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V
"Liberation Day"
TV episode
Written by Paul Monash
Directed by Paul Krasny
Original air date: October 26, 1984 |
One year after Earth was
liberated from the Visitors, Diana is brought to trial for
crimes against humanity;
Elizabeth
begins to undergo a metamorphosis.
Read the summary of this episode at V: The Series
Interactive Website
Didja Know?
Dennis McCarthy provides a
new
V main theme for the weekly
series (though it borrows from queues he'd already established
in
V: The Final Battle).
Throughout the course of the weekly TV series, the reverberating
sound of the Visitors' voices is absent without explanation. At
the time the series was being made the producers decided not to
use this aspect of the aliens because, during the shooting of the
two mini-series, it was found to be fairly time-consuming and
expensive and the effect was not always pronounced in the
voices of the various actors who portrayed them. For the sake of
continuity, I like to pretend the strange quality of the
Visitors' voices remained.
The story of Diana's capture told in this episode differs greatly
from that depicted in the V
novel The Pursuit of
Diana. In this episode there is just a quick
prelude that opens immediately after the end of "The Final
Battle", as the novel does, but they
differ
almost immediately in that, here in this episode, Donovan chases the fleeing Diana down in another
squad vehicle and she is taken into custody on Earth. I prefer
the version of events in
The Pursuit of Diana
in
that it also discusses many
other factors that Earth has to deal with in the immediate
aftermath of the Visitors' evacuation from the planet.
Didja Notice?
The first 44 seconds of this episode at first appear to be directly borrowed from the end
of
"The Final
Battle", depicting Donovan telling Martin to take them and
the captured L.A. mothership back to Earth and the flight of
Diana in an escape shuttle. But the shots on the bridge of the mothership are actually reshots on the modified version of the set made for the TV series; the consoles have more color on them and the walls have added designs on them. Also, as Diana flees and looks out the
window at Earth, the scene has been cut just before the slight
smirk she makes in "The Final
Battle".
| At 2:19 and 2:20 in the
episode, there is Visitor
writing on Martin's monitor
screen depicting the warning
that an escape shuttle has
launched. |
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The clip of Donovan rotating the squad vehicle towards the doors
within the hangar bay from 2:57-3:01, is borrowed from
"Plan for Resistance". It
doesn't fit in with this episode because you can see all sorts
of Visitor crewmembers working in and guarding the hangar bay!
Apparently Diana decided to head back to Earth rather than
rendezvous with her fleet behind Earth's moon, since that is
where Donovan catches up with her. Why? Earth is poisoned to her
by the red dust now! (Another reason
The Pursuit of Diana
is a better version of Diana's escape and capture.)
Since Jane Badler (as Diana) still has the straight hairstyle in
these scenes instead of the frizzy perm she sports in the "1 year
later" part of the story, I'm under the impression her escape
and capture was shot during the filming of
V: The Final Battle in the
event V was picked up as
a series and they needed to depict Diana's immediate capture.
The exterior shots of Donovan's chase of Diana in the squad
vehicles over the coastline and hills from 3:10-4:41 on the DVD are also
borrowed from "Plan for
Resistance".
At 5:28 on the DVD, there are Visitor symbols on the fuselage of
the fighter as Donovan climbs out, but they are too blurry to
make out. Notice also that the exit hatch looks like a pretty
uncomfortable and flimsy means of entrance and exit!
It's nice that the producers remembered that Diana lost her gun
back in the command center of the mothership in
"The Final
Battle"; when she tries to flee from her crashed
craft, her holster is empty.
Diana does not seem to suffer any ill effects from the red dust
when she crashes on Earth, but that is easily explained as the dust
not having filtered into this wilderness area yet; remember it
is still V-day as this action is taking place.
How is it that Diana has suddenly lost her human eye lenses
after Donovan has tackled her?? Did they pop out during the
tackle?!
Did Diana try to spit venom at Donovan during their tussle?
There are a couple of noises that sound a bit like a spit, but
we don't see any venom on Donovan's face or clothes.
As Donovan is struggling with Diana, two hunters run up to
assist and one of them fires his rifle. Then the next scene is a
smash cut to 1 year later and there is no mention of what
happened with that gunshot! Did either Diana or Donovan get hit
by the bullet?
As the news reporter at Elias' new Club Creole restaurant begins her segment, she remarks that
it is the first anniversary of Liberation Day, "the day the
Visitors were driven from the Earth, never to return." She seems to be ignorant of the fact that the Visitors have "returned" (in small numbers) in the novels that take place in between
"The Final Battle" and this episode,
The Chicago Conversion,
The Alien Swordmaster, and
The Florida Project. Not to mention that even if the events of those novels had not occurred, a mere one year is not really a basis for claiming the Visitors are "never to return".
The reporter seen here works for the same TV station that we soon see that Donovan works for, KDHB Channel 6.
In the real world, there is no KDHB television station in the Los Angeles area, though there is a KDHB-AM radio station in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
During the news interview with Elias, he mentions he also has a line of footwear called
Space Busters, "the foot gear for galactic heroes." And he says
he is the technical advisor on the new film Lizard Kill.
Presumably, Lizard Kill is a movie based on the Visitor
occupation and human resistance.
At the end of his brief interview on the news, Elias puts out
the message that if any of his old friends ever need a helping
hand, they know where to come. This is a foreshadowing of the
Club Creole becoming a secret base for the resistance when the
Visitor invasion is renewed in the next episode.
At 7:23 on the DVD, Willie gives a shy wave to the camera as the
reporter signs off to the next correspondent.
We see that the captured L.A. mothership has been landed in the
Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles and that a corporation called
Science Frontiers has been awarded the contract by the
government to research and
back-engineer its technological secrets. Julie is now a doctor
and works for the corporation, directly under CEO Nathan Bates,
and she is the head of the mothership research division.
Science Frontiers also manufactures the red dust.
Ironically, Martin, who is now Donovan's assistant on reporting
assignments, is wearing a "visitor" badge (as are Donovan and
the reporter) during the report at the mothership at 7:37 on the
DVD.
The newscopter that flies to Robert Maxwell's mountain home to
hound Elizabeth is from the same television station Donovan
works for, KDHB. I wonder if he's aware of the harassment!
After completing the mothership report for KDHB, Donovan tells
Martin he is the best assistant he's ever had. So soon is Tony
Leonetti forgotten!
Some English language signs have been placed throughout the
mothership now that human scientists are researching it. One
such sign appears on a door, "Danger High Voltage".
Julie reveals that she and her cohorts at Science Frontiers have
not been able to break Diana's security code on the mothership,
stalling their investigation.
Donovan reveals that his son Sean is at a state school in Ojai,
CA, where they are attempting to rehabilitate him from the
damage done by the Visitors' conversion process. This would seem
to indicate that the de-conversion performed on him in
The Pursuit of Diana
was not entirely successful.
|
Ironically, the symbol on the
Science Frontiers logo looks a
bit like a UFO! |
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As Nathan Bates watches the KDHB news report in his office, the
news anchor is Hal Fishman, a long-time newsman in the L.A. area
from 1960-2007.
We learn that right after V-day a year ago, Ham Tyler started up
his own security agency.
The Florida Project depicts him and Chris Faber as
working for the CIA instead; possibly Tyler's company was simply
contracted by the CIA for the operation.
Bates remarks on Tyler's past as a covert agent in Central
America, Angola, and the Middle East.
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There is a glass or crystal
object on Bates' desk that seems
to have a photo in it that
changes. Possibly it changes by
viewing angle? And who is the
person in the photo? It appears
to be a blond girl or boy and
not Bates' son, Kyle. At
first I thought it might be the reflection of one of the
production's crewmembers off camera, but it appears again in
the episode "Visitors' Choice". |
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During his conversation with Tyler, Bates seems to confirm the
statement in
The Pursuit of Diana
that the Visitors never got around to giving humanity the cure
for cancer they had promised.
Martin seems to be having a bit of difficulty with the concept
that Diana is going to get a fair trial for her crimes on Earth.
He says that on his planet, justice is swift and final.
When Martin's watch alarm goes off to remind him to take his
antitoxin pill, he comments he must take it every 12 hours to
counteract the red dust toxin on Earth. This roughly corresponds
with the antitoxin time limit depicted in
The Pursuit of Diana.
The novel
The Chicago Conversion,
on the other hand, indicates the antitoxin lasts an indefinite
amount of time, with the events of the novel taking place over
the course of about 2 weeks and the antitoxin taken by a squad
of Visitor troops never wearing off in that entire time!
The antitoxin Martin takes is in the form of capsules.
At 15:38 on the DVD, we see that Martin has only two antitoxin tablets left and tells Donovan to remind him to get a refill. But why they hell did Martin let his supply get so low in the first place considering his life (theoretically) depends on his taking them every 12 hours?!
Robin remarks that she's headed for
Santa
Cruz for a break, leaving Elizabeth and her father at their
mountain cabin.
As the escort procession of Diana's prison van drives to the
courthouse for her trial at 17:29 on the DVD, a
Shakey's Pizza
can be seen in the background.
There is a small crowd of protestors outside the L.A. courthouse
where Diana is being brought for trial. Many hold signs
denouncing her, such as "Death to Diana".
When Diana is unloaded from the police van to be brought into
the courthouse, we see that she is wearing a Visitor uniform.
Why would the authorities have clothed in her it? It seems to me
it could lead to accusations of an unfair trial to have her
clothed in the uniform of Earth's recent enemy. Did Diana
request it herself just to show that she was not afraid of human
justice? At the end of the episode, we see that the uniform
seemingly was able to stop several bullets...or maybe it is just
Diana's thick reptilian skin that did it? Either way, if bullets
were stopped then, why is Bates' tranquilizer dart able to
penetrate in the faked assassination attempt on her here at the
courthouse?
The policemen escorting Diana from the van into the courthouse
are seen to be wearing shoulder patches that simply read
"Metropolitan Police" instead of Los Angeles Police Department.
These patches are seen on the cop uniforms throughout the rest
of the series.
At 19:21 on the DVD, the ambulance that transports Diana after
the "assassination" attempt is from
Schaefer
Ambulance Service.
In the scene from 19:34-19:36,
it appears that a small battery
pack for Donovan's video or
sound hookup falls off while he
is running, but actor Marc
Singer deftly catches it in his
hand so quickly it is almost
unnoticeable that the glitch
even took place!
Notice also in the screenshots
that, while Donovan works for KDHB 6, there is another news van
covering the trial for a rival station, KHBD 12! You'd think
that would cause a lot of confusion with such similar
station names in the same city! |
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At 19:58 on the DVD, Donovan is seen to be wearing the same (or similar) Casio digital watch he wore in
"Unity".
The chopper Donovan "steals" to chase down Diana's ambulance is
from his own KDHB, so they would probably forgive him if he gets
the story! Additionally, the chopper appears to be the same one
that visited Elizabeth earlier in the episode!
At 20:34 on the DVD, Donovan flies the stolen copter past the
Bonaventure Hotel.
The Bonaventure towers have appeared in numerous movies and
television shows for their high-tech look.
At 21:48 on the DVD, the semi-truck carrying Diana's ambulance
in the back runs through a stop sign! The semi is seen to be a
Ford model at 23:05.
At 23:20 on the DVD, the tractor trailer is seen to be a
Strick
model.
When Julie first rolls up Elizabeth's pajama sleeve to examine
the skin aberration on her arm at 24:12 on the DVD, the seam of
where the fake skin appliance has been attached to the young
actress' arm can be easily seen just below the wrist.
As we see Diana without the air mask on for the first time, it's
interesting to note that the authorities apparently allowed
Diana to get a nice '80s hairdo while she was incarcerated!
Actor Lane Smith (as Nathan Bates) fumbles a word in his dialog
while listing some of the Visitor science he expects Diana to
deliver to him. He asks for her knowledge of "recombient DNA";
he means "recombinant".
We learn that Bates' deal with Tyler for faking Diana's
assassination is that she will be turned over to Tyler
(presumably to be killed) when she no longer has anything useful
to give to Bates.
At 28:33 on the DVD, we see that Martin has retained his Visitor
sidearm and apparently likes to carry it around!
At 29:54 on the DVD, we see that the fire has burned the
dermoplast off of Martin's hand, exposing his reptilian skin.
After Diana's escape from Bates' hideout, we see she has obtained a
car and is wearing an '80s women's fashion ensemble. The car may
have belonged to the men guarding her, but where did the clothes
come from?
At 32:40 on the DVD, the local hick who drives up to Diana's broken down vehicle has
KC headlight covers on his truck's foglights.
Notice that Diana picks up something from the backseat of her
vehicle before accepting the ride from the local hick. It is her
Visitor uniform!
After the local hick picks her up on the side of the road, some
romantic favors in return are hinted at and he tells Diana he's
going to take her some place that's "out of this world."
Ironically, Diana is already from "out of this world."
At 33:15 on the DVD, we see that Diana's car has broken down at the intersection of Placerita Canyon Road. This places her on Sand Canyon Road
in Los Angeles County. See the location on
Google Maps.
At 33:56 on the DVD, Tyler pulls a MAC-10 machine pistol from
under his jacket.
When Tyler ends his contract to work for Bates, he seems to
blame Bates for Diana's escape. But, really, Tyler is just as
much to blame for her escape and the return of the
Visitors to Earth.
At 34:55 on the DVD, Diana is seen to be wearing a rather large
digital watch on her right wrist!
When the local hick pulls his pick-up off the road and behind a
hill, he expects Diana pay him back for picking her up. She
agrees and caresses him seductively. Then the camera moves
outside the vehicle and the man starts screaming in horror/pain
while the vehicle shakes. What did Diana do to him? John Kenneth
Muir
suggests on his website that Diana performed
"an act of fellatio that ends with a new
definition of 'swallow.'"
Why are there a bunch of snakes outside the cave Elizabeth
chooses when she is ready to go into a chrysalis stage? After
she is in there it could be argued that native reptiles were
somehow attracted to the presence of the Visitor/human hybrid,
but why would they be there beforehand? Snakes are not really
social animals that are going to hang out in large groups
together!
Notice that, as Elizabeth walks through the snakes, into the
cave, we see only her feet or only from behind, and her ankles
and calves seem a bit to muscular for a little girl! I suspect
young actress Jenny Beck didn't want to walk through the snakes
herself and an adult double did it instead.
Robert's Jeep at 37:25 on the DVD with CA license plate 1BAK390
appears to be a
Jeep CJ-7.
At 40:16 on the DVD, notice that a tear escapes Julie's right
eye as she is witnessing the metamorphosis Elizabeth is being
subjected to inside the chrysalis.
Donovan appears to be carrying an M1911A1 pistol at the tracking
station. He continues to use this same pistol throughout the
series.
When Donovan and Tyler bump into each other on the trail of Diana at
the Southwestern Tracking Station, Donovan realizes that Tyler
already knows about Diana's escape even though the rest of the
world thinks she's been assassinated. Tyler tells him, "Never
mind what I know." It seems that Tyler is covering up his
involvement in Diana's abduction to cover his own ass! Did this
remain a secret from his allies in the resistance through the
course of the series? I don't recall that it was ever revealed
to anyone.
At the tracking station, we see that Diana has changed back into
her Visitor uniform. I guess she didn't want to be picked by her
people in lowly Earth garments!
Diana sends her message to the fleet from a radio telescope
facility, the Southwestern Tracking Station. I wonder if this is
the same facility from which the resistance sent their message for
help from other extraterrestrials in
"Plan
for Resistance"? The Southwestern Tracking
Station appears to be a fictitious facility. In the
V card set published by
Fleer, the facility is referred to as Mt. Monash, also a
fictitious name (presumably named after this episode's writer,
Paul Monash).
There appear to be a bunch of large, loose tiles on the roof of the
radio telescope facility. You can see them jiggling when Donovan
jumps down on them and runs off at 44:37 on the DVD. They must
have been something laid down by the production crew for some
reason; perhaps they were used to cut down on the glare of
sunlight on the rooftop for the camera?
As Diana runs toward the Visitor shuttle that arrives to pick
her up, how is it that Donovan's gunshots do not penetrate her
skin? In the
V: The Final Battle
mini-series, it was only through the use of a specially
developed armor that the Visitor shock troopers were able to
withstand the standard gunshot. If Diana had that armor on in
the first place, the tranquilizer bullet she was shot with
outside the courthouse wouldn't have penetrated either! Yet, a
bit later, aboard the shuttle, she plucks one of the bullets
from a hole in her uniform!
When the shuttle arrives to rescue Diana from Earth, neither the
pilot nor the shock trooper aboard appear to have taken any
precautions to prevent exposure to the red dust bacteria! Later,
Diana comments she doesn't know why it didn't effect her or
them. Since the limited effectiveness of the red dust in
temperate climates is not yet known, the Visitor pilots should
have taken precautions. My No-Prize explanation is that the two Visitors on the
craft felt they could survive a brief exposure to Earth's air
during the pick-up and then purge the bad air after lift-off and
replace it with uncontaminated oxygen from their own life
support system.
Near the end of the episode (though we don't see the end result
until the next episode) Elizabeth's chrysalis is already
cracking open with Julie and Robert still standing there
watching! That means she underwent the metamorphosis in less
than a day!
We don't know how many motherships were left behind in our solar
system after the Visitors fled at the end of
"The Final
Battle". Diana asks her pilot that question and he
responds with "Enough." This implies that it is not the entire
50-ship fleet that originally invaded which has stayed behind.
When the camera moves past the moon to show the fleet hiding
there, we see only 7 motherships, though it's possible that more
are behind the camera's view. (Contrarily, the novel
The Chicago Conversion
implies the entire fleet stayed in hiding behind Earth's moon,
unwilling to face the Leader's wrath for failure.)
Throughout the episode it is indicated that Robert has been
caring for his daughter Robin and granddaughter Elizabeth at his
mountain ranch. But where are his two younger daughters, Polly
and Katie? There is neither sight nor sound of them and we know
their mother was killed in
"Plan for Resistance", so who is taking care of
them? (Later, we learn that they have been staying with their
Aunt Rebecca in Chicago in the novel
Death Tide.)
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