Resistance Leader
Mike Donovan was a news cameraman at the time of the First Invasion. He later became one of the leaders of the Visitor Resistance.
Biography[]
The son of Eleanor Dupres, ex-husband of Marjorie Donovan and father of Sean, Michael Donovan was a news cameraman, who was partnered with Tony Leonetti to document stories around the globe for television news.
Mike first witnessed a Visitor mothership arriving while in El Salvador (where he learnt the basic rules of being a freedom fighter from local rebels) when he and Tony were making a news report about the local military conflict, during which they got almost killed.
The two teamed together again and joined other journalists on the roof of the United Nations headquarters. It was there that Mike met his old friend Kristine Walsh. After a small meeting between the Visitors Supreme Commander and the UN Secretary-General, Mike and others were invited for a small tour aboard the New York City Mothership. Mike initially thought the Visitors were friendly, but when Tony pointed out suspicious activity among high-ranking scientists (at a time scientists were becoming increasingly ostracized), Mike and Tony attempted again to sneak aboard the L.A. Mothership to discover the truth. Unfortunately, they were ambushed on the landing platform and were separated.
Once aboard the mothership, Donovan hid and began filming. His first footage was of the Visitor workers venting out the surface-manufactured chemical compound into Earth's atmosphere and complaining about what a wasteful duty it was. Mike stole into a nearby ventilation cover that led to crew cabins. In the first one, he spotted Diana and Steven talking about a "conversion" process of Diana's. As they talk, Mike is horrified to see Steven swallow a live mouse and Diana swallow a whole live guinea pig, her jaw stretching wide and her throat bulging as the animal went down her gullet. Donovan continues through the duct and finds another Visitor removing what appear to be fake human eyes. When the alien turns around, we see that he has red, reptilian eyes. The Visitor yanks Donovan from his hiding spot and attacks him, hissing and flicking a snake-like tongue. Donovan fights back, but the alien is much stronger. They struggle a bit more and Donovan is able to claw at the alien's face. Its "skin" peels off and reveals scaled, reptilian skin, a crested head and horns. Donovan is only able to escape when he bats the alien in the head with his camera. Alarms sound as Mike makes it back to the launching bay, steals aboard another surface-bound ship and escape. When he gets his recording back to the TV station, the producers want to go live immediately but their network and other connections are seized by the Visitors, who report that violence against them has occurred, mainly the work of scientist-led terrorists. Tony gets Mike a copy of the tape and Mike escapes just as visitor shock troopers burst in looking for him.
Lieutenant Martin, a Visitor whom Mike had befriended, was secretly the leader of the Fifth Column - a Visitor movement dedicated to peace among their race. He freed Mike and revealed that Tony had been killed as the result of Diana's sadistic experiments. Martin then helped Mike, Robin Maxwell, and Sancho Gomez escape in a shuttle back to Earth.
Upon his return to Earth, Mike joined the Resistance led by Juliet Parrish, in order to stop the Visitors' plans. Mike also became one of the Resistance leaders and more valuable members, in part due to the freedom fighting methods that he learned in El Salvador. (V: The Original Miniseries)
Mike once again infiltrated the LA mothership and, using a specialized key he'd found, entered a large chamber with huge tanks. Using a nearby valve, Mike discovered the tanks were filled with freshwater. He quickly finds Martin and demands answers. Martin explains that water is the most valuable substance the Visitors know. It is necessary to power the fusion drives of their vehicles. The Visitors' mysterious leader wants all of it, leaving Earth as a desolate place. The plain will take as long as a generation. When Mike suggests that Earth would have shared it, Martin affirms that his leader wants it all. Martin also shows Mike the second part of the plan: another huge chamber has thousands of pods with human beings stored in a type of hibernation. Some of them will be employed as soldiers in the Visitors' armies to war against a foe that had defeated them previously. The rest, and vast majority, will serve as a live source of food. Horrified, Mike reports back to the Resistance. Now realizing that Earth will be destroyed and the human race will be exterminated, the Resistance realizes they must begin guerrilla operations to survive.
Mike also developed a romantic relationship with Julie and a crude friendship with a gruff and experienced Resistance member named Ham Tyler (who gave him the nickname "Gooder" -short for "Do-gooder"- for his unending help to others despite risks to his life). When the time came to decide whether or not to use the newly-created Red Dust on the Visitors, Mike vouched for it and was supported by Elias Taylor and several other key members of the Resistance leadership.
He and Martin, who had now mobilized his movement to openly help the Resistance, led the attack on the L.A. Mothership and stopped the self-destruct, intended to destroy the Earth. He then took the ship, now under Resistance control, back to Earth victorious. (V: The Final Battle)
One year after the Final Battle, Mike returned to his job as a cameraman (this time with Martin as his sound operator), and was poised to become a full-time anchorman, but his relationship with Julie had ended. However, he now had a world-wide reputation of a freedom fighter and "Hero of the Resistance".
During the Second Invasion, Mike and Tyler joined up with Resistance, now revived by Julie Parrish, and resumed the war against the Visitors across the United States.
When Diana was supposedly "assassinated" by an agent of Ham Tyler, Mike and Martin decided to pursue and corner her at Tyler's hideout. While watching the place, Martin knocked Mike out and attempted to kill Diana himself. However, he failed and died due to a lack of pills that protected him from the Red Dust virus. Martin managed to warn Mike of Diana's plan to re-invade the Earth before dying in his arms.
Later, Mike joined up with Tyler to hunt down and kill Diana, but failed to stop her from escaping the planet and returning to the Visitor fleet. Donovan caught up with Diana at the southwest tracking station. Realizing that Diana was already calling the second orbital fleet, he planned to keep Diana Earth-bound long enough for the Red Dust to take effect. When Mike yelled that she didn't have much time, Diana noticed her timer had nearly run out and, bailing out of a short gunfight, headed for the rooftop.
Donovan beat her there and she shot at him. Seeing the Visitor shuttle approaching, Mike realized he had to act quickly. Diana made a run for it as he tried to stop her, hitting her in the chest and twice in the back before she escaped. Once inside the shuttle, Diana pulled a bullet shell fragment from her uniform, observing "What a primitive planet." ("Liberation Day")
Mike became more independent when Tyler left for Chicago. He also formed a friendship with Philip, Martin's twin brother and new leader of the Fifth Column. Mike became the primary leader of many Resistance cells, going across the world to fight the Visitor armies, becoming a symbol of hope to the human race and even gaining the grudging respect of the Visitors themselves, who made him into the Most Wanted Man on Earth.
Behind the Scenes[]
- Along with Diana and Willie, Donovan is one of only three characters to appear in V: The Original Miniseries, V: The Final Battle and all 19 episodes of V: The Series. Furthermore, he is the only human character to do so.
- Donovan and Kristine Walsh both served as inspirations for the character Chad Decker in the re-imagined V series.
- Marc Singer would later play Lars Tremont in "Mother's Day", the final episode of the re-imagined V series. Along with Jane Badler, he is one of only two actors to appear in both the original and re-imagined versions of V.
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The Main Characters |
Diana ·
Lydia ·
Elizabeth Maxwell ·
Willie ·
Juliet Parrish ·
Ham Tyler ·
Mike Donovan ·
Nathan Bates ·
Robin Maxwell ·
Elias Taylor ·
Kyle Bates |