far more interesting and appealing than the character's over-emotional turn in "Reflections of Terror.'

Interestingly, Ham is converted by the Vistiors based on two psychological qualities: his guilt over losing his wife and child in Cambodia, and his fear that Donovan is a better man than he is.  In his conversion dream, Ham imagines Donovan with his wife and little girl.  This is a psychological foible that could have been developed further, because helps to more fully explain Ham's reluctance to really be friends with Gooder.

All the pieces of V: The Series’ continuing overall story arc are beginning to fit together nicely here too.  Charles has usurped Diana, which leads into a several-week long story arc.  

And at the end of “The Conversion,” Nathan Bates – “strong man of Los Angeles” -- is badly wounded and near death. 

If he dies, everything changes. The Red Dust will be released, and the atmosphere will be poisoned.  In reckoning with this story line, we can finally see how V: The Series starts taking chances with its characters and stories, and stops playing everything so safe.

Next week, a major character -- one has been with the franchise since the first miniseries in 1983 -- dies in “The Hero.”

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series: "Reflections in Terror" (December 21, 1984)

In “Reflections in Terror” it is Christmas-time in Los Angeles, the Open City.

Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) and Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) team up with their old Resistance friend, Mickey (Mickey Jones) to run an underground railroad out of Visitor territory for wayward children.

Ham befriends one of the children -- a little girl -- at a local church, and is reminded of his own uncomfortable past.  During the Vietnam War, he lost his wife and daughter in Cambodia, and has never been able to find them again.

Meanwhile, Diana (Jane Badler) manages through trickery to acquire a blood sample from Elizabeth (Jennifer Cooke). 

With that sample, she incubates a new Star Child, but this one is more feral and violent than her predecessor was. 

The new Star Child escapes into public, and undertakes a spree of terror.

That old hoary chestnut of science fiction television, the evil twin, is pulled out of the trope closet for this episode of V: The Series (1984 – 1985), “Reflections in Terror.”  Here, the Star Child, Elizabeth, is faced with a physical duplicate, but one who has never known a mother, or friendship.

From the war movie closet of clichés comes another moment in “Reflections in Terror:” dueling national anthems. 

In the Club Creole, a Visitor pushes Willie (Robert Englund) off the piano and begins to play the (discordant) Visitor anthem.  Julie responds by loudly singing “America the Beautiful,” which, while not the National Anthem, still gets the patriotic message across. 

But the kicker, I suppose, is that this scene is a straight-up lift from the classic film Casablanca (1942).  Of course, the whole Club Creole/Open City dynamic is a lift from Casablanca too, but this scene is the most overt example of V: The Series borrowing concepts from other productions.

There are two other major plot points in “Reflections in Terror” that are worth discussion. One is handled well, while the other is not. 

In the first case, Elizabeth and Robin (Blair Tefkin) finally have their woman-to-woman reckoning over Kyle (Jeff Yagher), and the fact that they are both in love with him.  Although Robin gives up her cause a little too easily by acknowledging that she knew the truth about Kyle’s affections, the scene is still very powerful, and well-played…just the kind of character confrontation that was too often avoided on the series.

Not handled so well at all is Ham Tyler’s sub-plot. Ham Tyler is a great character, and one of the best things about the V franchise (beyond Jane Badler, who was, is, and always shall be the best thing about the V franchise…). 

Again, this is a case of good concept scuttled by lousy execution.  It is terrific that the series starts to look into Ham’s history and background (and focuses on it again in the next episode, “The Conversion.”)  We love Ham all the more once we know that he was once like “Gooder,” a family man.  But now Ham has lost it all. He has withdrawn from the human race because of his suffering and pain.  He has shut down his emotions.

But “Reflections in Terror” treats this subplot -- if you’ll forgive the pun -- in horribly ham-handed fashion. Ham befriends a cute-as-a-button little girl but then goes off the rails when he thinks she has been hurt or taken by the Visitors.  Ham acts horribly emotional and irrational, and quite unlike the Ham we know and love.  My point: his shift in emotions could have been broached…more realistically.

And then the kicker: the last shot of the episode is Ham Tyler dressed up as Santa Claus, giving toys out to the little orphan children. 

This moment just seems monumentally out-of-character to me, not like something Ham would do at all.  

And besides, now Ham has no credibility with his friends.  He’s not only re-joined the human race, he’s bathed -- and wallowed -- in the sentiment and schmaltz.

A better scene would have seen Ham taking the girl aside, perhaps sitting beside her on a staircase, and showing her a photograph of his lost family. Then he could tell her that for him, Christmas will always be about the people in his life who matter.  And this year, she is the person who matters to him.

That would have been simple, direct and to the point, and would have preserved Ham as a  "tough" (but tortured) character.

Instead, we get Ham in the Santa suit, and this moment is the absolute nadir for Tyler on V: The Series. 

The episode ends with an abrupt freeze-frame, coming very quickly after the reveal of the suit. It’s as if even if the editors and writers knew that this moment was atrocious, and worse, horribly false in terms of character.

Evil twins, Casablanca riffs and Ham Tyler with a creamy soft center? “Reflections in Terror” reveals V: The Series at a new low.

The next few stories, “The Conversion” and “The Hero” are, thankfully, much better.

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series: "The Dissident" (December 14, 1984)

In “The Dissident,” Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) and Kyle Bates (Jeff Yagher) stumble upon Diana’s new “toy:” a Visitor force field that will destroy all vehicles going in and out of Los Angeles at the touch of a button.

Realizing that Diana can effectively control -- and starve -- his city, Nathan Bates (Lane Smith) negotiates for a password that will allow his forces to pass safely through a tunnel or corridor in the force field.

Meanwhile, Donovan (Marc Singer) and Ham travel to the L.A. Mothership to rescue the only person capable of destroying the force field: its inventor, the blind Visitor named Jacob.

Now a member of the Fifth Column, Jacob is also the father of Visitor technology and Diana (Jane Badler) seeks to convert him to her cause.

After last week’s better-than-average installment, “The Overlord,” “The Dissident” is a return to the standard action-adventure fare the series was offering on a regular basis.

Once again, for instance, V: The Series (1984 – 1985) trots out the same stock footage of the sky-fighter battle from the original V miniseries. It has already been featured on the series at least once, in “Liberation Day” and the dogfight is instantly recognizable here.  Thus, it isn't particularly thrilling.

Worse, “The Dissident” features highly implausible action overall. 

Here, Donovan and Ham not only sneak aboard the L.A. mothership, but launch a successful strike on the bridge (while managing, yet, not to kill Diana in the ensuing gun-fight). V: The Final Battle explained well how to get to the colossal ship’s control center, the Resistance it had to penetrate levels and levels of security, and soldiers.

 

Here…not so much. Attacking the bridge is easy, and everyone important -- on both sides of the war divide -- survives intact.

If it were really this easy to infiltrate and attack the supreme HQ of an alien force, there would be no war. The Visitors would have been run off our planet after a month.

Also, the whole plot of “The Dissident” belies old-fashioned TV thinking. In short, we are not expected to remember next week what happens this week, or what happened last week.

To wit: the same plot is used again and again. Diana gets a new weapon, and the Resistance destroys it.  Everything ends in the restoration of the status quo until Diana invents the next scheme to destroy the Resistance. 

In a way, this was also the plot of “Visitors’ Choice.”  

In both cases, the weapon is introduced as a threat, removed as a threat, and the inventor of the threat (whether Sybil Danning’s Mary Krueger or Jacob, here) is killed so that the threat can’t recur. End of episode.

Don’t Visitors keep back-up files of their research?

This episode doesn't really track all that well with the final episode of the series, either.  In "The Return," we learn, for example, that the Leader himself is the Father of Visitor Technology, the creator of it all.  That seems to contradict with the information we get here vis-a-vis Jacob.

Nor is “The Dissident” helped by the fact that early in the first act it introduces a series of clips of Robin’s (Blair Tefkin) pregnancy from V: The Final Battle (1984) as the character’s nightmare.  The episode must have run short on original edit, and required this dramatic padding to reach the required length. 

In this case, however, the flashback only reminds one how much better the mini-series was than its follow-up series…

The end of “The Dissident” sees Diana blowing up Lydia’s (June Chadwick) shuttle, an act which seems to subtract a character from the long cast list.  But -- thank Heaven! -- the treacherous and scheming Lydia returns a few episodes down the line.  In fact, Lydia's apparent destruction (and surprise survival) sets up a nice upcoming story arc involving the Visitor commander, Charles.

What largely seems missing from “The Dissident” is any real or cerebral examination of Jacob as a meaningful character with a moral code. I like the idea that the builder of the destructive Visitor technology is blind, a nice visual indicator that he couldn’t really “see” the evil he was doing.  

But other than his physical condition, we find out precious little else about Jacob here.  How was he apprehended in the first place? Why did a man of his importance travel to the front line and Earth? What has he been doing to support the Fifth Column cause?  If he is a Dissident, what is his philosophy?  What does he stand for?

In other words, the concept of Jacob is terrific but in practice he just feels like a cog in the machine, a character designed to appear for one episode and then be quickly forgotten.

Disposable character; disposable episode.

Next week: V: The Series’ evil twin episode: “Reflections in Terror.”

The Visitors are Coming: V: The Series: "The Overlord" (November 30, 1984)

In “The Overlord,” Diana (Jane Badler) has made a deal with an unscrupulous human, Garrison (Michael Champion) to mine the cobalt she requires to power her army’s laser weaponry.

Accordingly, Garrison has subjugated the town of Rawlinsville and is making the suffering people there work the mine since the Visitors -- fearing exposure from the Red Dust -- can’t go into the mountain themselves.

One woman in town, Glenna (Sheryl Lee Ralph) escapes from Rawlinsville, however, and seeks the help of the Resistance in saving the townspeople. 

In truth, however, she is merely seeking to take Garrison’s position as “overlord.”  Elias (Michael Wright), who has grown close to her, feels betrayed when he learns the truth about her actions.

Meanwhile, Diana learns of a traitor on the Los Angeles mothership who is a “Follower of Xon,” and orders him fed to the Krivits. 

At the same time, Nathan Bates (Lane Smith) grows ever more suspicious of Julie’s (Faye Grant) loyalties and has Chiang (Aki Aleong) search her apartment for signs that she is slipping the Resistance Science Frontier secret schedules and other information

Although I didn’t care much for it when I first saw it in the 1980s, “The Overlord” is, on fresh viewing, one of the best and most effective episodes of V: The Series (1984 -1985) so far.  The story adroitly handles several small but significant story lines, and in the process serves its large ensemble cast well.

All the various plot threads and “arcs” are moving along nicely here. 

Julie is finding it more and more difficult to work a Science Frontiers, and handle the increasingly suspicious Nathan Bates. 

Elizabeth (Jennifer Cooke) grapples with the notion that others see her as a helpless child when she wants to be seen as part of the team.

Robin (Blair Tefkin) doesn’t feel “special” and also seeks to be “useful.” She finds a way to that after a confrontation with Julie. 

And Diana, of course, continues to show her ruthless colors.  Here she throws a top-lieutenant (and lover…) under the boss for “misinforming The Leader.”

A couple of weeks ago I noted that the women characters are invariably the strongest ones on V: The Series and that notion is still strongly in play, here.  Much of the action is motivated by Julie, Elizabeth and Robin’s sense of self versus their sense of place in the community.  They navigate uneasy paths, and in a way, that’s Diana’s task too. All these characters are under enormous pressure.

Other series characters are equally well-served in “The Overlord.”  Elias -- who is almost never given anything of significance to do in series episodes except look tough, and be “guarded” about trusting people, opens up and seeks to trust a woman, Glenna, he is attracted to.

It doesn’t go well for him.

Also, in regards to Elias, he notes here that “Nobody has much time in this business,” a line of dialogue that carries a strong double meaning. 

One meaning is right there on the surface.  In the Resistance, life expectancy is not long. 

But the line also carries a sense of foreboding, because in just a handful of episodes, Elias will be killed in action (“The Hero.”)  He really doesn’t have much time left, and that makes his effort to connect with someone on a personal level in “The Overlord” all the more haunting.

On some level, Elias’s line about nobody having much time “in this business” could also be a reflexive comment, even, on the actor’s plight in Hollywood, being written off a hit show mid-season.

Finally, in terms of characters and getting details right, I enjoy the fact that “The Overlord” vindicates Ham Tyler’s (Michael Ironside’s) viewpoint that everything in Rawlinsville isn’t quite as they have been informed it is.  Too often, Ham is the glum, non-emotional “downer” character who is proven wrong about motives and strategies. It is nice to see that, for once, the writers let him -- not the idealistic Donovan – get it right.

Another quality that I admire about “The Overlord” is that it hinges on a practical issue of waging war. 

Simply put, Diana’s forces are running low on the cobalt that powers their lasers.  Supplies are dwindling, and the balance of the war could shift if the Visitors suddenly can’t use their weaponry.  V: The Series did not often enough tread deeply into matters of practicality like this episode does; the matter of getting resources to the front line, or opening up new supply avenues.  The series would have been stronger if it had more regularly focused on these ideas of war as a huge technical operation requiring a vast support system.  If we better understood strategy -- Diana’s and the Resistance -- the episode might have been more genuinely suspenseful, and played more like chess games than mere action-adventure.

Also appreciated in "The Overlord" is the attempt to delve, at least a little, into the religious cult called the Followers of Xon, and its impact on the Visitor fleet on Earth.  This subplot never truly went anywhere, it seems, but in these early episodes it looked like markers were being laid down for a greater story arc.

If “The Overlord” boasts any dramatic down-side at all it is simply that it is shot on the familiar studio lot we have seen in many, many V: The Series episodes thus far, including “The Sanction.”  At this point, the specific buildings are actually recognizable, a fact which takes away from the series’ sense of verisimilitude.

Again, I should note, the issue here is budget. Even as the most expensive series on network television at the time, the series simply didn’t have the money to be truly impressive, visually, and since the concept originated as a visually-accomplished mini-series the step down to weekly TV budgets is really noticeable.

All in all, however, this is a sturdy episode of V: The Series and one that reveals how huge events or chase scenes aren’t really necessary to good storytelling.  The powerful drama here is all related to characters and how they understand their situations.

Next week: “The Dissident.”