V: The Complete Series (DVD)

It should be noted that although this is called "The Complete Series," it does not include the miniseries. You need to buy those separately. Also, the picture quality in this set isn't great. It looks like they just ripped the old VHS videos. But I'm still giving it five stars because it's such a great show. At its best, it's a frightening warning about the danger of fascism in America, the power of the media, and the fragility of our natural resources. At its worst, it's the most freaking entertaining TV series I've ever seen.

For the uninitiated, "V" followed on the heels of "V: The Mini-Series" and "V: The Final Battle", two NBC movies-of-the-week that dramatized a pre-"Independence Day" battle between humans and aliens for ownership of the Earth. The aliens, initially presenting themselves as friends, soon revealed that they were lizard people wearing human masks, and that they were fond of eating things like mice, hamsters, and.... well, people.The rag-tag band of human freedom fighters eventually banish the "Visitors" through the deployment of "Red Dust", a bacterial agent that makes the aliens die horrible deaths but luckily not the humans."V" the tv show begins a year after the "red dust" business, when the humans discover that not only have the aliens been biding their time, hanging our behind the moon, but also that the red dust is ineffective in any locale that doesn't have regular freezes. Like Brazil, Florida and Southern California. Los Angeles is somehow set up as an "open city" where the humans and aliens can peacefully co-exist, while the aliens presumably go about their business of eating everyone else on the planet.The special effects, which were state-of-the-art in the movies, have devolved to television standards. Which means they rely on lots of car chases, motorcycle chases, horse chases and anything else they can do to avoid having to use footage of space-ships, which they only have two shots of which they use over and over. Once in a while they'll show an alien eating a mouse, which involves having the alien pick up a mouse, walk toward the camera so his hands can't be seen, whereupon the live mouse is replaced with white chocolate or marzipan or something that the actor can pop into their mouth.The show stars Faye Grant as Dr. Julie McCoy. Her name's not really "McCoy", but I can't remember what it really is so I said "McCoy". She's secretly working on creating new red dust with Nathan Bates, CEO of Science Frontiers, who is buddying up with Diana, the leader of the aliens. In real life, Grant is married to the dreamy Stephen Collins. She would have been better off staying home to tend to her husband, rather than be involved in this mess.Jane Badler as Diana, and June Chadwick as Lydia, do their best impressions of Alexis and Krystal Carrington, only with more hair and not as much talent. (And saying someone has less talent than Linda Evans is REALLY saying something.) Why Diana doesn't kill and eat Lydia I'll never understand, since Lydia is apparently an underling and is always catty and quarrelsome.A pre-"Beastmaster" Marc Singer is Mike Donavan, who proudly announces in the first episode that he's a "newsman". His face always looks like he's suffering extreme lower back pain, and if you've seen a recent picture of him you'll know that all that grimacing didn't do his face any favors. Sometimes Donavan is looking for his teenage son who's been brainwashed by the aliens, but the mention of the son dries up after a while, much like older brother Chuck on "Happy Days".Michael Ironside is Ham Tyler, some sort of professional freedom fighter. Let me repeat that his name is Ham. For some reason he calls Donavan "Gooder"...I'm really not sure why, but I imagine it must have gone something like this:Ham: "I'm good."Donavan: "Yeah, well I'm gooder."Ham: "Hmm, I think I'll call you Gooder."In fact, I'm really not sure of ANY of Ham's thoughts or motivations, because he mumbles all of his dialogue so low in his voice that I have to turn up the volume whenever he appears just to be sure he's speaking. Apparently, he and Gooder are involved in some sort of competition to see who can wear the tightest jeans. Gooder's are tighter, but Ham has more to show for his efforts (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not gay or female), which may be why he was scuttled off the show mid-way through the season.Jennifer Cooke is Elizabeth the "Star Child", the product of a human-alien tryst. In the first episode she was the little girl from "Poltergeist", then she went into a cocoon that was protected by rattlesnakes, then she emerged as a lovely young woman with a closet full of Laura Ashley. And she can move things with her mind. And play piano. And Diana's always looking for her. And she likes to flirt with Kyle, the "rebellious but loveable" male ingénue whose only other purpose in the show is to wear tight jeans, take his shirt off and ride motorcycles. Oh, and flirt with Robin, who is ELIZABETH'S MOTHER.A pre-"Freddy Krueger" Robert Englund is Willie, and alien who's decided to help the humans out not by providing detailed intelligence, but by TENDING BAR. His most endearing quality is that he mixes up English words, for example, he may say "Glad to feet you", when he means "Glad to meet you". Isn't that cute? Except that he does it, like, every third word, even though EVERY OTHER ALIEN ON THE PLANET CAN SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH.In a word, this series is so deliciously bad that EVERYONE MUST OWN IT.

Created by Kenneth Johnson (CBS's The Incredible Hulk) "V: The Series" was the resulting spinoff of the highly successful TV miniseries V and V: The Final Battle. Personally, I thought (at the time) the franchise was tampering with success by advancing the story with a weekly TV series, given the possibility of decline in level of quality and the inevitable cost issues that came with producing a weekly sci-fi series. But then V was never really about the effects but more about the human struggle, the right to survive against a seemingly unstoppable foe - the mysterious Visitors. And the series, for the most part, continued the struggle fairly well.The series starts off strong by picking up exactly where V: The Final Battle left off with "Liberation Day" (where Visitors leader Diana escapes from capture and Starchild Elizabeth undergoes a transformation), then suffers slightly in tone after "The Betrayal" (where several strong characters exit the show) and sadly ends on a solid yet lackluster note with "The Return". Regardless, V: The Series remains just as entertaining today as it did back in the '80s thanks mostly to the great cast, old and new. Props to Warner Home Video for restoring "Breakout" back to its intended 3rd episode position between "Dreadnought" and "The Deception". Originally, the episode was pulled because it was considered too violent for its predominantly younger audience.V - The Complete Series is a 3-disc (897 min.) set featuring all 19 episodes; Full Frame (1.33:1) video; 1.0 English mono audio; English, French, Spanish subtitles; Closed Captioning. The discs are housed in a digi-pak case similar to V: The Final Battle. The menus are static "red dust" screens (cool and inspired) featuring one cast member per screen and a list of options which include a "play all" feature. Aside from a few grainy matte/effects shots that pop up here and there, the picture and sound are fairly clean. Night-time scenes look especially good. Episodes include: Liberation Day (10/26/84), Dreadnought (11/2/84), Breakout (5/24/85), The Deception (11/9/84), The Sanction (11/16/84), Visitors' Choice (11/23/84), The Overlord (11/30/84), The Dissident (12/14/84), Reflections in Terror (12/21/84), The Conversion (1/4/85), The Hero (1/11/85), The Betrayal (1/18/85), The Rescue (2/2/85), The Champion ((2/8/85), The Wildcats (2/15/85), The Littlest Dragon (2/22/85), War of Illusions (3/8/85), Secret Underground (3/15/85), The Return (3/22/85).

It was good but not as good when I saw it the first time - really dated