LOVE THAT LIZARD

Few things get me more excited than a strong powerful woman hell bent on conquering the galaxy and looking fabulous at the same time. Diana from V is one such woman. Well not so much a woman as a scary fucking lizard.

Now let's be clear about things, I'm not a Trekkie or Star Wars nut or Dr Who intoxicated. They were all too macho for me, V had a hero and her name was Diana. This show aired in the mid 80s and centred around the arrival of Visitors from another planet to Earth - supposedly to help humans and find out more about the planet but things were not as they seemed with the Visitors. They had odd voices that sounded like they were in a blender and underneath their skin they were actually lizards. They slowly but surely took more control of the world and anybody who didn't like it was killed or went through "the conversion process". There was the original miniseries then a Final Battle mini series then a one season show. By the time of the Final Battle, we had witnessed a great character with impossibly high cheekbones and enough snarling sexiness to make a lizard seem bitchy and sexy - Diana played by Jane Badler.

She proved to be tougher than the lot. Rebels led by hunkyish Marc Singer and bottle blonde, permanently whiny Faye Grant found a red dust to kill all the Visitors when their control and treachery was uncovered. Diana was an ambitious iguana and killed various people on her journey with relative ease - she didn't like the readings of the bible a priest gave her so blew both the bible and priest to smithereens. Pamela came on board but was again shot down by pushy Diana and her killer hair being told "consider this early retirement". Diana was almost captured but escaped at the end of the Final Battle leading her way into the actual series when she battled not only humans but also good lizard, Lydia. Diana tried to blow Lydia's ship up, she then planted a scorpion in Lydia's room and was basically the nastiest bitch without any redeemable qualities whatsoever. This made her such an interesting character and I always wanted to see her scenes rather than the boring rebels. Even when Robin gave birth to 2 lizard children, I was still hankering for Diana to insult someone, eat a gerbil or just shoot the rebels to hell.

Jane Badler also managed a season or so on Falcon Crest in the eighties but it's as Diana that I remember her so fondly - apparently now she's based in Australia but still looks damn good - I think it's the cheekbones!!