The third episode of War of the Worlds, “Thy Kingdom Come,” would be unremarkable if not for one key element: Ann Robinson reprises the role of Sylvia Van Buren. I figured I was sitting down to just another episode of bad ’80s television, but when her name flashed across the screen it brought a huge smile to my face.

I’m reminded a bit of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, in which Ricardo Montalban reprised the role of Khan after many years, except it wasn’t really the original character. The off-screen events of the intervening years had molded him into a very different person than the one we met in “Space Seed.” So it is with Sylvia Van Buren in this episode. Following the events of the 1953 film, Sylvia and Clayton Forrester continued to research the alien menace, worried that another attack might be imminent. Following Forrester’s death, Sylvia continued the research, but no one wanted to hear what she was saying. They wanted her silenced. So some genius committed her to an insane asylum, where she was subjected to electro-shock therapy, leaving her in a fractured mental state. It was a delight to see Ann Robinson back, but distressing to see what had become of the character.

That said, Robinson turns in an even more compelling performance than the one she delivered in ’53. Her eyes dart wildly about and her face contorts into that mask of terror we all remember from the original film, but then she’ll be suddenly calm, sitting upright, her voice low and sly, like she knows something no one else does — which is true. As our heroes struggle to figure out what the aliens are up to, she’s the one who cracks the code, realizing the prism-like Martian iris is what’s needed to see the pattern in a video signal. It’s great stuff.

The rest of the episode, however… hoo boy. We open with a group of Martians disguised as Trump supporters. Having used up these bodies, they soon jump into the bodies of a prison hockey team, figuring they’ll ditch their captors once they get to Canada, where a cache of their brethren are being held. But once there, instead of doing what they were supposed to do, they decide to play hockey. Cause, you know, it’s Canada. Naturally, while playing hockey, they have to rip someone’s arm off, cause why not? And then of course the one who ripped someone’s arm off gets shot and melts on camera so our heroes can see it on TV and know where the aliens are. Brilliant. 

Now down a man due to their incompetence, the aliens decide to hop bodies again, this time possessing a family on a road trip. Mom, Dad, and Grandma are all aliens now, but for some inexplicable reason they leave little Bobby alone. Not only that, but they take him along. And try to act like everything’s normal for his benefit. The alien leader even scolds a subordinate for speaking in their native language. “Speak as they do!” he orders. “For Bobby’s sake.” … WHAT?! Why didn’t they just kill him? Or leave him behind? I figured there was some narrative reason for keeping him around, but no. Once the aliens get where they’re going, they order him to stay put while they wade into the lake where the other Martians are being kept. Naturally Bobby runs away and we never see him again. What the shit is that all about?! Why even have him in the story?!

Meanwhile, our heroes have been arrested for being American… or something… and refuse to tell the authorities the actual legitimate reason they’re here or show them their actual legitimate identifications which would prove it. Instead, Blackwood has to hypnotize the guard so they can escape. Seriously? If this were Doctor Who, which is a ridiculous show and owns that shit, I might buy it. But this show is played straight, so it comes across as utterly ridiculous.

That brings us to the episode’s climax. Why are the steel drums which contain the aliens left to rust at the bottom of a lake instead of being kept in a warehouse or something? Clearly, this was just a budget-saving move so they wouldn’t have to fill a warehouse with a bunch of steel drums. Instead we just see some underwater lights. Sure. Whatever. But where did the aliens suddenly get all the bodies to possess? That’s never established. And the people just all obediently wade into the water like zombies for the Martians to take over. What’s even going on in this scene?

So our heroes take all the aliens out by blowing up an electrical tower and toppling it into the lake, frying them all. Yeah, okay, whatever. But then the bodies of all the aliens are just floating in the lake the next morning. Haven’t we established that they melt when they die? A little consistency would be nice.

Oh, and Philip Akin drops the phony Jamaican accent for this episode. Thank God. And having done so, turns out he can actually act after all. 

All-in-all it was entertaining and I had fun, but it wasn’t as good as the previous episode.

The movie-length pilot episode of War of the Worlds, “The Resurrection,” was an overlong, padded, meandering mess that took forever to come to the point. Other than the admittedly badass climax, there’s little to recommend here, and it’s a wonder the show made it past this episode.

The second episode, however, “The Walls of Jericho,” is something of an improvement. With the story confined to a normal TV time slot, things move along much more quickly. There’s a bit of pointless poking about for a while, but this is intercut with the aliens, who are hard at work mutilating cattle, drinking blood, and bathing in goo. You know, the way aliens do. There’s enough cheesy grossness to sustain the viewer through the drudgery with the human characters. By mid-episode, however, the heroes get off their butts and engage the enemy. There’s some cloak and dagger stuff that would be at home in any X-Files or Buffy episode, before the inevitable 80’s gunplay kicks in, complete with synth-rock accompaniment. So bad, and so much fun.

Two episodes in, we’re getting a slightly better sense of the characters. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) leads a team of government-funded researchers who must track down and neutralize the alien threat. Though he’s ostensibly a scientist, he doesn’t seem to do much science-ing. Mostly he just bosses everybody around, broods, and rants about how the aliens are going to destroy us all if they aren’t stopped. Really, he’s kind of a douche-wad.

Suzanne McCullough (Lynda Mason Greene) is the brainy, science type. She’s the one who has the eureka moments and figures things out. Beyond that, there’s not much to her. At least so far. In the first episode, she just grins and goes along with whatever Blackwood wants her to do, even when he gives her no valid reason for doing it. The writers evidently thought that giving her a daughter would make her more interesting. So far, it hasn’t.

Norton Drake (Philip Akin) is a wheelchair-bound computer genius who helps out in all the ways you’d expect. He’s supposed to provide snarky commentary for comic relief, but sadly, Akin’s wooden delivery and atrocious Jamaican accent sabotage the effort.

Colonel Paul Ironhorse (Richard Chaves) is your typical stock military character. Gruff, hardheaded, disciplined, and gung-ho, but also willing to listen if you give him a good reason to. Despite an abrasive introduction, he actually winds up being fairly likable. There’s not a lot of depth here, but it’s the best this show has to offer, and Chaves gives it everything he’s got. He’s easily the best actor of the bunch.

In the first episode, the aliens were a bit nebulous. Other than having the goal of reclaiming their war machines, they didn’t really do much. In this episode, we spend more time with them and they start to come alive as characters. We even get our first glimpses into the alien culture. It goes somewhat against the grain for me, though. While we see nothing of the alien culture in the movie, the narrator tells us using the words of H.G. Wells that they are “intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic.” This line formed in my mind the idea that the Martians were essentially like organic supercomputers, vastly more intelligent than us, but lacking emotion of any sort. Thus, they were incapable of feeling any remorse in wiping out humanity for their own gain. This of course is me filling in the blanks, but I think it’s a valid interpretation. However, that does not arbitrarily supersede what the writers do here. We’re given a caste system, with the military class lording over the scientist class. The alien leader asserts dominance over a subordinate by disdainfully calling him “scientist.” We also see the aliens standing in groups of three, apparently communing telepathically. This follows from the original film’s pattern of the Martians doing everything in threes — they have three fingers, their eyes have three lenses, their war machines sit on three magnetic “legs” and travel in groups of three, etc. I’ll have to get over my baggage, because I do think there’s potential to take this in an interesting direction.

Even the show’s biggest flaw is addressed here in at least some capacity. At one point the heroes are trying to persuade a general to continue funding them. He remembers having served in the ’53 war but can’t recall any details. Blackwood offers up two possible theories for why people have forgotten the invasion. Either it’s some kind of collective mental repression of something too horrendous to acknowledge (I don’t buy that) or the aliens have some means of suppressing everyone’s memories of the invasion (much more satisfying). If we go with the second explanation, then everything lines up much better. The aliens didn’t all collapse at the same time. They dropped one-by-one. There would have been plenty of time for Martians who were starting to feel sick and seeing their comrades drop off to warn the others. Perhaps, anticipating that the invasion was going to fail, they enacted a contingency plan — suppress the humans’ memories of the invasion so they will do nothing to prepare for a second wave. Instead of reverse-engineering the alien tech and getting ready for when the aliens figure out how to inoculate themselves against the Terran bacteria, the humans just go blissfully about their lives, unaware that it’s only a matter of time before the aliens return. That would actually be a really interesting plot thread to pursue. I don’t know if the show ever goes anywhere with this, but considering the quality of the writing I’ve seen so far, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Anyway, I knew going in not to expect anything brilliant. At best, I was hoping to have a blast watching some cheesy 80’s sci-fi action. The pilot episode had me wondering if I’d wasted my money on this collection. But if this episode is any indication of what’s in store for me, maybe I’ll wind up having some fun after all.

A while back, I was at WalMart and saw that the 1980s War of the Worlds TV series had been released on DVD. Despite my memories of it not being that great, I was overcome with nostalgia and tempted to buy it. But I didn’t. And every time I went to WalMart, I saw it sitting there. $25 for the complete series. Worth it? Yes? No? Probably not? And yet… I wrote my 6th grade book report on the novelization of the pilot episode… I remember fondly talking about it with my one friend at school… “To life immortal!” … After several months of deliberation, I finally plunked down the cash and took it home for my very own. My wife and I just watched the pilot episode. My thoughts are as follows…

1. WHAT SHIT FUCK WHAT WHY HOW WHAT WHO WHAT WHY WHO THE FUCK GREENLIT THIS WHY HOW IN THE NAME OF GOD WHYYYYYY?????!!!!!!

2. *sigh* Okay… Well… I knew going in it was going to be bad… But holy fuck… Holy fucking fuck…

3. Remember that thing we did in the 40’s where the entire fucking world had a war? You know, we called it Word War II or something like that? Yeah, that never happened. I mean, I know it happened, but it’s not like anyone actually remembers it, right? Yeah. That’s what I thought. That’s the premise of this fucking show. This is a SEQUEL to the 1953 War of the Worlds movie. And in this universe, I’m expected to believe that in 1953, aliens invaded the entire fucking planet, leveled whole cities, exterminated a substantial portion of the human race, but in the year 1988 no one fucking remembers that it happened. That’s right. Except for the main character, everyone in the show is like, “Aliens?! You’re fucking crazy! I don’t believe in aliens! That’s nonsense! I mean yeah, my uncle died in the war, and I’ve got pictures of soldiers cleaning up the aftermath, and there’s a Martian War Machine at my local museum and all that, but still… I mean that didn’t *actually* happen, right?” I mean seriously, literally EVERYONE would have a relative who was killed, or at least would know someone who had a relative who was killed. People would have saved newspapers with the MARTIAN INVASION headline in boldface. Not to mention that there were hundreds, if not thousands of Martian War Machines lying about to be reverse-engineered. By now mankind would have heat rays and disintegrator rays and anti-grav and the ability to reach fucking Mars and who knows what else. But it’s just 1988. The actual 1988. Not the created reality 1988 where the original War of the Worlds movie actually took place. It’s like the producers were trying to stay within the reality of 1988 and still make a sequel to the ’53 War of the Worlds movie. But you CAN’T FUCKING DO THAT!!!!!!!!! You either make a sequel to the original movie or you fucking don’t!!! You don’t get to have it both ways!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. I am no longer embarrassed by the image quality of The Traveler. Seriously, the picture quality on these is fucking shit.

5. I am no longer embarrassed by my acting in The Traveler.

6. No one gets to make fun of Mario Van Peebles’ Jamaican accent in Jaws: The Revenge ever again.

7. Holy shit, the embedded misogyny!!!

8. Why don’t I have a career in Hollywood again? Seriously, someone explain this to me.

9. Okay, the bit at the end where the Martian Machines take off is pretty cool. The FX are shit, but it’s still pretty cool.

10. Why are the Martians so camera shy? I mean, it’s not like the monster suits were bad. When they did show them, they looked great. So why keep them off screen?

11. Maybe Deep Space Nine isn’t as bad as I thought.

12. 1 down… 42 to go…

13. Even lots of beer couldn’t save this garbage.

14. $25 down the drain… and no regrets.