To prepare for next week's debut of the remake of V, I picked up the V: The Complete Series DVD of the weekly 1984/85 series that followed the original two mini-series, V and V: The Final Battle. I remember loving the original as a kid, sparking my imagination that anyone I saw could be an alien lizard making plans to haul my carcass to a warehouse for storage.

I tore the plastic off of the package with a bit of trepidation. Not everything you loved as a kid holds up to your scrutiny, or even your tastes, when you watch it all grown up. Which is why I'm sure some people cringed when they heard about the remake.

Would it stink? Would it be just as good as I remembered it? Should I have left well enough alone and saved my fifteen bucks?
The 1984 V series has some of the standard problems sci-fi movies often face. The hair and clothing are mostly the cutting edge of 1984 and instantly date the series. And the special effects for the opening chase scene may have been decent 25 years ago, but it seems amateurish now, like something you'd see in an SNL parody of a space show. And why does any laser blast that hits within a three foot radius of someone toss them like they were standing on a pneumatic catapult? Marc Singer, in particular, seems to spend half of his time in the air.

But I didn't have to dig too deep to remember why I liked V in the first place. The overall story is appealing, and the characters, for the most part, are an interesting and sometimes unexpected mix. I like the chemistry between Marc Singer and Michael Ironside as a former television news cameraman and CIA operative, respectively, who are the most proactive members of the resistance in the weekly series. It's always fun to watch Ironside, in particular, work.

I like businessman Nathan Bates position in the plot, playing both sides for his own ends. He was probably the most complex character in the series, thinking he was in control of the fight, especially with the threat of the Red Dust his company developed to repel the Visitors. Willie, the gentle Visitor played by Robert Englund (who debuted as Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984), was the embodiment of the idea that not everything out there wants to destroy the Earth, a nice humanizing element.

Series creator Kenneth Johnson was reportedly influenced by classic authors like Sinclair Lewis and Bertolt Brecht, and that shows. Paranoia, political treachery, and a faith in people to band together and fight fascism (whether it's Nazis or lizards hiding in man-flesh) are the underlying themes, and V might even have prepped me to recognize those when I got to them in English class later on.

I'm disappointed that Johnson's efforts to create V: The Second Generation never bore fruit, and that the new show won't use his books or ideas. But I'm hopeful the new series will at least respect the spirit of his original creation. If nothing else, it prompted me to take an enjoyable look back.