Siamese Twins vs. Two Headed Boys

NBC has ordered a script for a potential three-hour TV-movie follow-up to the hit 1980s sci-fi miniseries V.
It was 20 springs ago that V first landed in prime time--its four-hour saga of evil, lizard-headed aliens (i.e., the Visitors) versus scrappy, normal-looking humans (i.e., the Resistance) zapping the ratings competition.
Creator Kenneth Johnson, who wrote and directed the May 1983 miniseries (and earned a Writers Guild Award nomination in the process), has been tapped by NBC to revive the franchise.
In an announcement issued Monday by the network, Johnson said his new script will pick up 20 years after the original story.
"The alien force is deeply entrenched, has turned many earth people into followers, and is sweeping them toward a dangerous new conquest," Johnson said in the statement. "The Resistance seems to be fighting a losing battle when suddenly Earth gains a powerful and mysterious new ally."
Sorry, no word on the identity of the mysterious new ally. Suppose NBC will make you tune in for that.
That is, if there's anything to tune in for.
NBC hasn't okayed the movie yet; it's just hired Johnson to write the script. If the green light is flashed, Johnson will also direct and executive produce. Per Daily Variety, a completed TV-movie wouldn't be ready to air until fall 2004, at the earliest.
Original stars Jane Badler, who reigned as alien queen Diana, and Marc Singer, who fought the good fight as mere mortal Mike Donovan, "could possibly return to resume their roles," the network notes. NBC also drops the names of Faye Grant, who played hero scientist Julie Parish, and Robert Englund (news), who, in a pre-Freddy turn, played Willie, the Visitor defector.
V has been revisited twice before: In the 1984 miniseries V: The Final Battle and the 1984-1985 series V. All programs aired on NBC.
Neither the sequel, nor the little-loved series matched the original for ratings or shock value. On the Website Jump the Shark (www.jumptheshark.com), the series, in fact, is most cited as the moment when the franchise, as they say, "jumped the shark."
Johnson, who went on to develop the various TV incarnations of Alien Nation and direct episodes of the UPN sci-fier Seven Days, was not credited with either The Final Battle or the weekly series.
It is the original Johnson-penned story that to this day inspires V conventions and earnest fan pages such as, "The First Time I Saw V" (www.mindpulse.com/users/lizlady/firsttime.htm).
Johnson constructed the first miniseries, issued last week on DVD, as an allegory for pre-World War II Europe, with the Visitors, in place of the Nazis, reeling in the masses with fabulous promises, only to rip off their "masks," reveal their true lizard heads, swallow rodents whole and take over the whole freakin' world.
"For years, I've had a passion to dig even deeper into the characters and circumstances," Johnson said in the statement.
In Variety, Johnson referred to his new script as a "metaphor for the new millennium."

No shortage of lizard-head candidates there...