Apparently the late 80s TV series War of the Worlds is coming to DVD.
For those not in the know, it wasn’t really an adaptation of the book so much as it was a sequel to the 1953 film. The series did have its moments, but all in all… I don’t know if it was as good as it could have been. I actually considered the book adaptation of the pilot better than the actual show, due to one detail: in the series, humanity forgot about the aliens and doesn’t believe they existed. In the book, humanity remembers the alien invasion; they just refuse to discuss it and try to consciously bury the past. Also, there was one episode that had a few gruesome spots that I honestly still can’t believe they showed on broadcast TV. (For those of you who remember the uproar about the guy’s head exploding in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation… this episode was worse. A lot worse.)
The second season actually was notable enough due to the fact that almost everything from the first season was casually wiped away. All but three characters were killed off, the aliens and their technology was completely revamped (and now almost nothing like the aliens of the original movie), and the setting was completely changed. In fact, now when we see a series almost completely reinvent itself between seasons, I call it pulling a “War of the Worlds”. (The term was originated by the venerable Jenn.) And no, when a series is referred to in that way, it’s rarely a compliment.
It’s sad, too… the second season was decent enough. It just wasn’t War of the Worlds anymore, and it’s likely that discontinuity that killed it.
Ah, well… I may or may not pick it up for shits and grins. I also see Dracula – The Series made it to DVD, and that might be worth seeing just for pure nostalgia (seeing as the series itself wasn’t all that good). We’ll see.