Invasion Iowa, on Spike TV
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Okay, so... major Star Trek fans such as myself will know that the town of Riverside, Iowa, has long claimed to be the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. Apparently because of this, William Shatner and others from Hollywood have played a friendly little prank on the town: They pretended to make a sci-fi movie there, while actually making a reality TV miniseries about... tricking the town into believing they were making a sci-fi movie. (Before the miniseries aired, it seems to me I'd read or heard somewhere that it was supposed to be like a Star Trek prequel or something, but in fact the fake movie was entirely unrelated to Star Trek.)

The fake movie is about this guy from the future, Col. Shane Yeager (played by Shatner), who travels to the past to prevent this girl named Linda (played by Riverside local Brooke Lemke) from being kidnapped by the evil Gerclons to be impregnated by their emperor, and become mother to the Gerclon race, or something. First, an assassin android called the Disintegratrix 3000 (played by "Gryffyn Green," one of the pretend Hollywood people who were played by... Hollywood actors. Gryffyn is played by Desi Lydic). At the end of the movie, the Gerclon emperor himself shows up to fight Shane, interrupting Shane's wedding to Linda. Oh yeah, the movie had these laser whips that looked like lightsaber handles, but even in the finished movie there were no special effects added, so all we could see was the actors waving these handles around. I thought that was a bit of a gyp.

Anyway, throughout the miniseries, we see the making of the movie, as well as occasional finished clips. And at the end of the series, we see the entire finished movie, which is obviously lacking a great many scenes which were never made, as it only lasts say 20 minutes or so. Some of the most painful few minutes I've ever experienced; damn that movie was bad! OMG, was it bad! Ye gods, did it ever suck! Sh-- *ahem* But anyway, moving on. It was funny, though. Especially the obligatory Star Wars rip-off opening exposition.

Meanwhile, in the course of the series, we saw other stuff, the Hollywood people interacting with the townsfolk, some of whom were cast in the fake movie, and some who were given fake crew jobs, and some who were just... you know, there. Aside from Brooke, I thought the most interesting townie was Jim Pickering, who was given a product placement job for the movie. Anyway, the Hollywood folks were always doing outlandish things, a few of which included Shatner selling these sort of berets he called "Shats," and also the time he did a stand-up comedy routine which was rather insulting, without being particularly funny. And when he wanted to rename the town "Billville." And wanting to break an expensive, 100-year-old church stained glass window for the movie. And Gryffyn was writing this children's book, which she read to some locals. It was about a penguin girl named Popo, who had plastic surgery to get bigger wings (an obvious metaphor for breast enhancement). When the townies tried to politely raise objections to the book's message, she rewrote it, but she didn't get the point. In the new version... well, I'm already saying too much. Other fake characters included Tiny (played by Kirk Ward), Bill's "nephew" and body double, who was always acting like an idiotic, obnoxious clown. Also there was a studio executive named Max (played by Garz Chan), who was very demanding and hard to deal with. And another guy (Tom Kane) made phone calls doing impressions of Hollywood actors, mostly Sean Connery, who was supposedly negotiating to appear in the movie, but his demands couldn't be met. Also, Bill had a spiritual advisor named Steve (played by Ernie Grunwald), very sort of new age-y. Also Bill had an assistant named Herb (played by Michael J. O'Hara), who didn't really make an impression on me. Other townies included Scotty Riggan, who became another assistant to Bill. He did his best to be helpful in all the impossible situations that arose. And... Leann Sexton and Wayne Simon, who were cast as Linda's parents in the movie. And Diana Schultz, who handled cue cards. And Don Rath, who was... just sort of the local lovable old coot. There were a few other folks, too, I guess. Anyway, there was a lot of funny, outrageous stuff going on, and the townies constantly did their best to take it all in stride. (Some of the townies could be a bit eccentric, as well. Two words: raccoon penis. 'Nuff said.)

...When the truth was finally revealed to them about everything, they took it pretty well. Which isn't too surprising, considering all the kind words from Bill about how much the actors all came to love and respect them. Plus the money (along with personal suggestions of how to use it) didn't hurt. And anyway, they all seem to have had fun. Can't think what else to say, except that I usually loathe any sort of reality shows and don't care for practical jokes, so reality practical joke shows... no. Not interested. Which in itself is, I think, quite a commendation of this miniseries, that I actually managed to enjoy it.

(Incidentally, I could almost consider this a limited series rather than a miniseries, but not quite.)