V: 1983 & 2009, Part Seven : Why are They Here?

V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011:
Part Six, Part Five, Part Four, Part Three, Part Two,Part One

Why the Aliens Are Here
Obviously the Reptilian meme among alien abduction/Area 51 conspiracies plays a strong part in both series. In both series the aliens hidden agenda is disguised by medical gifts to help humanity. However, their hidden agenda for coming to earth, and their time lines, are vastly different.

Time Lines, Purpose & "Red Sky"
While the original V series implies that that the Visitors are relatively recent arrivals to our solar system, this is not the case with the remake. The new series takes a page from conspiracy culture and states that the the Visitors have been here for generations, and are harvesting human DNA for reproductive purposes, instead of for for food. According to the most recent episode "Birth Pangs," the Visitors are harvesting the best DNA from around the universe to accelerate their evolution.

To that end they have been trying to carefully increase the phosphorous levels in human females to help reproduce Visitors, as well as in males they find genetically superior. This has been a multi-generational project. However, in contravention to conspiracy culture, the genetic manipulation wasn't done during abductions, but rather through disguised Reptilians on earth. Additionally, the Visitors release "Red Sky" to rapidly enhance the phosphorous levels, which fuels fears among the human population; in the original series the red dust in the atmosphere was a biological weapon against the Visitors and humans cheered when it was released into the air despite not knowing what it was for.

V 1983 & 2009, Part Six: The Changing Role of Reporters & Mercenaries

Part Seven: V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Post-Modernism in V.

It' been interesting to watch the old V series on my TiVo and compare and contrast with the new ABC series.

The Role of Reporters
1983: Donovan/Woman - There were two different media personalities during the two original V miniseries, embodying America's complex view of the media at the time. On the one hand you had the ambitious female reporter, Christine, who would do anything for a scoop. She becomes a PR mouthpiece / Press Secretary for Diana, but later reveals that the Visitors are not friendly and should be resisted and is killed for doing so. She does not join the resistance despite exposing the Visitors.

Donovan on the other hand represents the intrepid foreign correspondent, willing to go anywhere to get the story but who became a journalist out of strong pro-liberty passions. He is the kind of patriotic reporter America wishes we still produced. Donovan, an experienced foreign correspondent in war zones, becomes a natural leader of the resistance. Unfortunately, he doesn't put his PR skills to good use advancing the cause, as would be expected today.

2009: Chad Decker's character development is roughly similar to that of Christine, but as he gradually becomes skeptical of the Visitors he becomes a full fledged member of the Resistance. In the 1983 episode, the Fifth column was chiefly disaffected Visitors show disapproved of their species' agenda.

The Role of Mercenaries & Terrorists
1983: Ham Tyler - While Michael Ironsides may have fit the Hollywood ideal of a freedom fighter back in the days of the Contras, his character feels dated. He appears after several events in LA draw lots of attention and announces that the LA resistance fighters led by Donovan and Julie, need to join the worldwide resistance of which Tyler is a crucial leader.

2009: Kyle Hobbes - the current cultural zeitgeist is much less kind to fictional mercenaries and this character is much darker than his 1983 counterpart, Ham Tyler. However, mercenaries are a more accepted fact of American life now than then. The rise of private security firms such as Xe (formerly Blackwater)has allowed the U.S. military to increase the number of combat forces it has without putting it directly on their budget.

However, the primary mercenary contact Kyle Hobbes, while a member of the inner circle, is displaced by an Israeli Terrorist named Eli Cohen as the main resistance military leader and has set up cells around the world. What he and Ham Tyler have in common is that they are both parts of the larger resistance movement that exists outside of the isolated groups banding together which we first encounter.

V: 1983 & 2009 Part Three: 2009 Pilot Summary, Characters and Emerging Memes

The 2009 V starts with a comparison of 9/11, JFK’s assassination, and the arrival of the Visitors, as a means of foreshadowing for the generation that didn’t see the original. This version describes the state of Obama’s America with opening scenes discuss the ongoing housing crisis. However, the most important cultural aspect of V 2009 is the prevalence of terrorism and terrorist investigations in the show. In the first place, the show is set in New York City instead of Los Angeles like the original, and 9/11 is the second phrase shown during the introduction. Of course, it’s easy to see that the one terrorist cell that increases its chatter post-visitor arrival instead of dropping off like the others will turn out to be the beginnings of what becomes the Resistance. But this is not an Islamic terrorist group, it is composed of Visitor sleeper agents who disrupt the beginnings of the Resistance’s formation.

From the first scene it looks obvious that African-American buying the engagement ring will be the 2009 version of Dr. Ben, but this time he’s a Federal Agent, former militia member, and likely future Counter Revolutionary. It seems they’ve consolidated the two brothers into one this character, which makes a certain amount of sense because Dr. Ben was only in the miniseries for the first hour or so and Elias was in all 10.5 hours of the V marathon on SyFy. And the meme regarding struggles and competing visions seems to be resolved, at least in the writers’ minds.

The falling of the Catholic Crucifix inside the first 4 minutes represents two memes not especially present in the 1983 version, but which have gained increasing currency among conspiracy culture insiders. We’ll call Meme A the Fallen Christ Meme and Meme B the Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy meme. The Fallen Christ Meme is common among those who continue to suggest that the arrival of an extra terrestrial alien species would pose an existential threat to all religions, thereby causing mass chaos. It sometimes is cited as a reason justifying government suppression of any real evidence of alien visitation. The Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy Meme really didn’t emerge in America until after the publication of Graham Hancock’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the emergence of websites and books on Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus and mother of Merovee, the founder of the Merovinginian line of French Kings.

The “Question Authority Meme,” always favored among the now-empowered left until the Democratic Party has power in Congress and/or the Presidency, emerges 11 minutes into the pilot. This comes from the youngish priest character, whose doppelganger in the original version had served with anti-communist guerillas in Angola, but whose credentials on this front in the 2009 version are still in question.

Illustrative of women’s success in the intervening 25 years between the two series is that the sympathetic, ambitious reporter who becomes the Visitor’s spokesperson is no longer a woman using feminine wiles, but is now portrayed by a metrosexual male. Additionally, this character seems to have less backbone, and be much more compliant with the Visitors and their requests. Moreover, one primary protagonist is a female FBI counter-terrorism operative,

Significantly, the 2009 version's Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Though interestingly, the neighborhood kid who signs up as a Visitor "Brown Shirt" is driven to it due to maternal neglect by the FBI agent (thus reprising the "Law Enforcement is Hard on Families" Meme. In the original series, the character who joins is much like the guard in The Bridge at Andau: someone who is generally a loser, but has ambitions above his abilities. I preferred the 1983 motivation better because it puts the onus squarely on the child's decisions. Perhaps in our post-Columbine world they were afraid to portray similar a high-school character with these psychological motivations. The other explanation is that the "Bad Mother Meme" has picked up cultural relevance due to the ongoing culture wars.