Speaking of V, unless they can do something different and original with the concept – and they won’t – the series should not come back.

How about a series on non-human aliens who are not out to get us, or even give a flying fig about humans and Earth for that matter? That’s probably the real case anyway, but it doesn’t sell advertising time, does it?

Get my drift?

As others said, the wide abundance of H2O in the heavens had been known for decades when V first aired in May of 1983.

Recent extrasolar planet discoveries suggest the probable existence of ocean planets. IE: Gliese 581-c, or is it d?, may be a landless water world covered in oceans HUNDREDS of miles deep.

And using humans & other Earth life as food is weak. Forget the protein thing. Surely such aliens have cloning technology to mass replicate their food organisms of choice.

nuV isn’t bad. Its more mature than 80′s V. Virtually no juvenility. Is juvenility even a word? But you know what I mean.

Actually, it’d be more shocking had the Visitors BEEN virtual humans & NOT homo xenoreptilus. Make them alien humans, & leave everything else the same. That’d make eating Earth humans much more grotesque & sinister. Be like Trek humans harvesting Vulcans for food.

I like Larry Niven’s take on V, but it has the same problems as that ST:Voyager episode “Distant Origin”.

Speaking of Sirius, have Nommos shown up in anyone’s swimming pools this summer?

Originally the bright B3 star’s powerful radiation & stellar winds most likely swept aside any rubble in the proto-Siran proto-planetary disks that could’ve potentially made planets given enough time.

Not only that but the B3 star (Sirius B now nicknamed the Pup to Sirius A’s dogstar!) then became a red giant – perhaps even supergiant star and irradiated the already implausible hypothetical worlds even worse.

I did see ‘V’ years ago. I thought it was very dumb then – & my opinion hasn’t changed now. The sex bit oddly I don’t recall. But wish I did!

As for “well they came from somewhere else & just lied about their home” idea – yegods! If so, they sure could’ve picked a less suspiciously silly star to claim homeworld from y’know!

The rest of the routine was just as much a gag. They weren’t stealing water; they were openly refining Heavy Water from Lake Michigan (the “chemical plant” that figured so heavily in the original series), and as well teaching hydrogen technology, fuel cells et all, to the humans. Which was also an end run; the Visitors actually didn’t have practical small fusion engines, and the fuel cells they were helping the humans with were actually the height of their own technology. The spaceships, of course, were largely hollow props.

In the intent beyond the intent, though, the Visitors were neither invading nor stealing water or foraging. Instead, they’d annoyed a vastly more rapacious race that was on its way now; what they were trying to do is kick Earth into at least marginally competent fighters for an interstellar war that was going to involve Earth whether the Visitors visited or not.

The danger with trying to make something like V make sense, though, is that you really can’t. Once you start into trying to make logical explanations, all you really do is make the deeper questions more obvious. Better to say nothing and get on with the story.

Speaking of V, unless they can do something different and original with the concept – and they won’t – the series should not come back.

How about a series on non-human aliens who are not out to get us, or even give a flying fig about humans and Earth for that matter? That’s probably the real case anyway, but it doesn’t sell advertising time, does it?

And don’t forget how incredibly strong they were, unless they were trying to break down a flimsy closet door. And I also remember near the beginning of men in black, they’re chasing an alien who is running over buildings like they were lincoln logs… and then the alien commits suicide by jumping off a building.

But then again, I suppose the 5th column members of the Visitors could set the rebels straight on that matter. I don’t think they ever said that they were from Sirius ever again in either. Just at the 1st meeting. And I’m not sure we can trust ANYthing they said there. (Like most of the ship is to support the gravity drive, whereas it was to store the food and water).

@Jose: wrong letter, your thinking Q

RE: The sirius origin thing – If knowing something is possible is the first step to solving it then the appearance of 50 huge interstellar ships would be a big boost towards the development of our own interstellar capacity, which would give them a serious reason to mislead us. I’d search for a compltely different type of star in the other direction. Also another good reason to wipe out the scientists who might reverse engineer it

I think you might be thinking of the movie “Q: The Winged Serpent”. (Never saw it myself, but saw it for rent in the video store years ago.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(film)

http://www.noreascon.org/users/sflovers/u1/ftp/pub/sf-lovers/fandom/fiction/v-rebirth.txt

I don’t actually see the problem with postulating that the aliens came from the Sirius system. So long as you don’t insist that they originated there, of course. It isn’t that much of a stretch to imaging that a species in the habit of invading other planets could have gone to Sirius from a prior destination, before coming to earth.

Yes, they need a science advisor. But even more than that, they need people who can write their way out of a wet paper bag!

Alien Nation now, that needs to be brought back.

I remember the thinking of why come to Earth for water? And that REALLY annoyed me in Independence Day. The difference being (at least for me), was it was not ONLY the water that they came for. They also came for us (for food and soldiers), not to mention other critters. So why not grab the water, too. Unlike the ID4 aliens, that wanted us DEAD. Surly they would have been better off mining moons and other planets.

The CLAIMED they came from Sirius. In the novel, I think Donovan asked himself something like ‘that’s a bright star, why do the have to wear the dark glasses’ and made a mental note to ask an astronomer. But then things got way hot. It is plausible that they don’t come from there. On the other hand, why lie about that? Not much we could do with that info.

And isn’t it possible… remote, sure, that they and us had the same START to life? What is that hypothesis – you know, life came from space. If that were the reason, then it is likely that we could eat each other. The fact that we could interbreed (maybe with help from Diana – ok.. PROBABLY with help from Diana… the sicko that she was) would have meant we were more the same than different (as the priest said in the Final Battle).

@Cairnos – Some people WERE suspicious about why they looked like us. That’s why those people started to disappear. Or have attitude adjustments.

I still loved the miniseries. I even have those on DVD. Debating whether to get the series… as I am not a fan of that. But I do like to have complete sets of things. Yea… mildly obsessive.

PfA

Or they can send in one ship moving at relativistic speeds. The energy release from the impact with our planet alone would guarantee the elimination of most Earth life.

So this whole bit of sending in troops coming from interstellar distances and having pitched battles with the locals is beyond stupid, even more than their need for water – though that is pretty bad, too. It was also the plot from The Man Who Fell to Earth starring David Bowie.

And yes, anyone with any knowledge knew that comets had lots of water back then. They also knew that most Jovian moons were mainly water ice, too.

Plus I found V the series became quite mundane and boring after a bit.

But one thing you will never get is a Hollywood type to understand or appreciate anything to do with accurate science in a film or TV series. Kubrick was a rare exception, and even he took a few liberties when the plot called for it (no radiator fins on Discovery to get rid of all that heat from the nuclear engines, for example).

So stick to documentaries and books for real science education. Sadly most people still get their “education” from Hollywood.

However, on a more “ouch it hurts” note:

I had the series “V” used in a “makes you think, doesn’t it?” type fashion at me by a David Icke fan last year…

…If your movie involves Science Stuff, why not hire some Science Guy (like the Bad Astronomer!) for a week at $1,000 a day to vet your script and make sure it’s not insane or stupid? That’s peanuts in Hollywood money.”

Ok, now it’s a bidding war. I’ll undercut Dr P and do it for $500 a day.