I think the authors/writers of V were just as disappointed in Childhood's End that they had to rewrite it. The premise is very similar: 50 alien ships randomly show up and hover over 50 of the biggest cities on Earth. The difference between V and Childhood's End is that humanity bends over and does everything the Overlords tell them to do, whereas V is an allegory for the Holocaust. Now, if it were up to me to rewrite Childhood's End, I would keep it the same up to the point where Karellan finally shows himself to humanity. As he walks down the ramp with a child on each shoulder, he looks to his right, his jaw unhinges and he bites the child's head off! How horrifying! The rest of the book would naturally write itself.
Anyway, V is really good. There are a ton of characters, but it is really easy to like the good guys, and exceptionally easy to loathe the bad guys. Donovan reminds me so much of Han Solo, except that he is a camera man for the news. Elias is the gangster that joins the cause when his brother is killed by the V's.
What exactly is the cause? Early on, the V's frame many of Earth's scientists for forming a secret resistance movement against them. Donovan finds out they have some kind of "conversion" process that makes them able to control people. They convert some scientists to help them build up evidence against other scientists. The end result of all this is that the non-converted scientists actually do form a resistance. The original V is told in five parts: The original miniseries (two one hour, 40 minute episodes or one 300 page book), and the Final Battle (three one hour episodes). Each part is action packed and thrilling. Like Star Wars, it doesn't show every single battle of the war, it just shows the main battles,the turning points, and plenty of lizardmen.
I found this series much easier to watch after reading the book. I picked up the book because I couldn't tell if it was a novelization of the show or if the show was based on the book, since the back cover uses words like "the original novel is finally back in print!" There are only two parts in the book that are not included in the show, one is a cool scene at the end where their cry for help is heard by a third set of aliens, and the second would spoil the show for you so I won't go into details. Suffice to say that Robin is a stupid name for a person and she's a whiny teenager.
I also might have enjoyed this a lot more because of what I expected it to be. I expected it to be a really corny 80's sci fi show with silly rubber suits. Well, it delivered on the corny special effects and rubber suits, but the story is so compelling, the acting is so good that you barely even notice. I also expected the plot to be very similar to the New V show that is on ABC (which is fantastic), but each version of the show is really it's own story. All they have in common is spaceships hovering over cities, lizardmen and the Fifth Column (the name for the resistance group).
The main theme of the show is that it is an allegory for the Holocaust, and the angle it goes to is the way the media portrays the group committing the holocaust. The V's always maintain a positive image in the media, and many people buy it. When scientists apparently have a resistance group against the V's, the general public assumes that what is on TV is true and that the V's are the victims of the scientists. It's a good message to tell, since I often find myself arguing with the news on TV when I think they are sensationalizing something. I like to think critically about what TV or the newspaper are saying, because if nobody does, then the society the V's put together is too easy to create.
Obviously, a society like Nazi Germany or the one the V's put together is an extreme example of how the media can be misused, but science fiction often uses the most extreme cases to prove its points. I think Stanley summarized the purpose of the story very well at the end of the novel (which is at the end of the original miniseries): "We have to help [fight the Visitors], or we haven't learned a thing."
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