Well, the aliens in the first season weren't from Mars, either. It was revealed in "The Prodigal Son" (which the nits at Paramount aired out-of-order) that their homeworld is actually Mor-Tax - a planet 40 light-years away in the Taurus constellation. Personally, I don't think the reliance on Mars as their planet is that imperative, especially since they created the planet in a way that opened up the show to lots of metaphors and ways to create a social commentary. I think the centre of this is that Mor-Tax is a garden planet. When you see the pollution on this earth, you can't help but understand why the aliens hate humanity.<br /><br />Anyway, in the first season, the aliens were seen in their natural state. They were wisely regulated to being hidden mostly on-camera, either being obscured in shadow or behind objects, or just having only parts of them visible to the audience. The most we ever see of them is in "The Raising of Lazarus" where one is scurrying through a ventilation system, and we get a good outline of its body. But yes, pretty much every episodes showed the aliens own body to some extent. Of course, Season 2 only showed them, I think, a total of three episodes. In Season 2, you were never given the impression that the Morthren were even aliens, which makes me think that the people who put Season 2 together simply didn't "get it."<br /><br />
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They were mainly tall people in long cloaks which I guess saved on make up and FX..
<br /><br />Actually, this was the Advocacy. Their attire was a means to keep them safe from the killing heat of the radiation they needed to negate the presence of bacteria. The Advocacy were really aristocratic so they had to stay behind in those caverns (located in the Neveda desert where the atomic bomb was tested) because they were pretty much the "head" of the invasion force on earth, a triad of sound counsel, without which, the lower classes cannot operate. So as a means to tackle thier spot between a rock and a hard place, they made contamination suits from various stolen supplies. They, and only a select few other aliens who held base in the caverns (such as the Commanders), wore the suits. It made sense, too. They only took possession of bodies in order to accomplish their goals, and once away from the eyes of humanity, they would no longer need those disgusting bodies. The suits kept them out of human bodies, but saved in having the audience constantly seeing the aliens in their natural form, and therefore ruining the hidden effect. The design of the suits gave them an alien look and in general, it made them look very menacing over their underlings. I think the Advocacy were one of the best villains in television history.<br /><br />The whole thing with the Morthren taking on human form was crap, mainly because it was never explained. I believe that the new producers simply conceived of the idea to conviently remove the radiation plotline (and, very naively, the aliens' hang-up with germs), but didn't really think it through so they never bothered to allow the audience to gain knowledge of it either. It was also sickening in terms of assassinating the aliens' collective character since at one point (in "The Defector"), an alien is seen as imperfect because his
human face was scarred. And we're supposed to believe that these are the workings of an alien race? What a contrast to "The Walls of Jericho" where the Advocacy looked like rotting corpses (as Norton put it, "We're talking
Night of the Living Dead"), but were still regarded as high on the food chain as the Pope is to Catholics, and had the lowly scientists killing themselves to keep them alive.<br /><br />By the way, from what I know of
The Invaders and what I definitely know of the first season of this show, I don't see the comparison as entirely accurate. The Mor-Tax took over human bodies, with their telltale signs being radiation sores that were a natural effect, and thereforer had to take a new body. Whereas on
The Invaders, they took human form, which featured flaws that were there present for no other reason than to create a telltale sign. And they had to replenish as a means to keep up appearances. I think this was the interesting thing about the first season in that it had a very down-to-earth approach to its science fiction. Everthing seemed organic. This was also what turned me off about Season 2, which pretty much excreted sci-fi cliches to the point where I couldn't relate to the environment or any of its content. But that was only one problem with Season 2. Yes, what a turd that thing was, and shame on Paramount for allowing Frank Mancuso Jr, who had been blunt in his igorance of the first season, to make such a stinker of a show.
Friday the 13th: The Series wasn't as awful as that, was it?<br /><br />By the way, <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_%28television%29' target='_blank'>Wikipedia</a> has a great page on the content of the show.<br /><br />As for a screenshot of an alien, this is an artist rendering of what the aliens' body look like: [attachmentid=4]<br /><br />This is one in real-live action:[attachmentid=5]