Dimly remembered sci-fi. Part 1. War of the Worlds - the TV series

[This is the part I'm writing without the benefit of any prior research – relying on my dodgy memory alone.]

I remember watching a TV series in the late 80s - early 90s that was based on the classic 1950s film 'the War of the Worlds'. (There was this 'cool' logo of a three-fingered reptilian-like hand grasping the Earth.)

Now the film itself was an odd riff on the classic H. G. Wells novel of the same name. I say riff because it changed so much from the original – such as transplanting the original time and place of the original -which was Victorian England and relocated them off to what was then contemporary Hollywood.

The 1980s TV series took the riff even further off the tracks of the original. Although it was supposedly a follow on from the devastating events of the film – everyone in the world had undergone some sort of collective mass-amnesia and no longer remembered anything about any invasion. Which had to have been some feat considering the destroyed cities, the scorched earth and reduced-to-rubble landmarks and sheer masses of dead bodies they must have had to contend with. That's even without the huge numbers of fallen alien spacecraft and actual alien bodies which must have been laying around all over the place. I mean - it's not on the scale of where a postit note had fallen off whatever it had been stuck to and got lost under the sofa... this is denial on a global scale – and that's what the series proposes and yet, unless I missed something, never bothered to explain properly.

Notice how I keep saying aliens rather than Martians? That's because in the show they'd decided they weren't Martians – they were called something else -some nonsense made-up word beginning with M and they now came from deep space. I guess by then current scientific knowledge meant no one believed life on Mars was plausible any more. Which is a bit rich considering the many other implausibilities in the story lines.

So this was a world where although slightly darker and mildly dystopian isn't too dissimilar to ours. Apart from no one remembering that huge alien invasion - no one believes in aliens either. Well, except for a tiny handful of people, and luckily for humanity - a small handful of scientists who are the heroes of the series. Since they were just about the only thing standing between us and a plucky group of eeeeevil aliens who'd somehow managed to survive the nasty cold virus that had killed off their first invasion fleet and were now living hidden deep underground somewhere – dressed up in gas masks and rubber cloaks and tubing which they must have managed to steal from a fetish rubber wear outfitters. They had lots of TV sets and computer monitors too and hundreds of minions at large in the world (well California, or maybe Canada – or wherever it was supposedly set) the minions were aliens who had taken over human bodies and they were generally up to no good. They're seemed to involve lots of genetic experiments making alien-human hybrids the way they do... and um other stuff I can barely remember. Probably making various weapons and terraforming and other over-complicated ways of taking over the world.

The heroes where some head scientist bloke, some girly girl
and a super-intelligent computer expert African-American who was wheelchair bound (if they'd have made him gay too they'd have covered all their token bases in one), and some Native American Indian military man (I think.)

I vaguely remember that the head scientist's mother or grandmother or some close relative was in an old people's home and everyone thought she was extreme schizophrenic nut job and kept having visions of what the naughty aliens were up to... having some sort of telepathic link to them for no readily explained reason. Of course no one believed in any of her visions and dire warnings – except for the head scientist... As is the stereotype in these things her room was covered in her drawings of her various visions... (I should compile a list of where this happens in various films and TV series sometime.)

I'm also remembering the second series was a quite a bit different from the first – they killed off a few of the heroes (notably the black wheelchair guy – which was a mistake what with him being one of the most likeable characters) - and the aliens were now squabbling and having political power struggles among themselves for no very good reason – since they seemed to be coming along quite nicely in their plans of messing up the world.

It was quite gory too for a TV series. There were melted bodies and gouged out eyes and other 'yeeesh' moments.

It even had an cliff hanger ending of sorts – where a super-soldier dancer alien lady with a gigantic big hair perm and Rayban shades made weird shapes and shot light rays out of her hands and was able to dispatch any bad aliens with ease. She teleported in from nowhere and joined forces with the hero team – kicked alien ass and then beamed back home again – but not before sending a quick message to her home world. Muttering in her alien language something along the lines that the only reason she and her race where willing to help us get rid of the Martian aliens was that they wanted to herd us as a food supply for themselves. Yikes! Taking about leaping out of the fire into the frying pan.

I get the impression that it wasn't a particularly loved series - I certainly never saw it repeated anywhere - (and dammit isn't that what the UK sci-fi channel is for?)

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Now this is the bit where I actually do some research and provide a few links:

Wikipedia Entry.

Oh look - It's actually out on DVD. Anyone going to buy it me as a present? Wonder if there's a region 2 pal version or if there'll ever be a season 2?

War of the Worlds Episode Reviews.

TV series.