A flaky premise

There will have been some wry chuckling this week among the scientific community over the re-runs of the sci-fi series V from 1984.

An incoming force of apparently friendly aliens persuades governments to round up all the scientists, who would otherwise be the first to discover that they are actually carnivorous reptiles. The aliens plant fake evidence that the scientists have been suppressing research findings that include innovative cures for cancer. So far so plausible, but credibility breaks down hopelessly when a government apparatchik explains it has been in the scientists' interests to conceal these breakthroughs, since there is a lot of money to be made from research grants.