Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here was his inspiration. He wanted to use the clout he’d established to create something more significant. I n the early 1980s, Johnson was among Hollywood’s top TV showrunners, having written for The Six Million Dollar Man and created its spin-off, The Bionic Woman, as well as the Marvel series The Incredible Hulk. V is now, and has always been, his impossible quest. With his ginger-gray beard and ring of hair, he bears a striking resemblance to Don Quixote. Now 80, Johnson is a lean and limber presence, battle-scarred by his years in the Hollywood trenches but still energized.
He is actively trying to remake it as a series of movies, believing its themes are more relevant than ever.
Today, Johnson hopes to reclaim the show-from the executives who bungled it, from the conspiracy obsessives who misunderstood it, and from the reliquary of nostalgia TV. The making of V could be a prime-time soap opera of its own. And despite the show’s success, Johnson was forced out, leading to the eventual collapse of the franchise. “‘You know that there are lizards among us!’”įew fans are likely aware of V’s backstory, its origin as a pure anti-fascism parable devoid of extraterrestrials, or the horrific true-life crime that shocked its cast and crew when one of its stars, Dominique Dunne, was savagely killed and another became embroiled in the tragedy as a witness. “I’ve gotten emails over the years and letters from people on the fringes who say, ‘Oh, you get it!’” Johnson says. Many harbor a sincere belief that a reptoid cabal really does control the world. But in recent years, far-right conspiracy theorists, QAnon followers, and garden-variety lunatics have instead homed in on the fact that V’s extraterrestrials were secretly reptilians disguised as humans to mislead us. “I got to thinking, God, how would everyday people feel if suddenly there was a sea change in our life that turned it all around, if suddenly some hyper power rolled over us, just like the Nazis rolled into Europe?” he says.
When he gets new letters from viewers, Johnson opens them hoping they got the message, which seems as obvious to him now as it did back then. The invaders in red jumpsuits, dark glasses, and ball caps were actually beings from another planet, but Johnson intended the sci-fi drama to be more than mere escapism.
The writer, producer, and director Kenneth Johnson has never stopped getting fan mail about the miniseries he created back in 1983, which rattled America with its depiction of cold-blooded authoritarians conquering the world. E ven 40 years later, V is still getting under people’s skin.
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