The Heroism of Lens Men
On the V: The Original Miniseries DVD, there's a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the movie and the meanings behind its messages. Marc Singer, who plays Mike Donovan, a gung-ho TV news videographer, discusses how he prepared for the role, why a TV cameraman makes a good hero, and the role of TV journalism.

"The guy I'm playing is Mike Donovan. He's a person who tries his best to live up to the promise of being a human being. He feels a sense of responsibility toward other people so he doesn't lie down under the yoke when the Earth is being taken over. He fights back. He becomes the strong arm of the Resistance. He does what the man on the other side of this lens does in real life.

"He's a photographer -- a news cameraman is what he is -- and that allows him access into the alien craft and also gives him a nice viewpoint to view all of humanity. Very often, newsmen are allowed to go places that the rest of us civilians aren't able to go, so it provides a good format for this guy to get in where the bad guys are and see what they're doing.

"I had to do some very strenuous special preparation for this. I had to keep down the bubble of enthusiasm and joy so that when I got on the set I looked like a professional and wasn't giggling in front of the cameras all the time. The second thing I had to do was... Our producer Chuck Bowman [?] was very kind in establishing liaisons between myself and real news photographers and real news teams, and in that way I was able to assimilate some of the real aspects of the heroism of these people's professions.

"I don't think that any of us know exactly what kind of heroes are in different trades in our society, but I think that some of the greatest heroes that exist are in the news profession: those people that bring us tapes from destruction in El Salvador ad people who bring us tapes of the Vietnam crisis and things like that. These are people that lay their lives on the line so that humanity can be informed as to what it's doing and how to rectify situations it doesn't like."

Cmdr. Ilana has organized an extensive V-related Web site.