Amerika (miniseries)
Amerika is an American television miniseries that was broadcast in 1987 on ABC. The miniseries inspired a novelization entitled "Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit". "Amerika" starred Kris Kristofferson, Mariel Hemingway, Sam Neill, Robert Urich, and a 17-year-old Lara Flynn Boyle in her first major role. "Amerika" was about life in the United States after a bloodless takeover engineered by the Soviet Union. Not wanting to depict the actual takeover, ABC Entertainment president, Brandon Stoddard, set the miniseries ten years after the event, focusing on the demoralized U.S. people a decade after the Soviet conquest . The intent, he later explained, was to explore the U.S. spirit under such conditions, not to portray the conflict of the Soviet coup. Described in promotional materials as "the most ambitious American miniseries ever created", "Amerika" aired for hours (including commercials) over seven nights (beginning February 15, 1987), and reportedly cost $40 million to produce. The miniseries was filmed in the Golden Horseshoe and southwestern Ontario Canadian cities of Toronto, London, and Hamilton, as well as various locations in Nebraska – most notably the small town of Tecumseh, which served as "Milford", the fictional setting for most of the series . Donald Wrye was the executive producer, director, and writer of "Amerika", while composer Basil Poledouris scored the miniseries, ultimately recording (with the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra) eight hours of music – the equivalent of four feature films. Genesis. "Amerika" has an indirect connection to another notable ABC program, the 1983 television film "The Day After", which some critics felt was too pacifist for portraying the doctrine of nuclear deterrence as pointless. Stoddard cited a column in the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" by Nixon speechwriter (and later, television personality) Ben Stein that appeared a few weeks before "The Day After" aired. Stein wrote , in part: Stoddard acknowledged that Stein's remarks provided the inspiration for the series. Stein received a quitclaim fee for the idea and otherwise was not involved in the production of "Amerika". Originally envisioned as a four-hour made-for-TV movie entitled "Topeka, Kansas, U.S.S.R.", the project soon was expanded into a miniseries. Plot. Major characters. The storyline of "Amerika" primarily follows three political leaders: Major female characters, in addition to Ballard, include Peter Bradford's wife, Amanda (played by Cindy Pickett), Devin Milford's ex-wife, Marion (played by Wendy Hughes), and most notably, Devin's sister Alethea  (played by Christine Lahti), who at the outset is prostituting herself to the local occupation leader. "Alethea is the center". noted Donald Wrye. "She is a metaphor for America – not just phonically – and it is she who discovers her moral core through(out) the course of the series." Lara Flynn Boyle played Bradford's teenage daughter, Jackie. The human drama of these characters intersects with the political intrigue of the Soviet plans for the breakup of the United States. Bradford, the pragmatist, clashes with Milford, the idealist; Bradford's wife is Milford's ex-girlfriend, who finds she still has feelings  for Milford upon his release from the prison camp; Denisov appoints Milford's ex-wife, a powerful magistrate (and General Samanov's mistress), to serve as Bradford's deputy and assistant in Heartland; and Kimberly's renewed sense of U.S. pride ultimately affects her relationship with Denisov. Backstory. Towards the end of the 1980s, as the decline of the Soviet Union puts it in danger of losing the Cold War, the Soviet leadership makes a desperate gamble to rearrange the global balance of power. Four large thermonuclear weapons are detonated in the ionosphere over the United States. The resulting electromagnetic  pulse (or EMP) destroys the nation's communications and computer systems, cripples the U.S. electrical grid, and affects any equipment that relies on computer technology, such as most late-model automobiles. With its ICBMs inoperative—and the National Command Authority unable to contact U.S. military forces abroad or their foreign allies in western Europe to launch a counterattack—the U.S. is forced to accept Soviet terms for surrender: unilateral disarmament, the end of the dollar as a reserve currency, and integration into the Soviet military/economic bloc. The United States quickly falls under Soviet military occupation under the command of  Russian General Petya Samanov, and the U.S. president and U.S. Congress become mere figureheads for their Soviet overseers. Communications between the administrative areas have been cut off, and the damage to the electrical grid caused by the EMP attack has never been fully repaired. The above events are implied in the miniseries, although never directly explained. The description is taken from the novelization of the miniseries, "Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit" by Brauna E. Pouns and Donald Wrye (Pocket Books, 1987), based on Wrye's screenplay. Geopolitical situation. In 1997, a decade after its defeat, the contiguous United  States is occupied by a United Nations peacekeeping force, the United Nations Special Service Unit (UNSSU), composed primarily of Eastern Bloc forces. The UNSSU in Milford is under a command of an officer from East Germany, Major Helmut Gurtman (played by Reiner Schöne). UNSSU troops periodically engage in destructive combined arms training exercises which are deliberately intimidating to the local population. Those Americans who engage in dissent are stripped of their privileges and sent to exile camps, where they are anathema to the Soviets and their fellow citizens. Association and communication with the exiles is prohibited and forbidden, although some  risk their own remaining freedoms by offering humanitarian aid. Production quotas have been imposed, and foodstuffs rationed, with the surplus being shipped to the Soviet Union. Against this background, Bradford ascends to the leadership as governor-general of Heartland. He acts the part of a collaborator, hoping to reform the Soviet occupation from within with ideals of the old United States. Milford is released from the prison camp, hoping to be reunited with his children and fight to end the occupation and restore the United States. Denisov hopes to "salvage as much as possible" of the old U.S., while realizing  that the U.S. essentially must cease to exist as a nation in order to appease the Soviet Union's leadership. Climax and resolution. The Soviet leaders of the occupation are faced with the dual problem of keeping the U.S. pacified and convincing the Politburo that their fears of a revitalized U.S. are unfounded because the country can no longer pose a threat. The Politburo is not convinced, and considers exploding nuclear weapons over several unnamed U.S. cities as a warning to the American people and to the world. Samanov and Denisov, both of whom want Soviet control of the United  States to be relatively humane, are horrified by this idea. At great personal risk, Samanov convinces the Soviet leadership to accept a compromise plan. The United States will be divided into "client states" such as Heartland. Additionally, members of the United States Congress will be executed if they refuse to dissolve the nation's government and disperse in peace. When Samanov asks the assembled Congress to disband the legislative body and dissolve the United States government, the members angrily refuse to do so. Samanov walks out of the House of Representatives chamber and his men begin firing into the crowd  of legislators. All members of Congress are killed in the attack, along with the speaker of the House of Representatives and the vice president. The United States Capitol building and the artwork in its rotunda are destroyed. After the act is carried out, Samanov surveys the damage and the dead bodies of the members of Congress. He then sits in the United States House of Representatives chamber and commits suicide. In the final episode of the miniseries, Heartland has seceded from the United States, with other regions to follow within the next few weeks. Instead, Heartland soldiers and local militia  attack the local UNSSU compound. There is talk of a "Second American Revolution" that could undermine the Soviet Union's plans to break up the United States. The miniseries ends on a downbeat note, Devin Milford is shown about to make a nationwide speech telling Americans to revolt against the Soviet occupation, however, Milford is shot to death. It is unclear if he managed to make a nationwide broadcast calling on Americans to resist the breakup of the United States, but based on the ending, it appears that the United States ceases to exist as a nation and is broken  up into several independent countries. The Divided States of America. In this fictional timeline, the U.S. Congress divided the United States into multiple "administrative areas" in 1988, one year after the communist takeover. These areas are intended to become polities modeled on the Soviet republics, joined together in a new North American Union. A map shown on screen reveals these administrative areas to be: National symbols. The flag of the occupation is the pale blue United Nations flag, with crossed U.S. and Soviet flags superimposed on the sides. The U.S. flag is shown without its stars, and this flag is  displayed during the "Lincoln Week" ceremonies. The standard U.S. flag is outlawed, although one scene shows a group of war veterans marching with the old U.S. flag upside down, this being a distress signal. The U.S. national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", also is outlawed, but this does not stop a group of citizens from singing it (haltingly at first) after the "Lincoln Week" parade. Abraham Lincoln is included with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in propaganda. One of the signature scenes in the film is a twenty-minute, dialogue-free depiction of the celebration of "Lincoln Week" (a holiday  replacing the Fourth of July), with both Lincoln and Lenin displayed on red banners that were most likely intended to be striking and startling to television audiences of the time. A new pledge of allegiance is given by "rehabilitated" political prisoners upon release from the U.S. gulags. While the prisoners are told that they are free to refuse to make this pledge, the circumstances under which it is administered suggest otherwise. The pledge states: Critical reception. "Amerika" received mixed reviews; the series created controversy with some. Certain critics and viewers felt it was too long and unrealistic, others argued that  it would be damaging to Soviet-American relations, and a spokesperson for the United Nations objected to it being portrayed as an occupying force under Soviet control. Some conservatives felt that Soviet brutality was greatly underplayed; conversely, a number of liberals dismissed the entire miniseries as right-wing paranoia. At various points, the program was scrapped, delayed, and rewritten. Prior to the show's airing, several left-wing magazines, including "The Nation", "The Progressive", "Tikkun" and "Mother Jones" carried articles strongly criticizing "Amerika". The American Friends Service Committee also protested against "Amerika". The automaker Chrysler dropped ads which were scheduled  to air during the program. For its part, the Soviet Union threatened to shut down the ABC News Moscow bureau, although this threat was not carried out and indeed seemed to strengthen ABC's resolve regarding the miniseries. "We're going to run that program come rain, blood, or horse manure", said ABC President John B. Sias, after the yet-to-be-aired "Amerika" had generated more controversy and viewer response than any other ABC program in history, including "The Day After". The Discovery Channel countered by running 66 hours of Soviet-produced television, some of it live, including news , music videos, and films. "Amerika" was preceded by an ABC special addressing the considerable controversy prior to its airing ("The Storm Over Amerika"), and was followed by an "ABC News Viewpoint" panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel, with Brandon Stoddard, Donald Wrye, and others addressing the issues along with questions and comments from a live studio audience in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After seeing the first episode and reading the shooting script, Tom Engelhardt stated that "Amerika" had "a plot line that makes suspension of disbelief into an act of grace." In its summary of the 1986–87 US television season, "TV Guide  called the miniseries arguably the most boring miniseries in a decade", adding that "ABC's "Amerika" tried to hold America hostage for seven tedious nights (and a stupefyingly dull hours) by conjuring up a fuzzy vision of a Communist occupation of the U.S." Social criticism and commentary. Although it aired only two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, "Amerika" implied that American apathy and an unwillingness to defend freedom on the part of many citizens made the Soviet takeover rather easy. This depiction was objected to by those who saw it  as needlessly provoking "overt jingoism," while labeling the miniseries as "a fourteen-hour public apology to the White House from ABC executives for provoking public concern with "The Day After"." The miniseries' depiction of the takeover of the USA by a communist authority mirrored occurrences in Nicaragua, helping to spur organizations such as the Freedom Federation into launching its own media campaignalong with William F. Buckley of the "National Review" and the "Wall Street Journal"which used the film "as a pretext to persuade the public that the United States needed to continue its support of right-wing governments in Central  America by aiding the Contras." Ratings. The first two nights of "Amerika" garnered big ratings, but audience numbers dropped thereafter, and the overall miniseries averaged a 19 rating and a 29 share of American television households, compared to a 46 rating/62 share for "The Day After". "It wasn't as big a hit as its supporters had hoped", said Ted Koppel, "but it wasn't a disaster, either." "Amerika" was the second-highest rated miniseries of the 1986–87 U.S. television season. Although a 35 share reportedly had been promised to advertisers, Stoddard was happy with the performance of "Amerika", claiming  that all or part of the miniseries had been watched by 100 million people – a ratings bonanza for ABC, then in third place among the three major networks. Availability. "Amerika" has not been shown on U.S. television since its original telecast on ABC. A VHS box set of the miniseries was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1995, but no official DVD release is available. Portions of the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris were released on CD by Prometheus Records in 2004 (in a limited edition of 3,000 copies). The novelization is widely available from used-book sellers and online auction  sites. The miniseries itself can be found pirated on YouTube. Parodies. In February 1987, the miniseries was parodied on the NBC show "Saturday Night Live" as "Amerida", in which a debt-ridden United States is mortgaged to Canada and subsequently repossessed. It posited Wayne Gretzky as the prime minister of Amerida. The U.S. protagonist (played by Canadian actor Phil Hartman) longs for a country "where you don't have money that's all the colours of the rainbow" and "you can spell words like colour and flavour without a 'u'." To calm him down, his wife makes the offer of  a beer: "How about a Labatt's, eh?" The flag of "Amerida" was the U.S. flag with the stars replaced by a white maple leaf. The satirical Canadian radio program "Double Exposure" parodied the series in a sketch called "Kanada with a K", in which "Joe Klark with a K" rescues the nation from "Comrade Ed".