X-Entertainment | V – The Original Mini-Series Review.

V – The Original Mini-Series Review.

In one of those "should have been reviewed a long time ago" kinda reviews, here's a really long, really really long look back at V: The Original Mini-Series. Airing on NBC in 1983 across two nights, it was a record-breaker seen by millions and loved by at least half of them. I'm with them, this was amazing stuff and still holds up fantastically over 20 years later. Followed up by V: The Final Battle, which I'll review at some point in the next five years. Two-page review features a bunch of video clips and at least one crayon drawing of evil aliens.

I missed Six Feet Under for this. Did Arthur come back yet????~!

Posted by Matt on 08/15/2004. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 143 comments

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Don’t forget about the V-ness in "Pee Wee’s Big Adventure."

In the deleted chase scene on the DVD, there is a V landing craft in the WB backlot.

Chestnuts roasted by Ripplin @ 08/16/2004 3:01 PM

I’ve been waiting for this one to make it on the site for years.

Chestnuts roasted by Jon @ 08/16/2004 4:50 PM

So…giant gerbil eating lizards come to Earth to steal our water and eat us. Not that far-out but…it’s greaaaaaat.

Go Terps.

Chestnuts roasted by Walks @ 08/16/2004 5:02 PM

I wanna eat gerbils….

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 08/16/2004 5:27 PM

I bought the V DVD on a whim last year, not really knowing anything about it and thought it was just kick ass. The DVD has a full length commentary from the writer that was pretty interesting. Didn’t think as much of the Final Battle, but it had MICHAEL FREAKING IRONSIDE in it so it wasn’t all bad.

Chestnuts roasted by Curious Orange @ 08/16/2004 5:33 PM

Didn’t Jimmy Neutron did somewhat of a parody of this a year ago with egg like race (cleaverly name Yorken or something) being friendly and all before feeding the citizens of Retroville to a giant space chicken. It had the same plot structure with aliens basically taking control of everything (shops, schools,government, military, etc.) and Jimmy Neutron (think younger, smarter version of Donavon) knowing that alien are up to something since it one of his arch-enemy and all.

Chestnuts roasted by Mega-Ultra Llamma Lord of Science @ 08/16/2004 5:55 PM

Matt… I love you even more for doing this review… and I REALLY hope you decide to do Final Battle.

My friends and I actually PLAYED V with our lazer tag guns..

Ah…the memories…

Chestnuts roasted by Laura @ 08/16/2004 6:17 PM

Loved the zippy sound the blasters made.

zing! zap! zip-zip!

Bet the Vistors were evolved Sleestaks.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 08/16/2004 6:23 PM

Sleestacks? Holy crap, I thought I was one the only people in the world to have watched Land of the Lost. I was a sleestack for halloween one year when I was a kid. Sadly, I didn’t save the costuem.

Chestnuts roasted by Pedro @ 08/16/2004 6:44 PM

Like V, Land of the Lost holds up well storywise because of the great writers they had for the original show. The 90′s version was not very good.
http://www.landofthelost.com/

Chestnuts roasted by Enik @ 08/16/2004 6:58 PM

Was Abraham the old german guy in monster squad??

Chestnuts roasted by BettieBoo @ 08/16/2004 8:01 PM

Check the cover of this 80′s Thrash metal band: http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=2917

Mark Price had it on Trick or treat!!

Chestnuts roasted by Viruete @ 08/16/2004 8:04 PM

Mountain Dew has a new flavour out called "Mountain Dew Baja Blast", and it’s sold only at Taco Bell. Will Matt brave the "Tropical Lime Storm"?

Chestnuts roasted by Gnarkill @ 08/16/2004 8:28 PM

I newver saw V. I was born in 1992 for cryin’ out loud. THank god it’s on DVD.
Anyway, changing the subject, Matt can you please do an article the Bionicle toyline (one of the few toylines being sold in stores that are not from the 80s). Most kids now love it. If you have no clue about what the #%$# Bionicle is, go to BzPower.com.
PS Matt, do you like Yu-Gi-Oh? Personally, I like the TV show, but not the card game.

Chestnuts roasted by TOM @ 08/16/2004 8:29 PM

Bionicle does have a direct-to-video movie, with another on the way, but the first one was really good without being pop culture-y, so it won’t get reviewed here.

The 90′s version of Land of the Lost had better Sleestacks, and the hot jungle babe, but not much else. I wish they made more "Hypernauts" episodes myself.

Now to V. I was too young to stay up to watch it, although I was able to watch Knight Rider on Friday nights since there wasn’t any school the next day. I’ve only been able to see bits and pieces of the two miniseries since when it aired in syndication or on Sci-Fi (or was it USA or TNT?), but it does look good. I hope to see the whole thing someday.

Chestnuts roasted by ShadowWing the Technorganic Autobot @ 08/16/2004 10:12 PM

Matt-Dammit, you caught me skimming!

Anyway it looks like a great TV movie. Too bad that hot cick died in that one clip though. But still, the only thing that could make this B-movie even more of a B-movie, and perhaps better as well, was showing a pair of boobs or an ass (or both). But I guess since this is a TV move…in the early 80s…it wasn’t gonna show none of that.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 08/16/2004 11:06 PM

Screw Bionicle, lets see something one the Bionic Six.

Ain’t nothin’ like a bionic ape!

Chestnuts roasted by SuperStar @ 08/17/2004 1:30 AM

Mega-Ultra Llamma Lord of Science:

Nah, there aren’t really similarities between Jimmy Neutron and V at all – well, except for humans being kidnapped. Even then, it’s only the parents. The Yolkians receive a message from Jimmy (who is trying to contact alien life forms), and they kidnap all the parents while Jimmy and his friends sneak out at night to visit the opening of Retroland, the local amusement park. Jimmy converts all the amusement park rides into rockets, and the kids track the Yolkians to their home planet, where they discover that the parents are all under mind control. There’s a great Body Snatcher parody where Jimmy tries to rescue his dad, but instead his dad points at him and begins to hiss. Before the parents are about to get fed to the Yolkians’ God, they are forced to do the Chicken Dance. Heh heh.

Chestnuts roasted by Aussie Ben @ 08/17/2004 8:31 AM

Body Snatchers use to freak me out when I was a kid. Still creeps me out to this day. Course it doesn’t help when your dad constantly teases you when your a little kid and he acts like he’s freaking been body snatched. As you can tell I’m a little bitter about that

Chestnuts roasted by OldSchooler @ 08/17/2004 10:56 AM

Great review I remember watching the series on TV, one of my favorite scenes was when Robin eats the raw meat right out of the refridgerator, gross but great!

Chestnuts roasted by Caylor @ 08/17/2004 12:22 PM

V is/was the shit…period,just hope that all goes well with the new project of V

Chestnuts roasted by pogocorpse @ 08/17/2004 12:45 PM

ShadowWing, the 90′s version was a good attempt, but I don’t think the writing was there (The original had a lot of former Star Trek and other big series writers). If you mean the 90′s Sleestaks were better designed by use of animatronic heads then I would agree, but it was a silly move to make them more dinosaur-like in the face (When there are dinosaurs on the show) and have them speak.
Remake Action figures:
http://www.bigreds.com/LandOfTheLost.html
What the new faces looked like:
http://www.starspacetoys.com/wpe324.jpg

The originals are still freaky if you show them to a little kid, because they just hissed and they were huge thanks to NBA players being inside the suits:
http://krofft.dementedstuff.com/staks03.jpg
http://www.apemania.com/RESTORATIONS/SleezTak.jpeg

My namesake was the intelligent ancestor of the Sleestaks in the original who could speak and believed he was actually their descendant:
http://krofft.dementedstuff.com/enik2.jpg

No one will argue with you though about the hot chick in the 90′s version, and don’t forget the future star of "That My Bush!", Timothy Bottoms, played the dad.

Original: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071005
Remake: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101130

Disney, I believe, still has the feature film rights. If they do get around to making a film it would be great if they got a Rick Baker-type make-up fx person to update the original design and freak out a whole new generation.

Chestnuts roasted by Enik @ 08/17/2004 1:50 PM

My mistake, the movie was/is being made by Sony.
Announcement: http://www.landofthelost.com/movie.htm
Screenwriter: http://www.landofthelost.com/lotlmovie.htm

Old news, yes, but some movies take a long time to get made.

Chestnuts roasted by Enik @ 08/17/2004 1:59 PM

I apologize to Matt for taking up so many space with non-V info, but I posted too soon above about the LOTL movie.

Here is a great original series overview with pictures. It also uses the movie summary info from the link above, and ends by mentioning budget trouble for the movie: http://www.cylon.org/lol/lol-01.html

‘Pufnstuf’ and ‘Land of the Lost’ remake dropped by Sony?
http://www.krofft.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1

Chestnuts roasted by Enik @ 08/17/2004 2:25 PM

One of my favorite bits of obscuro trivia is that "Pufnstuf" was partially inspired by "The Prisoner." The idea was: No matter how hard the Hero tries, he never gets off the damn island.

What do you want?
The flute.
You won’t get it.
By hook or by crook, we will, you dopey goody-goody!

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 08/17/2004 2:59 PM

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