Speaking of "V" on DVD, I highly recommend a modern viewing of this ambitious miniseries that more than stands up to the test of time. In fact, two decades after its debut, parts of it might have been ripped from today's headlines. (I am in a preachy mood, so bear with me.)

The premise of "V" is that seemingly benevolent, humanlike aliens come to Earth in giant spaceships that hover over the world's largest cities. Ostensibly, they are here on a mission of galactic friendship and because they need our help to manufacture a chemical that is unavailable on their planet. In exchange, they offer to share medical and technological advances, and they quickly win the support of all planetary governments and corporate interests. It does not take an enterprising reporter much time to realize that everything is not copacetic with our Visitors. In a daring spy mission to one of the spaceships, he discovers that the aliens are actually reptilian monsters disguised as humans, and their secret mission is to steal the Earth's water and abduct the world's population for use as food.

The interesting part is how easily the Visitors are able to create a fascist state of America. Because they fear the world's scientists and doctors will figure out their true intentions, the aliens invent evidence for a terrorist conspiracy against themselves, using this as a pretext to seize control of the government and impose martial law. The also seize control over all forms of media, and as their propaganda machine is unparalleled, they quickly persuade ordinary "patriots" to wage a campaign against the scientific community and their families, all of whom are publicly ridiculed and forced from their jobs and homes, their lives destroyed. All the while, the aliens smilingly hang posters with themes of their own benevolence and festoon every available surface with their swastika-like insignia.

Substitute the words unpatriotic, Arab, French, or Dixie Chicks for scientist in the mouths of the fictional American lynch mobs (and ignore their bad 1980s haircuts), and you might have a scene from our nightly news in 2003. Or you would if the media, with the FOX network leading the way, had not become propaganda machines for the selfish, war-mongering "aliens" that seized control of the government in 2000, consolidated their power in 2001, and continue to implement their hidden agenda today. As in the miniseries, Americans are giving up their freedom at an alarming rate and getting nothing in return. And instead of rising en masse against this tyranny, they overwhelmingly and enthusiastically support it, attempting to suppress and discredit the voices of reason that attempt to expose the hypocrisy and lies that surround the Bush Administration's actions. We are not being converted into food but fodder for wars of conquest and mindless drones of the megacorporations that seek to all but enslave us.

"V" was created as an allegory for the fascism of Nazi Germany, with the implicit warning that "it can happen here."

Twenty year later, we are well on our way.