Red Scare

Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine for February of 1987 -- and a 14½ -hour-long ABC miniseries called Amerika.

Anybody out there remember it?

For those who don't, Amerika was a highly controversial series that depicted an alternate reality in which the Soviet Union had, in a relatively bloodless transition, invaded and occupied the United States. ABC caught major flack for being willing to air the thing: before it even began, the miniseries was roundly condemned by those who thought that it would only further inflame tensions between the U.S. and Russia, with the Kremlin protesting the show's portrayal of Soviets as unnecessarily hostile and the United Nations complaining that it was cast as a compliant partner in the script's fictitious puppet government.

Bottom line, though: Despite being severely flawed, Amerika, overall, was daring, excellent television -- and maybe it's a testament to its impact that even in an age of exponentially increasing cable and satellite channels and on-demand digital video services it has never been seen on broadcast TV since its initial airing.

Not once.

It doesn't even exist in an official capacity on DVD.

What's interesting is that Amerika focused not on the initial conquest of the United States; it wasn't Red Dawn. In fact, there was very little action to speak of. Instead, it took place ten years after the attack which left the U.S. infrastructure decimated and the country under Soviet control. The America of the series had long since been broken and defeated and existed in its current state only as a place of sad, silent desperation -- a colorless corpse, purged years previously of any will to fight back. Those who would rebel against the firmly entrenched government had already been killed, jailed or "re-educated" and the country itself stood on the verge of being divided into 12 new districts -- the final crushing blow that would end once and for all the dream that had been America.

So why is this on my mind right now?

Oh, I don't know.

MSNBC: Russian Analyst Predicts U.S. Will Split Apart by 2010/1.3.09