War of the Worlds (1988 series)
War of the Worlds: The Second Invasion (1988), AKA War of the Worlds: The Series
Summary
This alien invasion series picks up where the George Pal War of the Worlds (1953 film) left off (itself an advanced version of the scouting invasion described in the 1938 Orson Wells radio broadcast, portrayed as a real news report "covered up" by the government as a hoax radio play), with the conceit that the aliens didn't really die from disease, but instead entered a state of suspended animation, and were stored in that condition in barrels concealed in a government warehouse along with the alien warships and other artifacts as part of a government cover-up. The first season of the series begins with a group of aliens accidentally awakened from hibernation by terrorists in 1988, dependent on constant supply of radiation to provide immunity from Earthly bacteria and coolant to counteract the radiation, while they conspire to free their sleeping comrades and liberate their machinery from secret government vaults; only a clandestine four-man team of soldiers, scientists, and computer experts stand between the earth and the alien conspiracy. The second season of the series was heavily retooled, and begins a few years after the first season, after a global apocalypse in which an invasion from a different, competing race of aliens has already begun.
Details
- Release Date: 1988
- Country/Language: Canada/US, English
- Genres/Technical: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller
- Runtime: (generally formatted for a 1-hour commercial television slot)
- Creator: Greg Strangis
- Starring: Jared Martin, Lynda Mason Green, Philip Akin (season 1), Richard Chaves (season 1), Adrian Paul (season 2)
- Producer/Production Co: CBS, Hometown Films, Paramount Television, Ten Four, Frank Mancuso, Jr. (second season)
- View Trailer: (link), (link), (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: (not rated) (equivalent to a TV-PG for 1980s TV Violence and mild Adult Content)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
It's only "Lovecraftian" in so far as it's about a conspiracy of slimy alien monsters, and a clandestine party of investigators is the only thing standing between the invaders and Earth. In many ways, the first season of the series resembles a Delta Green campaign; the second series Cthulhu End Times.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- (review needed)
Synopsis
In 1953 extraterrestrials invaded Earth; things looked pretty grim until common bacteria seemed to kill them all. Unfortunately, the aliens were just forced into a state of deep hibernation. Over 30 years later, they're waking up, and this time they've learned how to assume the appearance of humans as they try to rally their troops for a new war. The fate of Earth may very well rest in the hands of a small yet courageous band: astrophysicist Harrison Blackwood, paraplegic computer wizard Norton Drake, microbiologist Suzanne McCullough and military man Paul Ironhorse.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
- This television program was heavily criticized in the 1980s for pushing the envelope for the portrayal of gore and violence on network television.
Associated Mythos Elements
- TO DO
- setting: Delta Green, Cthulhu End Times
- fiction: H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds
- film: styled as a sort of sequel to the George Pal War of the Worlds (1953 film)
- organization: Blackwood Project, an eclectic group is formed by the government to deal with the new alien threat
- organization: Project 9, a shadow government organization much like the Blackwood Project, but more interested in alien research than in resisting or countering the alien invasion plans
- location: The Cottage, Blackwood Project's secret base
- organization: People's Liberation Party, a terrorist organization
- race: Mor-Taxans
- special ability: the ability to disguise themselves in (rapidly decaying) human bodies and walk among humans for a short time
- special weakness: vulnerable to Earthly bacteria, inability to tolerate bright light
- other characterizations: vegetarians on their home planet, some of the vegetables they ate were intelligent; the number 3 is culturally significant or sacred
- organization: The Triumvirate (AKA The Advocacy), a group of three alien leaders on Earth
- organization: The Council, an unseen group of leaders on the alien home world
- location: Mor-Tax, the invaders' home world, a garden planet 40 light-years away in the Taurus constellation orbiting third place from a dim dying sun, with three moons
- technology: advanced metalworking, crystalline computers, anti-gravity, improvised electronics built from discarded human electrical appliances
- race: Qar’To, a competing race of aliens represented by synthetic human substitutes; the Qar'To, who regard the Mor-Taxans as parasitic pests, are willing to help humans against the Mor-Taxans because the Qar'To wish to preserve humans as a food source
- technology: synthetic bodies, interdimensional portals that allow a 40-light-year journey to be made in less than a year
- location: planet Qar'To in the same system as Mor-Tax
- race: Morthren, a race similar to the Mor-Taxans, except they can survive Earthly bacteria by making fragile clone human bodies used for mind-transference
- location: Morthrai, the new invaders' home world, which exploded before they left; apparently the same planet as Mortax
- deity: "The Eternal": a being emerged from a white-blue sphere of radiating light; the form presented to the Morthren was that of a larger-than-human jellyfish-like creature with a membranous top with a single central eye and thick tentacles that hung by sides; this upper grayish hide covered a lower domed white flesh substance where numerous smaller whiter tendrils hung by the bottom; this entity spoke in haunting alien melodies that could only be understood by his subjects, ordering the Morthren to purge the universe of all imperfection; the Morthrai believed that the Eternal was their equivalent of most human conceptions of god, but were confused by humanity's religious beliefs and considered them a mad confusion of myth mixed with contradictions centered on a delusional concept that is incomprehensibly invisible and intangible compared to the Eternal
- technology: the Morthren technology is at least partly biomechanical and organic
See Also
- Multiversal Omnipedia article: (Mor-Taxan) (also describes the Qar'To)
- Multiversal Omnipedia article: (Morthren)
Keeper Notes
- This series might provide an easy, ready-made setting for a "low-Mythos"/"Lovecraft Lite"/"Non-Lovecraftian" Delta Green campaign.
