Customer Reviews

V: The Complete Series

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

In 1985, I didn't have a VCR. I loved "V" in 1983 and enjoyed "V The Final Battle" in 1984. I was really happy to hear that the struggles of Mike Donovan and the rest of the resistance were coming back as a series. At the time I worked at a local grocery store and, as fate would have it, I was usually scheduled when V the series was on. As a result I only caught a few episodes here and there when I had a day off. It was not as good as the two mini series but I thought it was entertaining. After a mere 19 episodes the show was cancelled and V was gone forever.

Since that time, I ran across friends who didn't like the series. Whenever I found articles about "V", the series follow up was always dismissed as crass exploitation of the franchise. Last week, WB released the series (possibly to test the wind for a new mini series) on DVD for the first time. Finally, after nearly two decades (can it be that long?) I have been able to finally discover what the series was all about. Here are my impressions:

There will be many SPOILERS so please do not read further if you want to be surprised.

1. This series isn't bad. It is not as good as the two mini-series but it is entertaing in its own right. I also think that this show was innovative in the field of TV Science Fiction. Prior to "V", Science Fiction was very episodic. Star Trek, Space: 1999, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Buck Rogers and to a certain extent, Battlestar Galactica all told self contained stories. The plot was resolved by the end of the hour. "V" The series was different in this respect. It had story arcs and continuing plot threads. Every episode ended in a cliff-hanger and it left you wanting more. In this aspect, it has a modern flavor. Like Babylon 5, StarGate SG 1 and Season 3 Enterprise, it tells a big story over a run of several episodes.

2. People could die on "V". For most TV shows, you know that the heroes will make it in the end. Not on "V". Over the 19 episodes, long-standing characters like Dr. Maxwell and Elias Taylor buy the farm surprisingly abruptly. This raised the stakes dramatically and kept the viewer involved in the narrative.

3. The cast was great. Marc Singer was perfectly cast as heroic Mike Donovan. Micheal Ironside ruled as perfect tough guy Ham. Jane Badler was very memorable as Uber-B**ch, Diana. June Chadwick was suitably catty as Diana'a rival Lydia. Duncan Rehgar was fantastic as Charles, the leader's envoy. His fight with Donovan in "The Hero" is classic. He was a great villain and it is a great shock when he is killed after a mere 4 episodes.

4. There is a sense that this is merely a peek at a global war with the Visitors. For the first 12 episodes or so, The Freedom Network newscaster, Howard K. Smith ( A real journalist by the way) reads the headlines on the state of the war. We learn that the Visitors are sweeping through Spain and so forth. This makes us understand that The resistance in LA is only one story in this global conflict. It really gives the story a certain gravitas.

5. The stories are often action adventure tales that are on par with anything that was on the air in the mid 1980s. Unfortunately, the sociological aspects that made the first mini series so memorable are ignored completely. The show, evan though it is watered down, is entertaining in its own right.

There are some things that are unfortunatle about this show:

1. All the SFX are recycled from the two mini series. (I think one new shot was filmed for "The Dreadknot.") Even entire sequences are lifted from the minis. Remember when Donovan is on horseback and is being chased by a skyfighter? Well, the entire sequesce appears again in "The Champion." After a while, it becomes really grating to see the same shots over and over. I know that SFX on TV was really expensive back then but WB should have spent some money on new shots.

2. As the series goes on, it is clear that there was less and less money bugeted for each episode. The first episode, "Liberation Day" has an outdoor crowd scene with hundreds of extras. By the last episode, we only have the main characters walking around on the standing sets. By the end, the production valules of the show looked rather thread bare.

3. The producers decided to exploit the alien lizards by showing them without their Human masks. This was a mistake. The people who created the lizard makeups were not as artful as John Chambers. As a result the lizard appliances were very stiff and immoble. By showing the Lizards in their natural state too often, it undermined their credibility as a frightening threat. The full face lizards were about as scary and convincing as a halloween slip on mask. It became a bit silly.

4. I hate cliffhangers that are unresolved. I can't understand why they would create a cliffhanger for a show that was doing poorly in the ratings. It is really unfair to viewers who watched every episode.

5. The Star Child. One of the big weaknesses of "The Final Battle" was the ending where Elizabeth gets all glowy like Decker in Star Trek the Motion Picture. Elizabeth uses some kind of super powers that come out of nowhere and saves the day. In the series, the Star Child goes through some type of metamorphosis and comes out of a cacoon as a 17 year old love interest. Elizabeth's powers become a crutch that the writers could use to solve any problems that face the main characters. This undermines the drama of the series and cheapens the series. The powers were kind of kooky. The Star Child could levitate objects and people, mimic voices, had a photographic memory, raise the dead etc. She could do whatever the plot required. It was strange that they spent so much time on her character. I guess, as a writer with a deadline, she was really handy to have around.

Well, thats my take on the series. I reccomend that if you like V, chances are you will like the series. It is a more cartoony version of Kenneth Johnson's creation but is worthy as entertainment and a nostalgic trip back to the 80s.

V: The Series was a very odd television show. On one hand, The Final Battle ended and it was a very satisfying end to the 10 hour miniseries. But this weekly series did actually made some interesting points to the ongoing story but it was soon abandoned as well as most of the originally cohesive cast.

The series starts out about a year later and we soon see that Diana and the fleet wants revenge over the red dust. As we soon find out, the dust is harmful to people and really can't be used anymore and the visitors patiently wait for the dusts effects to cease. This sets up many good episodes about the visitors regaining control. However, gone is the Nazi allegory and it therefore goes for power and corruption plots all the while the resistance is back to fight the Visitor's once again.

I found myself really enjoying the first several episodes. The acting was solid, Diana was as nasty as ever and they took chances and killed off regulars and that added to the dramatic impact. The Nathan Bates subplots were actually interesting and you really began to hate Mr. Chang. Michael Ironside was also very fun to watch. And the "soap opera" of "Charles and Diana" was also very entertaining.

However, as it went on toward midseason, the series started falling apart by the seams. The idea of the resistance always winning and episodes ending with showing Diana dejected began to run thin. They just beat us over the head with Willy and his butchering of the English language, which is a shame, because he was such a charming character and performed well. The special effects were reused over and over again. The campiness factor of eating rodents was way over done and all originality that they could have tried for just went away.

Then, when we get the new credit sequence, the show pretty much became a chore to sit through. Gone are some of the better and well acted characters. And the plots became paper thin and were filled with "filler" scenes where you just feel they were making it up as they went along. Add in "romantic flashback" scenes, illogical situations, cheesy actors making guest appearances and you can see that because of the daring chances they took with the series at the first, they were left with pretty much nothing. The acting also suffered, especially Faye Grant, in which she gave very uneven performances toward the end, especially in the dreadful episode "The Secret Underground". That episode was the worst in the entire run. The show ended with the Episode "The Return" and it actually felt like it would redeem itself but by then, it was too late. There was no saving "V."

This DVD collection of V: The Series is no frills. They put episodes on both sides of the DVD, making this a 3 DVD collection. Box is nice looking with good shots of some of the cast but nothing extra comes with it. The picture and sound quality of this collection is about as good as you would expect from an early 80's show.

I had a good time with this series and it was fun to see how it played out up to the unresolved cliffhanger. If you are a V fan, this is still a must have.

For those of us who were there, the 1983 original "V" minseries (and its sequel the following year) were Event Television. The weekly series that followed wasn't well-received by comparison. I'm not sure why that is, as it was a reasonably well-made, action-packed continuation of the story.

The first dozen or so episodes were the best, as Marc Singer's Mike Donovan looked for his son while trying to hold together the rag-tag band of resistance fighters. Along with Faye Grant as Juliet Parish and the ever-imposing Michael Ironside as Ham Tyler, Singer helped carry the episodes. But around episode 12 (it's been awhile, so forgive me if I'm off by one or so) about the half the cast was written out, including Ironside. The remaining episodes degenerated in quality, but the final cliffhanger (the NEVER RESOLVED cliffhanger) was very exciting.

"V" originally conceived as a WWII allegory; the weekly show, while perhaps omitting some of the more intellectual and philosophical beats, still stands up as a well-made bit of action/sci-fi. Give it another chance, I think you'll find it wasn't nearly as bad as its detractors suggest.

I had to own this. It was awful, this series, but it was a part of my childhood, and a follow up to the excellent two-part miniseries and the mediocre The Final Battle. But, as always, these reviews will be read, mostly, by folks who already have seen the series and formed their own opinions. So I have a technical warning to add to the mix.

The original two-part miniseries and The Final Battle were transferred from the original 35mm film for the new DVD releases. This contributed to their excellent picture quality. Even 'Knight Rider,' which was two-and-a-half years older, was transferred, in all its 35mm glory, directly to the master digital medium prior to making its way to DVD.

Not so with V: The Series. The picture quality's really not great. Apparently the DVD authors were unable (or too lazy) to find the original 35mm film stock, and elected to transfer from the original analogue videotape to the DVD master. So you get a picture confined by the technical limitations of 1984 broadcast technology. For example, composite video. Which means that your juicy S-Video or Y, Cr, Cb hookup to your video monitor doesn't help you - you WILL be stuck with the artefacts inherent in composite video, in the same way you would have been with LaserDisc.

To drive the point home, the DVDs have the old FBI warning slide at the end of the episodes. Yes, the very same FBI warning you'll see on a 1990 LaserDisc - if you can actually see it through the analogue composite video haze.

So, beware - no improvements have been made to the quality of this series in order to bring it to DVD. You'll get it exactly as you did 20 years ago (has it been that long???).

Dpcole7 from Oak Park Heights, MN wrote that there were two episodes that should have been included in the 19-episode set (effectively making it a 21 episode set.) I wanted to take this opprotunity to state that s/he was misinformed.

"Breakout" is indeed an alternate episode although no alternate cuts of "Breakout" apart from the one included in this set exist. "Breakout" features a different take on how two characters meet that is contradicted by the following episode. This is because "Breakout" was not part of the original 18 episode run on NBC (and is in fact counted as episode 19 on this DVD set and is placed on the last disc); the network considered the episode too violent but eventually aired it while "V: The Series" was in repeats, hence the existence of Dpcole7's friend's VHS. Viewers may want to watch this where it was originally produced (I believe that was episode 3), but keep in mind it contains some alternate takes on how certain characters meet for the first time and interact.

"The Attack" was never filmed. The script was written and has circulated for years at sci-fi conventions and online but the television series was cancelled before the episode could be filmed.

This dvd set has the worst quality I've ever seen! I give the "V" series five stars, but not even one star to the quality of these DVDs. To the producers of this dvd set...what happened to the quality? I've seen the dvd sets "V:The Original Series", and "V:The Final Battle" , and I was very impressed with the quality on those dvd sets. They were the best DVDs I've ever seen, the picture quality and sound were excellent, and the widescreen edition added total professionalism. However, on V:The complete series, the producers didn't bother to do a digital transfer into these DVDs, they are even worst than vhs! The question is WHY??? WHY??? WHY??? It is an insult to the public to release such incredible tv series with such bad quality, specially on dvd!!! Warner Home Video just wants to cash in with this dvd set with very low quality, which means minimal costs. I'm so disappointed with Warner Home Video about this very low quality release. The picture quality is horrible, it looks like if you were watching this dvd set in a 1920's movie theater with old video tape (with a lot of "grain" and lines), the sound is horrible also. Not even my high quality dvd player with progressive scan can mask the bad picture quality of this dvd set!!! Also, why they didn't release this dvd set on widescreen format like the first two dvd releases?

Being a child of the 80's, and that doesn't mean I was born in that time it means I GREW UP in it (born 1973), meaning I was conscience of what was going on around me, and old enough to retain all the cultural stimulus it had to offer in TV, Music, Movies and Trends. One of the most memorable events was watching V, from its first miniseries, to the final battle to the short lived series I was a serious fan. From then until now I list it in my top 10 favorite TV shows of all time. My sister and I would play V, I would always be the Star child, and she would be Diana, and I once even had a cat with a skin problem who I named Diana because it was a bit scaly.

The Miniseries and The Final battle were excellent pieces of TV, although they are admittedly cheesy at times, and to our eyes now they seem so B-movie under budget effects, those shows still work for us just as much as they did back then. The Series that followed unfortunately contained little of the excitement and originality that the others do.

There are many problems in this series, too many to ignore.

1) They show the same footage over and over again, as if we cannot recognize that they have used it before. The flying of the skyfighters over the city or country shooting at each other was from the other series, and so was Mike on horseback, they also showed the same footage of the visitors checking out the same van twice on two different episodes. The inside shots of the Mothership, as well as the shuttles going in or out is all recycled and quite frankly it ruins the momentum of the show.

2) The visitors eating habits, okay they eat meat, they are here to eat us right? But every Visitor party on the mother ship was a buffet of parakeets, mice, and spiders where was the human steaks? We get that they like mice, yet they had to show the same Gag over and over again "mouse being lifted up, shoot away, mouse in mouth, omg they are eating mice" whatever. In one shot, they show a bowl of worms and the one on top is a freaking gummi worm for the actor to eat. Yes it's that obvious.

3) In Nathan Bates Office he has a "plasma ball" the kind you buy at Spencer's in the mall, its plainly displayed as if to say "look I am high tech" Later, the ball shows up on the Mother Ship and it is used as a communication device to speak to the leader, they even use Star Trek sound effects for it. No lie. Along those same lines, Nathan Bates office doubles as a "computer lab" in one episode.

4) A microphone is clear as day when Elizabeth, Phillip, Willie, Mike and Julie are trying to get through a door on the last episode, right before the black light effect it's in the upper left hand corner. Also when there is an explosion on the mother ship behind a door, you can see someone spraying smoke up and down to create the effect.

5) Mike Donovan has countless "unnecessary" stunts like: running then rolling on the ground, jumping on top of cars and sliding, rolling than shooting. At one point in the end him and Julie and Kyle and Willie are running from Lt. James, the rest of them are behind a parked car, Mike runs towards them.....and jumps on the hood sliding into place, the shot pans out and there is no apparent reasoning for him to have just done that, you really want Kyle to say "okay Donovan that was completely unnecessary"

6) The resistance has serious problems killing the visitors in close combat, yet they killed thousands with the Red Dust

7) The Reverb effect for the visitors voice is gone entirely, that was an important part of the original series, it set them apart from us, was it just too expensive?

8) The "regulars" drop like flies. Elias, Robin, even Julie and Ham went on hiatus for many episodes. We get Lydia, and Kyle, and Nathan, and Elizabeth in their place and its just not the same. Ham isn't even in the final, which sucked. It seemed to me that they took these amazing characters and just discarded them like trash.

9) Donovan has a kid, Shawn; he was an awesome character in the original series and in the final battle. He gets converted by Diana and suddenly is this arrogant little visitor lover who apparently we as an audience aren't supposed to care about. Donovan didn't, he didn't even attempt to rescue him after the initial episode with Shawn betraying him. Diana didn't use Shawn to her advantage either. Mike doesn't even ask Phillip to Get Shawn out of there! And in the End when they all go to the mother ship, Mike never even looks for his own son!! Maybe it was his tight jeans; they cut off all the circulation to his brain.

10) Elizabeth was a great idea, poorly executed and misused. The Star Child, who had all these powers and was so important, becomes this Fairy pink sexpot in the end and we don't even get to see the freaking leader? Huge Letdown.

Even with the countless mistakes, and there are a TON more, I still love this series. Why? Because it's V. Because it's comforting, and familiar and its part of my childhood (back then I didn't notice its faux pas) I heard they are making a new one, supposed to come out this year and Mike, Julie, and Diana's characters are signed on to come back so far. I hope so, it would be nice to get some closure.

I was in grade school when the "V" miniseries hit the airwaves. Like most all of my schoolmates, I was completely hooked. My brothers and I taped both "V" miniseries and watched them over and over again.

Needless to say, we were ecstatic when NBC announced they were producing a "V" television series. We tuned in eagerly every week to catch the latest episode. But even as a child, I realized that it was different from the much beloved miniseries. For one thing, it looked and felt...cheaper. The cool alien reverb was missing. Both the humans and the Visitors seemed to acquire a huge case of Stupid Syndrome in between the "Final Battle" and the miniseries (why didn't the humans stock up on laser guns from the stolen mothership? Now I know it was because of the low budget). And what happened to the fabled LA Resistance? It was reduced to FIVE people by the end of the series (couldn't afford extras to beef it up a bit?) I also noticed the same footage from the two miniseries used over and over again, especially the flying shuttles. Mind you, my young mind wasn't nearly as picky back then as it was today, but I was still quite appalled at the cheap shortcuts the series made, and the more-than-lackluster storylines.

I bought the DVDs twenty-two years later, mainly out of curiousity and nostalgia's sake. And boy...is it as bad as I remember. I was shouting at Donovan to "Just shoot her already!" while he was chasing Diana on foot in the first episode. Of course if he killed her, that would've destroyed the need for a series, but I digress. I cringed at how the Visitors couldn't peg a target less than ten feet away; Donovan and company should've gotten killed several times over. They made the "Star Wars" stormtroopers look like expert marksmen. Oh yeah...the rehashed flying shuttle footage. They used that SAME bit of footage TWICE over the course of the first two episodes. And they used practically the entire horseback chase footage from "The Final Battle" in an episode.

Did I mention how stupid the Visitors and the humans became? Shoot...Planet Earth deserved to be conquered just from the sheer stupidity of its inhabitants. Too bad the conquerors were just as daft. No wonder Kenneth Johnson (the producer of both miniseries) seemed to have distanced himself from this travesty.

On to the DVDs themselves: Even THEY are the epitomy of "cheap". Three doubled-sided DVDs? You can buy a 25-pack of blank DVDs for less than $10 nowadays. Absolutely NO special features? Come on, they couldn't even manage to throw in an interview or two from the cast? Most of them seemed to have been pretty hard up for an acting job since then, and probably would've welcomed the extra paycheck. Mind you, ~$35 for an entire television series is downright cheap (I lost track of how much money I spent on the entire ST:DS9 series)...but still, you would think they would put a little extra *something* into the mix.

Still an interesting trip down memory lane, and good for a laugh or two, but not much else. Two and a half stars out of five, and I'm not feeling very charitable today, so I'm rounding it down to two.

As a fan of the "Original Miniseries" & the sub-par "Final Battle", I decided to get "The Series" after a long hesitation, like many I had grew up with this show in the 80's, & had a hard time remembering the "Series", so I got it recently & I don't feel like I wasted my money on it, but I was a bit disappointed at the direction it took, the 1st episode "Liberation Day" picks up where the "Final Battle" left off, where Donovan manages to capture Diana who had escaped at the end of the "Final Battle" & we see the survivors of the "Final Battle", Donovan, Julie, Elias, Ham Tyler, Robin & Robert Maxwell, & friendly visitors Martin & Willie trying to live a normal life again a year later, Donovan & Martin covering news stories, Julie resuming her science education, Ham once again a mercenary for hire, & Elias & Willie owning a resturant, but it is short lived once Diana escapes custody & makes her way to a satellite station & signals more visitors, it is here that Diana discovers the rest dust is only active for so long & once again the visitors try to regain control of Earth, this show had promise at first, & the first few episodes are on par with the two miniseries, Nathan & Kyle Bates are two new interesting characters & Nathan is a believable character as a Donald Trump clone who owns "Science Frontiers" a corporate company, who keeps Diana at bay,(imagine that), & Kyle, his rebellious son who joins the resistance, we are also introduced to visitor Lydia, who replaces the doomed Pamela from the "Final Battle" as Diana's catfighting rival & Charles who is by far one of the more charismatic characters ever to appear on "V", but by the 12th episode the magic is gone & I mean gone!!, to start with, they kill off Martin & Robert Maxwell in the beginning, which didn't bother me, what bothered me was how the production value diminished with each episode, by the 12th one, Elias, Nathan Bates, his japanese henchman, & Charles are killed off, Ham Tyler & Robin are written out, & the Science Frontiers subplot is gone, & L.A. seems to shrink suddnely, & by episode 13, we are left with Donovan, Julie, Willie, Kyle, & Starchild Elizabeth who has morphed into a hot woman for some time, who now rides around like the "A Team" fighting visitors in what looks like Hazzard county from "Dukes of Hazzard" which also was a Warner Bros. production the same as "V" & had ended its run about this same time, it is as if Warner Bros. decided to use the "Dukes" sets to SAVE MONEY!!! & it really cheapens the "V" story arc as a whole, Donovan & Julie become a joke & Diana & Lydia act as if they were on "Dynasty" & Frank Ashmore who played Martin returns as his twin brother in I guess Warner's last ditch attempt to boost the ratings, so much potential lost due to Warner Bros. & NBC's ignorance & greed, not to mention the reuse of scenes which didn't bother me as long as the story was solid, this is my take, & if your a hardcore "V" fan, then it is worth it for the first 12 episodes anyway, the last 6 you might be able to get through if you don't die laughing, but it is worth it for the first 12 at least

I've been showing these eps to my friends who were V fans back in the day and we've been having a wonderful time watching them and introducing the show to those who missed it. We agree that another V DVD set with remastered episodes,the two movies, and extras would be cool. This series is very entertaining but WB just stuck these V episodes on discs and stuck them in a box. The sound and picture could have been much much better. I'm not complaining though. I'm just happy they put this series out at all. I don't blame WB for the way they put these episodes out on DVD with no remastering or extras. V the series didn't do very well on NBC back in the 80's and that's probably why WB didn't spend much time or money on the DVDs. There were only 19 episodes of the series and it didn't get much play in syndication or anything other than the Sci Fi channel. Sci Fi stopped showing it and V The Series largely vanished into obscurity. I was surprised that video tapes of the show were put out by Columbia House a few years ago. Now the show is on DVD and it's far cheaper than the cost of the Columbia videos. Amazon has it for $29.99. Keep in mind that this is just the series and not the two v miniseries. I'd love to see a DVD set with better sounding and looking episodes and with every V that was shown on TV in one box.