I guess Dick losing his thumbs is the first stage of becoming an alien — even though Mary Tyler Moore clearly has her thumbs, and she's fully transformed, or taken over. It's a tad confusing, but no less awesome.

Okay, so it turns out to be just a dream. But for those of us who grew up worshipping Mary Tyler Moore in reruns, even the fact that the budget is too low for us to see the eyes in the back of her head doesn't matter. It's Mary Tyler Moore — putting on a funny voice and pretending to be an alien named Laurak. And saying lines like "I will hit you with pleasure." Ah, MTM!

A frequent science fiction novel cover artist, Brambilla's Invading the Vintage series uses actual postcards from Switzerland, Santa Barbara, Milan, and a host of other popular vacation spots. Far from being horrified, the humanoid (and sometimes canine) subjects of these photos treat their alien encounters as just another tourist attraction.

[Franco Brambilla via Drawn!]

It is a proven paradox that during eras of real impending global disaster we have been given what is arguably the best doomsday cinema of all time, from the cold-war comedy classics to the matinee apocalypse of the atomic age. Is it any wonder then, that as economies collapse and nations riot, we are once again inundated with end-of-the-world media. The big difference this time around is in the heavy-handedness of the messages. What happened to the humor? Here are some cult classics you may have missed.

In the 1980's, the end-of-the-world just gave us the giggles. 1982's britcom Whoops! Apocalypse spawned a film of the same title, with almost as much satire and as many DC superhero references as the series itself.

The heyday of the teen comedy, the 1980's gave us what are now cult classics of the end-of-the-world genre with a healthy dose of teen angst and synth-heavy soundtracks. War Games gave us one of our first hacker-geek heroes, and Night Of The Comet reminded us that even in the midst of a zombie outbreak you could still find time to hit the mall and have some fun.

Never has the threat of the end of civilization been more entertaining. From the fifty-foot woman to giant killer bugs, the world was put in danger in increasingly more and more creative ways during the 1950's. While the films themselves were usually thinly-veiled analogies real-world threats, they still sought to make people both think and smile. Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers helped pave the way for all alien invasion films to follow, while the King of ‘B' movies Roger Corman gave us showed us what would happen on the day the world ended. (Hint: it involves a dumb blonde and a mutant monster.)

And last but not least, who could forget Slim Pickens' rodeo rocket ride into oblivion in Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb?

Bell, is known for his work on X-Files, Alias and the best part of Angel (right around the time the lonely vampire took charge of Wolfram and Hart). In fact, Bell was showrunner for the final season of Angel.

"Like many people, I have fond memories of whatching the original miniseries," Bell said. "And to see how they did it now, it's epic. (Exec producer/scribe) Scott Peters did a fantastic job relaunching it. It seems like there are so many ways that you could go with this story."

While Bell's deal is for two years, the alien invasion series is on a year-by-year contract. The first year will consist of 13 episodes, and the next could have more (or none). The drama will begin in January. Scott Peters, of The 4400 fame, and the brains behind the updated V, will remain an executive producer.

[Variety]

The new issue of The New Yorker features "The Invasion From Outer Space" by Steven Millhauser, a slight amuse-bouche of a story about alien invasion. It's very short — you can probably read it on your coffee break — and packs just enough of a punch to justify its length. The first half of the story is the funny part, dealing with people's reactions to the news that aliens are going to land in their town — which are entirely conditioned by exposure to alien-invasion narratives in movies and television:

From the beginning we were prepared, we knew just what to do, for hadn't we seen it all a hundred times?-the good people of the town going about their business, the suddenly interrupted TV programs, the faces in the crowd looking up, the little girl pointing in the air, the mouths opening, the dog yapping, the traffic stopped, the shopping bag falling to the sidewalk, and there, in the sky, coming closer . . .

Of course, the alien invasion turns out not to be like a movie at all — in fact, it's something completely different, seemingly harmless at first but ultimately quite terrifying. Anyway, "Invasion" is a fun story, and winds up being very consciously science fictional, even though you think at first it's only going to be commenting on science fiction without actually embracing it. Check it out! [The New Yorker] Thanks Wilson!

In the new remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, an alien must determine whether he should destroy humanity to save the Earth. Which aliens have come to rescue us? Check out our list.

Klaatu and All Other Space Faring Species (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Reason for Conquest: In the original film, to prevent humanity from nuking other species and wreaking general havoc on the universe.
Method of Conquest: They don’t actually conquer the Earth, but they make it clear that robot enforcers like Gort are more than capable of dealing with humanity.
Outcome: Warning. Klaatu tells the humans to mend their war-like ways or face certain destruction.

The Alien Planners (Plan 9 From Outer Space)
Reason for Conquest: To prevent humans from discovering a doomsday weapon that will cause sunlight to explode and destroy the universe.
Method of Conquest: Raising the dead to distract humans and sow the seeds of chaos.
Outcome: Failure. After faltering in Plan 9 and Plan 9B, one of the aliens finally fesses up that they just want to keep humanity from destroying the universe, the human hero of the piece punches him in the face. And their spaceship explodes.

The Overlords (Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke)
Reason for Conquest: The Overlords seek to usher humanity into a golden age, and then into its next stage of evolution.
Method of Conquest: Under the general (but not complete) agreement of humanity, the Overlords exert dominion over Earth, granting humans peace and prosperity but forbidding them from pursuing certain creative and scientific activities, such as space travel.
Outcome: Success. Despite some early dissent, humanity comes to accept the Overlords, who help a new generation of humans reach a new level of existence. Things are less happy for the parents of these new humans, who largely commit suicide, and for members of an anti-Overlord sect, which nukes itself.

The Puppet Masters (The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein)
Reason for Conquest: According to them, they want to bring humanity the peace and joy of nirvana.
Method of Conquest: Infiltration and assimilation. The sluggy aliens attach themselves to humans, taking over their bodies.
Outcome: Backfire. A resistance movement of free humans discovers a disease that kills the slugs. And once they have finished infecting the population on Earth, a small group takes the battle to the alien’s home, Titan, planning to wipe out the entire species.

The Souls (The Host by Stephenie Meyer)
Reason for Conquest: The souls see humanity as a violent and self-destructive race and believe that their conquest and oppression of humanity is somehow mankind’s salvation.
Method of Conquest: Infiltration and assimilation. The Puppet Master-inspired souls are inserted in human bodies and usually establish complete control of the human’s body and mind.
Outcome: Awaiting a sequel. Some souls join the human resistance movement, but humanity is still working on expelling the souls from Earth.

The Oankali (Lilith’s Brood (formerly Xenogenesis) by Octavia Butler)
Reason for Conquest: Not entirely benevolent, the Oankali need to merge with humans to survive. But they also seek the repair and betterment of the human race, which has been all but destroyed by nuclear war and which the Oankali believe is too violent to continue in its current form.
Method of Conquest: The Oankali capture the remaining humans and give them the choice of either submitting to the Oankali and interbreeding with them or being made sterile.
Outcome: Compromise. Some humans agree to interbreed with the Oankali, but one of the half-Oankali children convinces the Oankali to allow humans to remain human and live and breed on Mars.

The Galactic Council (The Amazing 3)
Reason for Conquest: The council decides that humanity is a threat to the universe and too dangerous to live.
Method of Conquest: Rather than messy invasion, the council opts to destroy it with a small super bomb.
Outcome: Delay. After initially ordering the destruction of Earth, the council is eventually swayed to give Earth more time to develop and sends their agents back to continue their evaluation.

The Monitors (The Monitors)
Reason for Conquest: To police humanity and save it from its own terrible impulses.
Method of Conquest: Aside from setting up a government and police force led by polite fellows in bowler hats, they attempt to win over the public by flooding the airwaves with testimonials and obnoxious jingles.
Outcome: Failure. Humanity might like cleaner streets and less crime, but won’t abide the Monitors’ ban on politics, sex, and violence. But when humans oust the Monitors, they’re still oppressed, just by other corrupt humans rather than benevolent but controlling aliens.

Aliens have landed, Independence Day style. Giant space ships hover over the Earth's big cities, major capitols and the United Nations. Out pop red-jumpsuited aliens who look just like us, except for their terrible fashion sense. But no worries, they mean us no harm. We know this because they say so, and then they invite the humans on board for a get-together.

As opposed to following a bevy of characters, V (the movie) trails main character Mike Donovan, a cameraman (and a few other friendly V characters from the past). Mike is an experienced photojournalist, and has been in the field photographing wars and what not. Because of his photojournalist skills, Mike is selected to board one of the major ships and bring back pictures for the citizens of the world.

Meanwhile, Julie Parish and her scientist friends watch the aliens land, while she cures cancer or something (good for her).

The world decides to call our new red-suited friends "The Visitors" and go ahead and give them joint law enforcement. The Visitors are a huge success with the Earthlings and their PR blitz soon has the world eating out of the palm of their hand. Which they use to systematically weed out all scientist in the world (Uh-oh, Julie). Scientists start to disappear, and smarty pants Mike figures out they're actually being tortured and eaten by the Visitors, which are actually giant reptiles in people suits.

But Mike is alone in his rebellion because now that the Visitors have our love, they've convinced most of the population that the scientists are evil and must be stopped, and thus the new overlords enact their systematic weed-out system of all those against their rule, with the consent of many Earthlings.

Julie forms a rebellion, called the Resistance (catchy). She slowly builds her troops to avenge her fallen comrades and rid the world of their evil overlords.

Mike gets busted by the Visitors and is hauled off to the mothership, but lucky him he finds a human-sympathizer among the reptilian species, who helps him escape via Visitor space pod. The Resistance coordinates with Mike and together they fight to free some of their amigos. But the Visitors still control much of the planet and intend to do so until they've used all of the resources available on Earth (they're going to steal Earth's water).

So out-gunned, the Resistance sends out a help beacon, why not? The resistance hopes to find OTHER aliens that can fight their battle for them. Happy coincidence for Earth it just so happens that the Visitors enemies are close by.

At it ends on that note, so you know they've got to make more if not a few direct to DVD movies.

But through all of this human torture of the world's scientists, apparently some reptile people take the time to get busy with some of our Earth women. The end result is, one poor woman gets impregnated with a hybrid alien baby that could totally kick any cylon-human hybrid baby's butt. Check out the clip from the series — it's pure scifi glory. This kid is later dubbed The Star child and grows secret powers.

Don't know much about the V movie series you say? Well, io9 has a complete run-down on the series, including information on the Visitor space ship and toys that were seen in the series.

Way more details at the link. [Latino Review]

• Planet of the Apes: Probably the most famous image from this film is ol' Chuck Heston riding up the beach and finding the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand, which means New York City is buried under a ton of coastline. "You blew it all up. You really did it. Damn you... goddamn you all to hell!" Sorry, Charlie.
• Escape From New York: While there's still a few people kicking it around New York, Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison, and of course they haven't been kind to the Statue of Liberty either. Director John Carpenter shot the film in St. Louis, Missouri and was able to convince city officials to turn off the power to ten city blocks each night to simulate the desolate city.
• Independence Day: New York City is bustling and full of life... until a giant flying saucer comes and zaps the place to hell. As expected, the Statue of Liberty buys it in this one, although it just looks like she might be taking a nap in the Hudson River, but the city didn't look fare quite so well.
• Deep Impact: New York City gets taken out by chunks of a comet that has been split in two in this 1998 movie. Several other U.S. cities supposedly get decimated as well, but it's Manhattan that we see getting blasted. A tidal wave created by the impact also takes out the Statue of Liberty, and pushes her head through the streets like a giant pinball.
• Armageddon: Two months after Deep Impact, Armageddon slammed into theaters, taking a good sized chunk of New York City with it. While the Statue of Liberty's plight isn't shown, we do get to witness the top of the Empire State Building coming off and slamming into the streets and bringing the observation level down to the ground floor. What a view.
• Artificial Intelligence: A.I.: Even the combined might of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg couldn't manage to put any intelligence into this film about artificial intelligence, nor could they save New York City from being flooded and smashed up like some child's Lego toyset. Although bonus points for having the Statue of Liberty survive, even though she's buried underwater up to her torch.
• Vanilla Sky: Tom Cruise wakes up to a bad day where he's the last person in New York City, resulting in a pretty spectacular shot in a desolate Times Square. The production was given unprecedented access to the location for filming, and the city let them shut everything down and empty it out one early Sunday morning just for this scene.
• The Day After Tomorrow: Director Roland Emmerich wasn't satisfied with blowing New York City to smithereens in Independence Day, so he decided to give the place a good going over in this film. New York gets battered by tidal waves, flooded, and then frozen to absolute zero in order to show you the dangers of global warming. Even the Statue of Liberty gets iced with sideways icicles.
• Cloverfield: All we know about this J.J. Abrams-produced movie is that some sort of giant creature starts tearing the city apart, and the Army tries to fight back. Plus, the thing whacks the heads off of Lady Liberty, and it goes sliding down a city street taking out cabs. For a thing built in 1886, she sure is pretty damned resilient.

Famous names: Written and produced by Kenneth Johnson, who would go on to produce the highly badass Alien Nation teevee series.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: V: The Final Battle, V: The Series, Alien Nation, Independence Day

Stunt casting: Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame as a slow but sweet alien; the first Nightmare on Elm Street film was released the following year while V: The Series was on the air.

Sights you'll never unsee: During an industrial accident involving liquid nitrogen, a guy's hand shatters into a bloody stump. Ouch!

The Visitors - Fansite with Episode Guide, Gallery, Technical Guide, Downloads and more.