...m...
Adventurer
...i don't get much opportunity to watch television, maybe a couple episodes per month, but last may i started V: the original 1983 miniseries, followed by the final battle 1984 miniseries, and finally the 1984-85 ongoing series which i'm on pace to finish next month...
...i only saw the original miniseries and a handful of episodes from the first half of the ongoing series during its original broadcast, both of which i adored at the time, then a couple years later i caught the tail end of the final battle in saturday-afternoon reruns, which was awful pulp television and i presumed just a trashy late revival to conclude the franchise...
...turns out i was wrong!..the final battle was just as bad as i remembered, but it was an alan-smithee-caliber direct sequel produced only a year after the original miniseries, so the first few episodes of the subsequent ongoing series were essentially dedicated to resetting the status quo back to where the outstanding original miniseries left off, then the balance of the first half of the ongoing series turned into a serviceable if somewhat pedestrian made-for-television episodic chronicle of the resistance, which was what i watched in the fall of 1984 and quite enjoyed...the second half of the ongoing series, however, suffers from both massive budget cuts and a soap-opera revamp of the series concept, and is pretty much straight pulpy trash television on par with the final battle...
...anyway, this is my first time to watch the entire series all the way through, and now it's plainly apparent both why i loved it at the time and why its reputation with the general public is so poor, taking the franchise as a whole: i just lucked out catching only the best parts in its original broadcast run, leaving my imagination to fill in the gaps with far, far, better material than what actually aired for the portions i didn't see...
...i only saw the original miniseries and a handful of episodes from the first half of the ongoing series during its original broadcast, both of which i adored at the time, then a couple years later i caught the tail end of the final battle in saturday-afternoon reruns, which was awful pulp television and i presumed just a trashy late revival to conclude the franchise...
...turns out i was wrong!..the final battle was just as bad as i remembered, but it was an alan-smithee-caliber direct sequel produced only a year after the original miniseries, so the first few episodes of the subsequent ongoing series were essentially dedicated to resetting the status quo back to where the outstanding original miniseries left off, then the balance of the first half of the ongoing series turned into a serviceable if somewhat pedestrian made-for-television episodic chronicle of the resistance, which was what i watched in the fall of 1984 and quite enjoyed...the second half of the ongoing series, however, suffers from both massive budget cuts and a soap-opera revamp of the series concept, and is pretty much straight pulpy trash television on par with the final battle...
...anyway, this is my first time to watch the entire series all the way through, and now it's plainly apparent both why i loved it at the time and why its reputation with the general public is so poor, taking the franchise as a whole: i just lucked out catching only the best parts in its original broadcast run, leaving my imagination to fill in the gaps with far, far, better material than what actually aired for the portions i didn't see...
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