The Time Warriors and Beyond

In 1953, Earth experienced a war of the worlds. Common bacteria stopped the aliens but it didn’t kill them. Instead, the aliens lapsed into a state of deep hibernation. Now, the aliens have been resurrected, more terrifying than before. In 1953, aliens started taking over the world. Today, they are taking over our bodies.

The series was based on the 1953 movie, War of the Worlds which introduced the world (visually at least) to the Martians and their lethal flying nozzle ships or tripods as they would become known. Their serpentine shapes drifted across the skies, lashing out with their energy beams and vaporising everything in their path. They have become iconic images that remain in pop culture.

In that classic movie, the aliens could simply vaporise entire armies with their death rays fired from their flying ships. They were believed dead, killed by simple bacteria rather than bombs and bullets.

So when Greg Strangis was tasked to bring this concept to a television series, War of the Worlds not only embraced the original movie but expanded on it.

The aliens were awakened from their hibernation and ready to continue their world domination. Headed by Harrison Blackwood (Dallas and Fantastic Journey’s Jared Martin), Predator’s Richard Chaves as Colonel Ironhorse, Philip Akin as wheelchair bound Norton Drake and Lynda Mason Green as single mother and microbiologist Suzanne McCullough headed the fight against the aliens. It is also the show that had a better end credits theme tune than the one it opened with.

In the pilot episode, Resurrection, the revived aliens could now take over human bodies, giving them a ready made disguise to move about freely. And the higher ranking the human; the better. They spoke in an alien language but their handy hideaways were short-lived as the radiation from their bodies burned away the human flesh of their victims. Their brethren were stored in barrels and the more they freed the better.

Harrison it would turn out was witness to the events of 1953 and was adopted by then main leads, Doctor Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry from This Island Earth) and Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson). Harrison’s character was modelled on Forrester’s as he became his adopted son and carried on his love for science. Not only was the movie embraced but the original Orson Well’s radio drama that terrified a nation, convincing them that the world was being invaded, was lovingly embraced as well. Harrison and the gang travel to Grover’s Mill where the residents are all too aware of the alien threat and have been since the thirties.

We get flashbacks to the events of the original Academy Award winning movie in the pilot episode and as part of the credits of every episode. At the climax, the dreaded ships are reactivated and fly off into the sky under Martian control but not before they blow things up just as a reminder to have powerful these things are. The tripod Martians are seen, more so in the second and final season but for budget’s sake (like V the mini series) they interacted in their human forms. To add to the horror, they were able to reach out through their victim’s stomach and attack people as seen in this episode. However, they used a type of environmental suit to stay alive making them look even stranger but everyone wanted to see those three-armed monsters.

Chaves as Ironhorse is an important role model as he portrayed a First Nation’s character front and centre, long before Robert Beltran’s Chakotay on Star Trek Voyager, and very welcome he is too. His axe from season two was not met well from fans and the disabled character of Drake was also gone to suit the more apocalyptic second season where Earth is completely invaded. It was a pity that they could not have been more imaginative and showed both characters work in an invaded world. Add to that Ironhorse’s culture was essential in certain episodes including some social commentary here too.

But the biggest nod to the past, was when Ann Robinson returned to the role of Sylvia in the third episode of the season. Since the movie, she has not only helped raise Harrison but has somehow been able to telepathically connect with the aliens. Now a resident of a mental hospital which Ironhorse thinks is a great secret location for intelligence sources.

Sylvia became Forrester’s assistant on project Ezekiel so she literally became what Harrison describes as a electromagnetic barometer with an amazing accuracy record. He thinks the prolonged exposure to irradiated alien tissue triggered this but the physical side effects left her traumatised with nose bleeds and depression. She predicted the eruption of Mount St Helens and tells Ironhorse the aliens are loose in Montana, stealing even more bodies. Ironhorse sees Sylvia as a distinguished veteran of the war of ’53 but she is too hysterical to trust him.

The resurgence of the aliens have left her in a terrible state requiring sedation and medication. It’s actually a brave way to bring back the character. Usually, you’d expect she would be a well to do academic so to see her is a stark reminder of how these aliens will leave us all if we are not dead first. This makes Sylvia a threat to the aliens and one to be eradicated immediately.

Her return to this universe is quite a tragic one as more of what happened to her after the movie is revealed. After Forrester’s death, Sylvia was convinced the aliens would come back which led to the decline of her mental health. Her only friend is her television set and to an outsider, she comes across like she has had a complete mental breakdown to the point where Suzanne says she is mad.

Sylvia says she is and so would you be if they had stuck all sorts of electrodes in Suzanne’s brain. Sylvia realises the pattern on the television screen is a viewpoint from space, allowing them to find the alien location.

Such was the impact of the 1953 movie, that it was burned into audience’s memories so to see one of the heroes now reduced to this is tragic. But those same forces that mistreated Sylvia, whose deaf ears ignored her warnings, hinder the team from reaching the alien location.

It’s the ferocity of the aliens, desperate to increase numbers and a way to prevent their human bodies dissolving that make them such a threat. Being so early in the series, they waste no time. Having taken over a hockey team’s bodies, some of them explode on the ice giving Harrison and the team access to alien remains. At a garage, they take over a mom, dad and granny while their young son goes to the bathroom. They drive off heading towards the location where their brethren are buried, promising the kid, Bobby, that he will be made immortal.

We also get to see the calm, ever optimistic side of Harrison as he tries to get them out of jail by convincing a guard to stop smoking. Using hypnotism, he impresses the ever skeptical Ironhorse making the team more solid for what is to come.

Imagery is big here as we discover that dozens of alien bodies are at the bottom of a lake on military ground. The possessed family of mom, dad and granny sink beneath its mist covered surface. But the lake is overrun by aliens and only by blowing up an electrical tower are they able to kill this batch. But there are thousands more buried out there and the race is on to stop the mass resurrection.

Thy Kingdom Come is a strong episode which is overshadowed by tragedy. We have the personal tragedy of Sylvia’s ultimate fate. We have more humans being taken, meaning families are being impacted by the unexplained disappearance of their loved ones. In the final shot of the lake, littered with dead bodies, the question is asked if they are going to tell the Canadian authorities that these people were terrorists. Put that into perspective for a second; you are a sibling, wife, mother, daughter, etc… and you know you’re loved one is not a terrorist yet they are branded such with no feeling for the families.

Yes, I know we are facing a full alien invasion but given the setting for the second season, all this was in vain.

Add to that we have a little boy whose parents and grandmother are dead in the water, literally and Bobby is last seen running off into the woods while his possessed family went into the lake. Now, they are floating face down, collateral damage in this war.

At this stage, War of the Worlds is a strong show that not only shows off its proud roots but expands upon it but what would come would ultimately be a war of the executives.