V (TV series)

V was a 1983 U.S. science fiction television miniseries written and directed by Kenneth Johnson and first shown on NBC. It starred Jane Badler, Marc Singer, Faye Grant, Michael Ironside, Michael Durrell, Jenny Sullivan, Richard Herd, Peter Nelson, David Packer, Blair Tefkin, Diane Civita and Robert Englund. It was followed by a sequel in 1984, V: The Final Battle and a TV series, V (sometimes referred to as V: The Series) during the 1984-1985 TV season.

Major Characters

V: the two miniseries

The Resistance

• Dr. Juliette ?Julie? Parrish (Faye Grant). A medical student, she studies under Dr. Rudolph Metz (David Hooks) at a hospital in Los Angeles. Her apparent talent is obvious to Metz, who intends to get her into research full time. Then the Visitor ships arrive. Julie is extremely curious about the Visitors? biology, and becomes alarmed when colleague Ruth (who obtained a sample of Visitor ?skin?) disappears, and is shocked when Metz is implicated in an international conspiracy against the Visitors. She disappears to join others in discussing resistance, and they form the LA resistance cell. Julie is the reluctant leader of the cell. A year after the Visitors arrive, Julie leads a daring assault that exposes John, on international television, as very non-human. She is captured by the Visitors that night, Diana attempts to convert her, but Martin, one of the members of the Fifth Column, arranges an apparent security breach that gets Julie moved down to the ground where her cell can recover her. Julie fights her partial conversion while attempting to continue to lead her cell to an apparent victory over the Visitors.
• Mike Donovan (Marc Singer). A television reporter, Mike was talking to resistance forces in El Salvador when the Visitors arrived. He reports for his network on the evening when John introduces the Visitors to the world, and is one of the few reporters who can go aboard the mother ship to report for all of the world?s media. Mike becomes close to Martin. Mike starts to become suspicious when his sound operator, Tony, notices that two scientists of the ?conspiracy? are suddenly left-handed. They try to sneak aboard a mother ship, Mike succeeds, and discovers the Visitors? true nature. He is unable to broadcast the truth, however, and becomes a fugitive. He is further galvanized into action when the Visitors empty the small town where his son and ex-wife were living, and is then captured by the Visitors. Martin and the Fifth Column help him escape the ship and he manages to be found by the LA Resistance, who he then tells about the Visitors? reptilian nature. Mike sneaks aboard the ship again while the Resistance makes its first strike, and discovers the plans for harvesting water and humans, and rescues Robin Maxwell and Sancho, and flies to the rescue while the Visitors are attacking the Resistance?s mountain camp. He tries vainly to get his mother, Eleanor Dupres, to support the resistance.
• Maxwell family (Michael Durrell as Robert, Penelope Windust as Kathleen, Blair Tefkin as Robin, Viveka Davis as Polly, Marin May as Katie). Robert Maxwell is an anthropologist, father of three girls (Robin, Polly, Katie) and notices the Visitors' traits at a dinner party at the Dupres house: mosquitoes don't go to them, they avoid cooked foods, but the birds in a cage panic when a Visitor walks by. When scientists start to disappear or be ostracized, and his daughter Polly is attacked at school, he decides they have to leave, but a police/Visitor checkpoint won't let them leave. Kathleen, his wife, knows they can count on their neighbour, Abraham Bernstein, to shelter them, and he offers them the pool house. They abruptly are sent away by Abraham when Daniel tips the Visitors, and now the Maxwells are hiding at a mountain camp, while Robert and oldest daughter Robin (Blair Tefkin) get in touch with the LA Resistance. Robin leaves the hideout that is Resistance HQ, is captured by the Visitors, and Robert must help the Visitors "take" the mountain camp to guarantee Robin's safety. Robert later decides he must warn the camp, too much is at stake, even if it costs Robin her life. Kathleen, at the camp with Polly and Katie, dies from wounds sustained in the attack, but Katie and Polly are safe. Robin, rescued by Donovan, is also restored to him in the aftermath of the attack on the camp. Robin, however, has been impregnated by Brian the Visitor, and after an attempted abortion is called off due to the fetus being tied too much into Robin's body, she gives birth to twins: one largely human, one largely Sirian; the Sirian infant dies while the human infant, Elizabeth, survives and grows rapidly. Robin kills Brian while he is being held for a test using the Red Dust. Robert dies in episode two of the series while piloting a mother ship on a collision course.
• Bernstein family (George Morfogen as Stanley, Bonnie Bartlett as Lynn, Leonardo Cimino as Abraham; see son Daniel, below, under Collaborators). Abraham and Stanley survived the Holocaust, while Stanley was an infant. Abraham views the Visitors' increasingly authoritarian presence in parallel with the growth of Hitler's Nazi regime, and shelters the Maxwell family. Knowing he will die when the Visitors take him, he left a letter that encourages Stanley that they must aid the resistance, and so the Bernstein home, already "struck by lightning", and with a collaborator living in it, is a perfect safe house for the Resistance. Lynn and Stanley keep a low profile over the next year, and are elated to see liberation day, when balloons spread the Red Dust.
• Taylor family (Jason Bernard as Caleb, Richard Lawson as Ben, Michael Wright as Elias). Caleb, a widower, and his two sons, Benjamin and Elias. Caleb works at the chemical plant where Arthur Dupres is a manager, and which is chosen by the Visitors for their cover activity of manufacturing a chemical. Benjamin is a doctor, and Elias is a hood, breaking into houses for stuff and fencing it. Caleb is injured in an accident at the plant, is rescued by Willie, and they become friends. Then, Ben is killed by the Visitors while helping the resistance get medical supplies. Elias overcomes his refusal to resist the Visitors (they made black market business boom), and he and Caleb join the LA cell. Elias shows the resistance a headquarters site, and gets a street gang to help the Resistance, calling himself the "Henry Kissinger of East L.A.". Elias exploits his black market and street connections to undermine Visitor activity, including selling marijuana or such to Daniel Bernstein to gain entrance to Visitor-guarded human facilities. Caleb and Elias disagree over the final liberating attack, with Elias supporting the attack while Caleb fears nuclear annihilation, but Caleb respects his son for speaking so eloquently. While Caleb's future is unknown after Liberation Day, Elias goes on to become a respectable restaurateur.
• Tony (Evan C. Kim). (The novel version gives Tony, an Oriental possibly of Korean extract, the unlikely surname of Leonetti.) Mike Donovan's sound operator, he alerts Mike to the oddness about the scientists Jankowski and Duvivier, but he trips while following Mike into a Visitor shuttlecraft, getting left behind. In a second attempt to board the Los Angeles mother ship, they are captured, and Tony is tortured to death, an "experiment" ordered by Diana.
• Sancho Gomez (Rafael Campos). Mexican who does gardening in the neighbourhood where the Maxwells, Dupres and Bernsteins live; he gardens for the Maxwells, but regrets to tell Kathleen that he can't anymore because the other people he works for don't like him working for a scientist. However, when the Maxwells need to get out of the city, he doesn't hesitate; using skills learned to smuggle Mexicans into the United States, he smuggles the Maxwells out, and is arrested on his return to the checkpoint, becoming a Visitor prisoner where he is brutalized. His grandfather fought Zapata, and he honours his grandfather by also spitting at the enemy; rescued by Mike Donovan, he uses the Visitor skyfighter's weapons to bring down one of the skyfighters that's pursuing Mike. Sancho joins the resistance.
• Brad (William Russ). Los Angeles policeman who is one of the first, along with Ben Taylor and Julie Parrish, to form the LA resistance cell. His character does not continue into the Final Battle, but an analog of his character, Mark, appears.
• Mark (Sandy Simpson). Los Angeles policemen whose character seems to replace Brad. Mark and Elias Taylor together decide that Dan Pascal is the best counterfeiter in the area to help in the plan to infiltrate the Los Angeles Medical Center for John's big announcement. Mark loves Maggie Blodgett, another resistance member, but their fresh plans to get married are ruined when he is wounded in the assault on the Visitor waterworks project, and he stays behind to slow down the Visitors while the others escape.
• Father Andrew Doyle (Thomas Hill). A Roman Catholic priest, he served in South Africa during the years of apartheid (which, in the context of the miniseries, was still in place when the Visitors came), and had to deal with South African guerillas. He is quite willing to go into battle for the Resistance, and serves as chaplain for the LA cell. Fearing for the life of the newborn Elizabeth Maxwell, he leaves the Resistance cell's base and takes Elizabeth to Diana. He offers his Bible for Diana to examine, but Diana draws entirely unexpected conclusions from reading it, and kills the priest.
• Maggie Blodgett (Denise Galik). Maggie poses as a nurse to try and catch Daniel Bernstein's eye; she succeeds, and, although it bothers her immensely, must 'sleep with' Daniel to obtain intelligence. She's in love with Mark.
• Ruby Engels (Camila Ashlend) Dear friend of Abraham Bernstein, after Abraham willingly goes to his death at the Visitors' hands, Ruby dedicates herself to fighting the Visitors, one of her first acts being to throw a Molotov cocktail into a Visitor squad ship. She is the central part of the plan to recover Julie from the Visitors during Diana's attempt to convert Julie, as she has worked as a cleaning lady at Visitor Security Headquarters (the Dupres house).
• Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside). A rather "dangerous" man, Tyler shows up a year after the Visitors landed to "restrain" the LA cell, calling their John-unmasking a "stunt". He brings new ammunition that overcomes the Visitors' toughened body armor, and a few other useful devices, and only reluctantly stays to aid the LA cell's "unorthodox" methods of striking at the Visitors. He leads the assault on the Dupres house while Donovan leads the attack on the LA mother ship.
• Chris Farber (Mickey Jones). Ham Tyler's associate, Chris comes up with such things as explosives to meet the job of the hour.
• Elizabeth Maxwell (Jenny Beck at apparent age 8, Brandy Gould at apparent age 5). The daughter of human Robin Maxwell and Brian, the Visitor, she is the only successful offspring of the two races. She is the survivor of twins; her sibling, of unmentioned gender, is more reptilian, but dies of a bacteria that is used to produce the red dust. Elizabeth grows rapidly in a matter of days to about a five-year-old, has venomous sacs in her mouth, but is highly intelligent and decides the peace is the preferable option to end the conflict between Earth and the Visitors. Elizabeth is gifted with extraordinary telekinetic powers and uses them to disable a Visitor doomsday weapon. (In the novel, she employs her insight to create an endless loop in the computer programming, giving Martin time to disable the devices that the countdown would trigger.)
• Josh Brooks (Tommy Peterson). Best friend of Mike Donovan's son Sean, he alone is left when the Visitors remove the entire population of the LA-area town where he, Sean and Sean's mother live. He helps Mike find the Visitor security key that Mike acquired earlier, and in the camaraderie of resistance, is taken in by a restaurant manager that Mike knows. Later, Josh is among the family members staying with the resistance cell as it moves around the LA area, and is bunked near the Maxwells.
• Arthur Dupres (Hansford Rowe). Second husband of Eleanor Dupres, and Mike Donovan's step-father. As Eleanor sucks up to the Visitors more and more, and then claims Mike's son while disowning Mike, Arthur leaves Eleanor. He is not seen with the resistance, but his distaste for the Visitors was already evident. The Dupres house very much becomes the Visitors': as the occupation of Earth stretches to a year, it has become the visitor security headquarters for the Los Angeles area, and is given (in the weekly series) to the Visitors by Nathan Bates to serve as an embassy.
• Harmony Moore (Diane Civita). Harmony runs a catering stand at the plant where Arthur Dupres manages, Caleb Taylor works, and which the Visitors choose as one of their cover operations. She quickly befriends Willie, the Visitor, after helping him out when he's lost. Captured with Willie by the Resistance, she doesn't believe the Visitors are reptiles until Mark peels off some of the covering on Willie's hand; later, she becomes a willing resistance fighter, although somewhat queasy and clingy.
• Dan Pascal (Dick Miller). Counterfeiter, known to Mark as a crook he'd want to bust, known to Elias as an ace he'd trust to help him out, he's found by them to aid in the Resistance cause. However, Pascal's work apparently can be identified by crime experts, as the police turn him over to the Visitors to wring information out of.
• Dr. Fred King (Mark L. Taylor). Doctor at the Los Angeles Medical Center. He helps Julie's resistance cell obtain medical supplies and equipment, gets them the plans for the center, tries to help carry out an abortion on Robin Maxwell, and dies trying to help Julie escape.

There are other, unnamed members of the resistance who help out in many other ways. A restaurant owner provides a room where Mike and Martin can meet, for example.

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The Visitors

All Visitors are given with the names they adopted for the humans' convenience. They are never heard to use their home-world names, either because they are under orders to keep in practice, or because the prosthetic appearance makes use of their native pronunciations difficult or impossible.

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The hostiles

• John (Richard Herd). Supreme commander of the fleet of 50 Visitor ships, evidently well-trained or well-prompted in public relations. John is the first Visitor that humans see, supposedly tipping humans off that the Visitors are themselves quite humanoid. However, John is either extremely busy touring the fleet attending to command issues, or reclusive when not needed to promote good will to the people of Earth. His appearance at the Los Angeles Medical Center on a worldwide TV hookup, to announce a cure for cancer, is used by the Resistance to unmask him and try to show the people of Earth that the Visitors have been deceiving them. John later comes to Pamela's aid to restrict Diana's command responsibilities. John is later killed by Diana in a disagreement over Earth's final disposition as the Resistance routs the Visitors.
• Diana (Jane Badler). Second-in-command on the scene of the fleet of 50 Visitor ships, she is commander of the mother ship over Los Angeles (although for the first few days after arrival, she is aboard the New York mother ship). A year later, her squadron commander, Pamela, arrives, reminding Diana of her inferior rank; Pamela decides Diana is best suited for scientific duties, where Diana has produced numerous important aids to the Visitor conquest effort. Diana is a pioneer in the conversion of humans to aid the Visitors, has inoculated the Visitors against all known Earth diseases, and has developed a foolproof truth drug. She is determined, and Steven and Pamela see her as "on edge" when feeling threatened. Her ruthlessness and vengefulness is shown when she shows no respect for John's pragmatism on the verge of their defeat.
• Steven (Andrew Prine). Security chief on board Diana's mother ship in Los Angeles. He establishes a relationship with Eleanor Dupres that he puts to use by bringing her into the fold as a collaborator, and obtaining information he feels is useful to his job. However, he engages in a power struggle with Diana, and there is bad blood between the two as each competes with the other, and disparages the other, in their handling of the unexpected resilience of the Resistance.
• Brian (Peter Nelson). A young Visitor officer who becomes a leader of the Friends of the Visitors youth corps. As Daniel Bernstein continues to prove his devotion and loyalty, he becomes Brian's second-in-command. Brian already became friends with Robin Maxwell, and when Robin becomes a prisoner on the mother ship, Diana enlists him in an experiment in inter-species reproduction. Daniel is set up to be seen by the Visitors as Brian's betrayer, as Brian is captured to be used as a guinea pig for the red dust. Robin uses the red dust on Brian right after showing Brian their child, Elizabeth.
• Captain (Stack Pierce). Made up with prosthetics to resemble a Black man, thus implying to humans that the Visitors seem to have the same racial types as humans, his unit captures both Robin and Robert Maxwell when they emerge from the downtown Resistance hideaway after curfew. He extracts the location of the mountain camp from Maxwell, but betrays Maxwell by leading an attack on the camp with Diana riding along. He is still serving in Diana?s command a year later.
• Pamela (Sarah Douglas). Squadron commander, Diana's superior since Diana's particular ship is part of Pamela's squadron. Pamela's ship arrives at Earth about a year into the occupation, and begins a project to speed up acquisition of Earth's water. Pamela scorns Diana's claim of the leader's special favour, pointing out that Diana's "lover" sent Diana 56 trillion miles away.
• trooper (Denny Miller). Talkative Visitor who rides with Mike Donovan down to the surface when Mike escapes his capture; on Donovan's undercover visit, when he's leaving with Robin and Sancho, the trooper spots Donovan and pursues him in a skyfighter, but buys the mouse-breeding-farm when he smashes into a rock wall to avoid hitting a truck at the mouth of a tunnel.

Fifth Column and other reluctant Visitors

• Martin (Frank Ashmore). Martin and a few other Visitors do not believe in what the Leader of their homeworld is doing to Earth. They have formed a Fifth Column that is willing to undermine Visitor activity, but without compromising their members. Only with the persuasion of his friend Donovan does Martin agree to take bigger risks. Martin is, however, Diana's trusted aide, putting him in the valuable position of being close to command, aware of much of what the Visitors are doing, and able to penetrate high security areas.
• Willie (Robert Englund). His formal assigned name William, Willie is a Visitor technician who does not harbor malice toward the people of Earth, but probably feels like he has no choice in the matter, and has been following orders to do the jobs assigned to him and not reveal the true purpose of the Visitors' presence on Earth. He bravely rescues Caleb Taylor from a cryogenic chamber, earning Caleb's friendship, but when the Visitors kill Caleb's son Ben, Caleb temporarily dislikes the Visitors. He speaks up for Willie later, when Willie and Harmony are captured, and Willie becomes a member of the resistance/Fifth Column's final, make-or-break assault. In the weekly series, Willie mentions he was drafted into the Visitor military.
• Barbara (Jenny Neumann). Martin's aide/assistant/colleague. She offers her uniform to Mike Donovan when Mike escapes the mother ship after his capture, and willingly takes the blast of a Visitor weapon. Later, she helps Martin keep the broadcast on the air after the resistance attacks the LA Med Center.

Collaborators

• Daniel Bernstein (David Packer). Grandson of a Holocaust survivor, Daniel has never fit in, and seems to find his niche when he joins the Visitors? youth corp, ?Friends of the Visitors?. He reports that a family of scientists (the Maxwells) are being hidden at his parents? house, but is upset that his parents Stanley and Lynn, and grandfather Abraham, are detained. Daniel lusts after Robin, and is not happy at her preference for Brian, the Visitor. Daniel's responsibilities with the corps grow as he proves his loyalty, and he helps capture Julie Parrish. Later, he is betrayed falsely for Brian's capture by the Resistance, and Steven assumes that Daniel is indeed guilty, and Daniel's life ends ignomineously.
• Eleanor Dupres (Neva Patterson). Always a mover and shaker, Eleanor, the mother of Mike Donovan, views the Visitors as an opportunity to maintain or increase her social standing, and becomes a collaborator in fact, if not in scheme, since she feels they effectively have assumed "rightful" governance. She refuses Mike's appeal to aid the resistance, turns in Sancho for smuggling the Maxwells out of the city, and maintains a friendship with Visitor security leader Steven. When the Resistance begins the final assault a year later that ends Visitor occupation of Earth, she appears to recognize she's Steven's pet; whether she does or not, Steven shoots her. Her husband Arthur walked out on her in disgust when she declared Mike was no longer her son, but she wanted Mike's son Sean released by the Visitors.
• Kristine Walsh (Jenny Sullivan). Television reporter who knows Mike Donovan, and had a relationship with him after the breakup of Mike's marriage. They meet again in New York just as John is to come and meet the UN Secretary General at the top of the UN building, and Christine also stacks the deck so that she and Mike are chosen to be the very small number that ride up on the Visitor shuttle to visit the New York mother ship. Diana decides to exploit Christine's strongly inquisitive nature by recruiting her as the Visitors' spokesperson. Some minor "conversion conditioning" is indicated by Diana's ability to hypnotically command Christine's attention, but Christine is ultimately able to recognize the Visitors as a threat and attempt to rally humanity against the Visitors. However, this revelation comes too late to do her much good, as she was publicly executed by Diana moments later.
• Sean Donovan (Eric Johnston). Although unfair to list Sean as a collaborator, his conversion to Diana makes him, unfortunately, a person willing to betray the humans only because his converted mind thinks it is the right thing to do. Sean loves baseball until Diana converts him. He lives with his mother, Maggie, and her boyfriend, but he sees his father Mike reasonably often. Mike brought him a security access key that he "filched" from a Visitor shuttle before he became suspicious of the Visitors. When ranchhands come to Sean's town and destroy a Visitor squad ship, the entire town, including Sean and his mother, are taken to the mother ship; Sean, at least, is put into cryogenic freeze. Later, his grandmother, Eleanor Dupres, is able to obtain his release through Steven, but that's when Diana converts him before a hostage exchange: Mike surrenders himself to the Visitors, but on returning, is in denial about Sean's odd behaviour. Ultimately, the Resistance uses Sean's conversion to send the Visitors on a diversion to the real attack plan. When the Visitors are driven from the Earth, Sean and the other converted people are probably institutionalized for attempts to treat them.
• Dr. Corley Walker (Don Starr). Only because of his conversion, which was done mainly to impress and restore Kristine Walsh's confidence in the Visitors, but nevertheless, conspicuous as a biting critic of the Visitors, and possibly doomed to disappear or be converted.

V: The Series

The V television series had a large, rotating cast of characters who came and went throughout the show's single season.

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The Resistance

• Dr. Juliette "Julie" Parrish (Faye Grant). A leader of the Los Angeles Resistance cell, Parrish spends the first part of the season working undercover at Science Frontiers, keeping an eye on Nathan Bates' tenuous relationship with the Visitors while fending off his romantic advances, and later goes underground when her duplicity is discovered. The pressures of war have led to her decision not to pursue a romance with Mike Donovan (something that was indicated in the second mini-series when she declined his proposal for a commitment). An unproduced script for the second season suggests that the character could've faced a tragic fate (see Trivia, below).
• Mike Donovan (Marc Singer). Former television photojournalist who is also a leader of the Resistance. His reputation as a freedom fighter has spread around the world and has even gained him grudging respect from The Visitors themselves. His son, Sean, is kidnapped by The Visitors and his prior conversion used to interest him into becoming a member of their youth corps.
• Elias Taylor (Michael Wright). A hero of the resistance, Elias has completely left behind his past as a street thug, now owning his own restaurant as the series began. Built over a hidden speakeasy from the Prohibition era, the restaurant becomes Resistance headquarters after the second invasion, and remains so for a time even after the restaurant itself is destroyed. Elias is killed by a disintegrator ray while investigating te abduction of several Resistance members.
• Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside). Vietnam veteran turned resistance fighter. With the end of the original Visitor occupation, Tyler set up his own security business, and Nathan Bates hired him to kidnap Diana from her first day in war crimes court. When Diana escapes, Tyler quits working for Bates and, keeping his bad deal to himself, he slowly integrates with the revived Resistance cell. Tyler's Cambodian wife and child were killed in a botched air raid near the end of the Vietnam conflict. Tyler doesn't show emotion very often, but grows close to Donovan and his colleagues. Midway through the season, Tyler leaves Los Angeles in order to escort Robin Maxwell to Chicago and his fate is not revealed, though it appears the character might have returned had the series been renewed for a second season (see Trivia, below).
• Willie (Robert Englund). Pacifist Visitor technician who defected to the human side during the Final Battle mini-series following his capture (before John's unmasking). Still uncertain of his place on Earth, Elias hires him as a waiter in his restaurant. Willie grows close to Elizabeth and helps to mentor her in the uses of her psionic powers. He had been engaged to be married prior to the first invasion, and reunites with his fiancée in the series finale, when he announces his intention to stay on Earth. To fans, Willie is best remembered for his innocent mangling of the English language, since his "second language" was to be Arabic, not English, then his orders were fouled up by the military bureaucracy. (First example, "I am just" instead of "I am lost"; in French, "Je suis pere" (I am father) instead of "Je suis perdu".) Willie has somehow become a vegetarian, but his skill to hunt live prey is not lost.
• Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin). Mother of Elizabeth (with the Visitor named Brian) and a spoiled brat who thinks more of herself than others leading to her frequently making dangerously foolish moves. She becomes jealous of Elizabeth's relationship with Kyle, with whom she also is in love. Eventually, Robin starts to grow up and becomes a valid member of the Resistance and reconciles with her daughter and Kyle. It is revealed that Robin has unique DNA that allows her to bear Visitor-human offspring. After a second attempt is made to impregnate her by a Visitor, she chooses to leave Los Angeles and go to Chicago where The Visitors cannot survive due to the "Red Dust".
• Elizabeth Maxwell (a.k.a. "The Star Child") (Jennifer Cooke). Daughter of Robin Maxwell and the Visitor Brian who is only a young child as the series begins, but experiences growth spurts that result in her becoming a quickly maturing young woman in her late teens. She bears the mark of Zon on her hand, which identifies her as the Starchild, a creature that will bring peace to The Visitors. Her human-reptilian genetics have given her a number of psionic and physical powers, which she is only gradually learning about. Powers displayed in the series include telekinesis, levitation, second sight and mind-reading. She also has the ability to "record" conversations and recite them back like a tape recorder (complete with the original voices). The Leader of the Visitors creates a mind-link with her in the final episode, and convinces her to join him in order to fulfill her destiny (whether as a bride or as a pupil is not revealed). When last seen, she is entering a shuttle to go away with the Leader, not knowing that the ship has been rigged to explode.
• Kyle Bates (Jeff Yagher). Headstrong son of Science Frontiers head Nathan Bates, Kyle becomes a reluctant member of the L.A. Resistance. He falls in love with Elizabeth (which may have something to do with encouraging his involvement). He kills the man who murders his father (Mr. Chiang), and is last seen stowing away on the Leader's shuttle as the creature prepares to depart with Elizabeth.
• Chris Farber (Mickey Jones). Soft-spoken, burly colleague of Ham Tyler's. Chris is a veteran of "The Final Battle" who has since gone on to work with the Desert unit of the Resistance. After that unit is destroyed, he works with an underground railroad to transport orphan children to the safety of Los Angeles, where he is reunited with Ham Tyler and briefly joins the L.A. team. He later departs with Ham and Robin Maxwell for Chicago.
• Howard K. Smith (himself). Real-life newscaster who introduces many episodes with a fictional "Freedom Network" news broadcast.

The Visitors

• Diana (Jane Badler). A sadistic megalomaniac who has an unhealthy sexual attraction to "filthy humans", Diana is the on-again, off-again commanding officer/lead scientist for the Visitor fleet. Reacts with violence when faced with losing power to the likes of Lydia and Philip. Briefly married to Charles before a botched assassination attempt against her leads to his untimely demise. Is obsessed with obtaining the Star Child, or creating a new one through cloning or other methods. Hates Lydia with a passion and tries several times to either kill her or one of her close family members. When last seen has been placed under arrest by Philip after secretly placing a bomb on board the Leader's shuttle.
• Lydia (June Chadwick). Blonde, British-accented commander of the fleet (when Diana isn't in charge). Just as power-hungry as Diana, but less sadistic, Lydia is more likely to play tattletale and inform The Leader and overseers such as Philip and Charles of Diana's exploits. Survives an assassination attempt by Diana. Falls in love with Charles and experiences extreme jealousy when he decides to marry Diana, which leads Lydia to fill Diana's wedding cup full of poison. To her dismay, Charles drinks the poison instead and Lydia only narrowly escapes being convicted of killing him. Is forced to beg for Philip's help when Diana tries to set her brother "Nigel" up for a sacrificial killing.
• Philip (Fifth Column) (Frank Ashmore). Twin brother of Martin (see below), and Advocate General for The Leader who is sent to Earth to investigate the murder of Charles. He initially blames Mike Donovan and the Resistance for Martin's death and makes plans to kill the human. After learning that Diana was responsible, not only does he forgive Donovan, but he becomes an active member of the Fifth Column and becomes instrumental in The Leader declaring a cease fire.
• Lt. James (Judson Scott). An opportunistic soldier and one of Diana's lovers, he is assigned to capture and destroy Resistance fighters no matter what the cost. Loyal to Diana (though in fear of his life), he arranges an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Philip and is last seen in custody alongside Diana.
• Charles (Duncan Regehr). Sent by The Leader to take over military operations from Diana, Charles sets in motion the chain of events that lead to the death of Nathan Bates. Romantically attached to Lydia, he drops her in favor of Diana, whom he decides to marry in order to force her to return to the Homeworld. When he decides that he would rather keep Diana around, Lydia attempts to poison her, but ends up killing Charles instead.
• Oswald (Peter Elbling). Effete underling of Diana's who seems to double as a mortician and an interior decorator.
• Marta (Gela Jacobson). The mother ship's gossipy pharmacist-cum-perfume seller. She provides Lydia with the cat poison used to kill Charles, and is later framed by both Diana and Lydia. Marta is sentenced to be shot into space alongside Charles' body - while still conscious.
• John Langley (Bruce Davison). Undercover agent assigned to infiltrate the Resistance and impregnate Robin Maxwell in hopes of creating a second Star Child, but he is shot dead by a Fifth Columnist before he can finish his mission.
• Ensign Daniel (Robert Thaler). Young officer who becomes Diana's lover. After the failure of one of her exploits, Diana shoots him dead "because someone has to take the blame." (Due to the episodes being aired out of order, the episode in which Daniel dies aired before the episode in which he was introduced).
• Martin (Fifth Column) (also played by Frank Ashmore). Mike Donovan's ally and friend from the first two mini-series appears in the first episode of the series. A Visitor Fifth Columnist, Martin becomes Donovan's camera assistant in the months after the war. When he learns that Diana has escaped custody thanks to a faked assassination, he takes it upon himself to kill her, but is himself killed by Diana.

Note: when Charles and Nigel are introduced as characters, mistakes are made from a dramatic point of view. All the young females seem "twitterpated" when they learn "Charles" has arrived, as if they already knew that this prominent citizen would use that name if he came to Earth. Lydia seems to know that "Nigel" is the name adopted by, or assigned to, her brother when he unexpectedly shows up, and without missing a beat, she immediately introduces him to Philip.

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Collaborators

• Sean Donovan (brainwashed human) (Nicky Katt). Several early episodes of the series deal with Mike Donovan trying to retrieve his son from the Visitors, only to find that Sean has been drugged and brainwashed into becoming a member of the Visitor Youth Corps. The subplot involving Mike's son was abandoned midway through the season and not resolved.

There are no other actual collaborators making regular appearances in the series, although Chiang and his boss, Bates, tried to walk a fine line and were under great pressure from Diana or Charles.

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There are, however, guest appearances by assorted collaborators, including a gang that was running the town of Rawlinsville to mine cobalt for Diana. At Christmastime, one woman unwillingly collaborated in hopes that the Visitors would release her husband.

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Science Frontiers

• Nathan Bates (Lane Smith). Power-hungry head of Science Frontiers who became one of the most powerful men in the world because his company holds the secret of the "red dust" that renders Earth uninhabitable for the Visitors ... until it is discovered that the dust no longer works in many parts of the world. In lieu of political or military authorities (who appear to have been destroyed by the Visitors, though this is never made clear), Bates makes a deal with the Visitors that results in Los Angeles being declared an open city. Ruthless and cold-blooded when necessary, Bates is determined to destroy the Resistance, which he sees as a threat to his power and the safety of Los Angeles, but his orders become more difficult to give when his son, Kyle, becomes a Resistance fighter. After authorizing Visitor leader Charles to brainwash Ham Tyler into shooting Mike Donovan during a "prisoner exchange" ceremony, Bates is instead accidentally shot by Tyler and goes into a coma. While unconscious, Charles and Diana, in conjunction with Mr. Chiang, use a computer simulation of Bates (similar to Max Headroom) to create the illusion that he is still in power. When Bates comes out of the coma, Charles asks Chiang to kill Bates. A last-minute reconciliation with Kyle nearly allows Nathan to escape, but he is shot by Chiang. His death results in the end of the open city agreement for Los Angeles.
• Mr. Chiang (Aki Aleong). Nathan Bates' mysterious and ruthless majordomo, Chiang uses various martial arts techniques to extract information from enemies, usually resulting in the victim's death. With Bates in a coma, Chiang becomes head of Science Frontiers and agrees to kill Bates in order to keep his position. After doing so, Chiang finds himself in combat with Kyle Bates, and is shot to death.

Episode Guide (V: The Series)

Trivia

• In the original miniseries and The Final Battle, the Visitors' voices were given a pitch shift effect in post-production, to give them an otherworldly demeanor even though they looked (outwardly, at least) like perfectly normal human beings. (In French dubs, the Visitors had a deep bass voice.) This was dropped from the weekly series, evidently due to budgetary concerns. No on-screen explanation was ever given for the change; it was simply treated as if the Visitors never had unusual-sounding voices at all. In certain dubbed versions (e.g. in Germany), the pitch shift was kept throughout the entire series.
• In the UK the miniseries and its sequel were shown concurrently, across five nights on ITV opposite the BBC's coverage of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, leading one critic to point out that the schedule presented a choice between "seeing a lot of people running and jumping in LA… or watching the Olympics".
• An interesting aspect of the 1984-85 series which is never explained is the complete absence of any military or political authorities following the return of the Visitors. Although police are seen, as are Science Frontiers' own forces, at no point is any reference made to the military forces of any nation, or of the federal, state and civic governments of the United States and other nations (thus allowing businessmen like Nathan Bates to assume absolute power over parts of the country).
• NBC initially refused to air the third episode of the TV series, "Breakout", as the network felt it was too violent for the intended family audience, even though the episode introduced the regular character, Kyle Bates. The next episode, "The Deception", was rewritten so that Kyle is introduced again. "Breakout" was finally aired in 1985 when NBC reran the series following its cancellation. As a result, viewers saw Kyle Bates introduced to the same Resistance fighters twice.
• Although the series-ending cliffhanger was never resolved on screen, a first draft script for the second season premiere episode was written before the show's cancellation. Entitled "The Attack", the episode would have launched a story arc in which renegade Visitor leader Diana would have pursued the Resistance across America (in similar fashion to The Fugitive) in search of an artifact stolen by Elizabeth the Star Child following the events of the cliffhanger. The early script included the death of Julie Parrish (shot while trying to escape the mother ship) and the return of Ham Tyler. It is not known if this was an indication that actress Faye Grant (Julie) intended to leave the series or that Michael Ironside (Ham) intended to return.
• In 1989, Warner Bros. commissioned J. Michael Straczynski (who would later go on to create Babylon 5) to write a pilot screenplay for a proposed new series, tenatively titled V: The Next Chapter, that would have continued the V storyline. Picking up five years after the end of the NBC series, it would have followed the efforts of a new Resistance movement on a conquered Earth to make contact with the "Outsiders," the faction of the Visitors' own people who oppose their Leader, who had finally responded to a summons put out at the end of the original miniseries. The only character from the older V to appear in this script was Ham Tyler. After numerous drafts, the script, entitled "The Rebirth," was finally abandoned when the studio decided it would be too cost-prohibitive to produce.
• Dominique Dunne was originally cast to play the role of Robin Maxwell, but was strangled by her abusive ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney after she refused to reconcile with him.

Books and Comics

V spun off a series of original novels, including a novelization of the first two mini-series combined into one story. Unusually, most of the original novels that followed did not feature characters from the TV series, but rather focused on battles against the alien invaders in other parts of the world. While the series was on the air, new novels were published once a month by Pinnacle Paperbacks. In 1987-88, a new series of novels was published by Tor.

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Novels

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• V - May 1984
• East Coast Crisis - September 1984
• The Pursuit of Diana - December 1984
• The Chicago Conversion - January 1985
• The Florida Project - February 1985
• Prisoners and Pawns - March 1985
• The Alien Swordmaster - April 1985
• The Crivit Experiment - May 1985
• The New England Resistance - June 1985
• Death Tide - July 1985
• The Texas Run - September 1985
• Path to Conquest - September 1987
• To Conquer the Throne - November 1987
• The Oregon Invasion - January 1988
• Below the Threshold - March 1988
• Symphony of Terror - May 1988

The first three books were republished in 1994.

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The first book novelises both the miniseries, but has subtle differences, including killing off several characters that do not die in the televised version. This includes Chris Farber, leading to confusion about his return in V: The Series.

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Meanwhile, DC Comics published an 18-issue V comic book series in 1985-86.

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External links

• IMDB: "V": The Original Miniseries (1983)
• IMDB: "V": The Final Battle (1984)
• IMDB: "V": The Series (1984-85)
• The Fifth Column
• Ilana's V page
• TheVisitors.info website
• Chronology Central's V page - contains a chronological listing for the V series, mini-series and books.