V (Season 1)

V (1983) is Kenneth Johnson's science-fiction miniseries, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Fifty motherships, each miles wide, drift over the planet's biggest cities, and the human-faced Visitors step out offering friendship.

The newcomers call themselves saviors. They beam from every screen, hand out promises, wear crisp uniforms, and quietly take hold of the press, the labs, the factories. Reporter Mike Donovan films what the cameras were never meant to catch: under that smooth plastic skin lies reptile scale, the Visitors swallow live rodents whole, and Earth's resources are exactly what they came for. Biologist Juliet Parrish and a thin band of doubters start to fight back. The aliens' plan is brutally simple, and humanity has almost nothing to throw at it.

Johnson built his invaders straight out of fascist history, from soothing propaganda to youth corps, which is why V cuts deeper than a standard monster scare. Jane Badler plays the icy Diana, and a young Robert Englund shows up years before Freddy Krueger. Best for viewers who like their sci-fi with a double meaning, where the creature is most dangerous when it smiles. Stream V (1983) online on iFILM.