I was often surprised how the War of the Worlds series could often reach such level of perfect tongue-in-cheek black humor and satire, and also fall prey to utterly clichéd stories and poorly thought out escapades! Some suspension of disbelief was easy in that this was a small-budgeted show which was about a global invasion by aliens. The creators seemed to enjoy the quirky dialog and dark atmosphere without taking the whole premise too seriously. Drs Blackwood (especially) and McCullough did well as unusually nerdy heroic leads... although Drake and Ironhorse were saddled with far more corny lines and stereotypical characters. The writing and acting were wildly uneven. But fortunately this happened to swing the quality between entertainingly good and entertainingly bad, only once in a while pausing in boring mediocrity. Of course one of the biggest logical flaws is that the US government admits to three scientists that they do believe the world is being threatened by invasion from a superior alien threat, but that the only resources they can spare to help stop it are in the form of one annoying Army colonel! Of course this is absurd, but due to the small scale of the series they were acting more as investigators.
In my opinion, the best things about this series were the eccentric Dr Blackwood, the interesting dialog, and the alien threat. The aliens allowed the the creators of the show to indulge in some quite surreal and at times macabre set pieces. They were stranded from the famous invasion of the original story and 1953 movie. The invasion failed and these aliens were written off for dead. Now invading "on the cheap", they infiltrate human bodies and try to amass the technological means to contact the rest of their people in space to get reinforcements, which would effectively resume the invasion. Meanwhile, they try to learn about the humans while recovering hibernating aliens and tech. Kind of like a cross between terrorist cells and bodysnatchers. This was a clever way to build the story up from modest resources and present a threat of invasion which was gradual, but with high stakes. The aliens were not used as allegory for communists, yuppies, etc - their motives were, as I recall, not easily understood. The effects of watching "assimilated" humans constructing Rube Goldberg gadgets out of garbage while babbling to each other with scrambled, pitch- shifted speech is hilariously weird!
As has been remarked upon, the second season of the show is a huge departure from the first. Unlike the 1st season, which I have watched recently, it has been almost 20 years since I've seen these. They were worth watching, but in a different way. Everything fast-forwards to a near future where the aliens have all but taken over the Earth. Dr Blackwood has buckled down to a weary guerrilla resistance leader, his old team killed. The larger scale and darker tone of the second series were welcome, but since it was the product of a completely different creative team, there were many inconsistencies. Mostly in retconning of the aliens. Some of these ideas worked, others did not. It worked more like a sci-fi version of Vichy/ Maquis France in World War 2.
Not a great series, in many ways, but a worthwhile and entertaining effort.
In my opinion, the best things about this series were the eccentric Dr Blackwood, the interesting dialog, and the alien threat. The aliens allowed the the creators of the show to indulge in some quite surreal and at times macabre set pieces. They were stranded from the famous invasion of the original story and 1953 movie. The invasion failed and these aliens were written off for dead. Now invading "on the cheap", they infiltrate human bodies and try to amass the technological means to contact the rest of their people in space to get reinforcements, which would effectively resume the invasion. Meanwhile, they try to learn about the humans while recovering hibernating aliens and tech. Kind of like a cross between terrorist cells and bodysnatchers. This was a clever way to build the story up from modest resources and present a threat of invasion which was gradual, but with high stakes. The aliens were not used as allegory for communists, yuppies, etc - their motives were, as I recall, not easily understood. The effects of watching "assimilated" humans constructing Rube Goldberg gadgets out of garbage while babbling to each other with scrambled, pitch- shifted speech is hilariously weird!
As has been remarked upon, the second season of the show is a huge departure from the first. Unlike the 1st season, which I have watched recently, it has been almost 20 years since I've seen these. They were worth watching, but in a different way. Everything fast-forwards to a near future where the aliens have all but taken over the Earth. Dr Blackwood has buckled down to a weary guerrilla resistance leader, his old team killed. The larger scale and darker tone of the second series were welcome, but since it was the product of a completely different creative team, there were many inconsistencies. Mostly in retconning of the aliens. Some of these ideas worked, others did not. It worked more like a sci-fi version of Vichy/ Maquis France in World War 2.
Not a great series, in many ways, but a worthwhile and entertaining effort.