Forgotten Villains: The Visitors

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Photos copyright WB

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Everybody has a best friend. Everybody has friends. Sometimes that friendship is short-lived, turning negative over a wrong word or action. Many friendships survive a long time despite time and distance. But it is painful when a friendship turns sour but that is life. However, imagine if that friendship turned murderous because you never saw your friend’s real face. You never caught what their intentions really were. We were swept up in the blaze of a new friendship, were they stand by you, helping you out and taking nothing in return. Then suddenly a core of bad people turn on them. Your first instinct is to defend them because how could these people be so horrible to someone that has been nothing but nice to you personally.

Well, that’s what happens when the Visitors came to Earth in their giant spaceships offering us the hand of peace. They feely offered the entire human race cures for diseases yet incurable, medicines and resources that would enhance our lives and society. We were in awe of seeing these ships in the sky and the friendly inhabitants. We had watched sci-fi movies for years telling us an alien arrival would be a bad thing because they weren’t to be trusted. They had a hidden agenda which would not go in our favour. On the other hand we had ET and Star trek where we live in harmony with many alien species. So here they were with their laser pistols and shuttles. They wore sunglasses due to our sunlight and spoke in funny voices which we as a species connected with; something as harmless as Spock having pointed ears. It was just one of those things that reminded us they were from another world. The scientific community inevitably fell over themselves to get to nosy aboard the ships to see what technology that they could adapt or use for the human race. We were so in awe of first contact we couldn’t see the insidious patterns and behaviors that were emerging all around us. It’s our fault because we don’t want to see any flaws in our new best friends. The fault must lie within ourselves. And that shortcoming opened the door to hell for the human race.

The outward human appearance was in fact a mask beautifully constructed to hide the reptilian features beneath. Suddenly respected scientists are now wanted for treason and sabotage against the Visitors. Whole families disappear only to be returned behaving differently. The Visitors play the victim well; innocent benefactors from beyond the stars that have nothing to gain from us but so much to give to a primitive society. So if they were so affronted then why did they not just return to their home world, flipping the bird to humanity? Instead they stay. Wider eyes would have seen that their ships are positioned over major cities. There’s nothing to stop them dropping a bomb, especially on the likes of Washington or Moscow. Their symbols are reminiscent of the swastika and they quickly establish the Visitor Youth Programme just as the Nazis did. These human kids were to inform on their own kind and the Visitors would then take them into custody for questioning.

It was thanks to the likes of Mike Donovan that the Visitor agenda finally came to light. Donovan learns that these lizards eat birds and rodents when he sneaks through the ventilation shafts of the mothership. The Visitors can spit venom blinding their opponent. This ability was almost never used after that but the most shocking discovery is yet to come. Donovan discovers humans kept in pods in huge cathedral like chambers. The Visitors have come for two things; water and food. The problem is that food source is us. Such is the extent of the Visitor infiltration that they along with their human collaborators including Donovan’s mother control the media. News of entire towns disappearing is never reported on. Even proof positive of the lizards unmasked is swept under the carpet. Processing plants are false set-ups for the draining of our planet’s resources.

Diana is the leader of the Visitors, a beautiful woman on the outside but old and calculating like a reptile who will stop at nothing to subjugate the human race. However a resistance has sprung up which Donovan is quickly sucked into. Diana is forever in a power struggle with her own officers who are not convinced about her methods. She uses a mind manipulator to brainwash people, something Julie Parrish experiences first hand. As the resistance against the visitors, with the likes of mercenaries (Ham Tyler played by Michael Ironside) and scientists (Julie Parrish) joining forces, they come up with a Red Dust which could drive the Visitors off. Brian, who is charge of the Youth Programme, demonstrates just how little regard the Visitors hold humanity in. He seduces teenager Robin Maxwell to see if he can get her pregnant and if so what that child will look like. However he pays the price when Robin tests the Red Dust on him killing him instantly. We are nothing but something to be eaten and experimented upon in their eyes.

In one of the most memorable television moments ever, Robin gives birth to a set of twins. One is a human baby that flicks out a lizard tonguee while the other is talked about to this day. From Robin’s open stomach emerges a full lizard humanoid baby. Those that were not there at the time will not appreciate the impact of that scene on audiences, shooting V to a global phenomenon.

The lizard child dies but the human one grows faster than normal. We will later learn that the Star Child named Elizabeth was prophesied to join both species together as one. A priest delivers her to Diana thinking he is doing the right thing and is killed for his troubles. As the Red Dust floods the atmosphere and Visitors choke to death, Diana sets the self destruct on the mothership. She will leave no one alive if she cannot have the Earth. But Elizabeth has powers that save the day and for now the Earth is safe. Well, at, least until the public wanted more so the Red Dust turned out to be a short term solution. Prisoner Diana was free agent to cause havoc.

Not all Visitors are bad. We have Willy, the vegetarian Visitor, who joins the resistance and cannot quite master the human language. Willy would survive right through to the end of the short lived television series when V went weekly. Elizabeth mutates into a grown woman and finds a love interest in new cast member Kyle. Kyle is estranged from his father, Nathan Bates, who runs a neutral city where Visitors and humans can meet freely. Donovan became close friends with Martin who controlled the Visitor resistance, the Fifth column. They saved Donovan many times and sabotages Diana at every turn. Martin is murdered but his twin brother Philip turns up blaming Donovan for his brother’s death but soon learns the truth. Diana retrieves Donovan’s son, Sean, from the food chambers and begins brainwashing him to hate his father. Not all the Visitors agree with the stripping of Earth and in the final episode of the television series the Leader, the most holy of the Visitors, orders a ceasefire and comes to Earth to negotiate peace. But we will never know what happens as the series ended on a cliffhanger with Elizabeth and stowaway Kyle on the Leader’s ship which Diana has rigged to explode.

The television show expanded the Visitors culture but made it mundane in the process. The Visitors acted just like the characters of the big soaps like Dallas and Dynasty with the bitching and female power plays. Lydia and Diana were more like Krystle and Alexis. We had arranged weddings, murder of the groom and Visitor saunas. This was a chance to really create an unique civilization for the Visitors but it fell into cliché and duels to the death. This diminished them to nonsensical characters leaving the resistance as real people. The Visitors even came up with a faster way to process humans with the creation of a walk through microwave saving prep time and the gutting and slicing. It was clear that the show’s budget was cut to hell and main characters were killed off without a fanfare like Elijah. Ham and Robin simply walked out a door never to be seen again. The resistance fell to a handful of people and the final episode was never even filmed, which would have resolved the cliffhanger and set up the second series.