V: The Final Battle Collectors Edition
01/05/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Region 2 DVD: Warner Bros Z1 14146. 2 DVDs 255 minutes 3 * 90 minute episodes. Price: £ 7.98 (UK) if you know where to look). stars: Jane Badler, Michael Durrell, Faye Grant, Michael Ironside, Peter Nelson, David Packer, Neva Patterson, Tommy Peterson, Marc Singer, Blair Tefkin, Michael Wright, Frank Ashmore and Robert Englund. Buy V: The Final Battle Collectors Edition in the USA - or Buy V: The Final Battle Collectors Edition in the UK  check out website: www.warnerbros.co.uk
Quite how this can be called a 'Collectors Edition' when it doesn't have any extras beats me. Creator Kenneth Johnson bowed out from making this follow-up over budget restrictions. If you watch this straight after the first two-parter 'V', you can be carried along with what happens after the first six months as the Resistance builds up strength only to be shown how lax its security is in other quarters by two ex-military. When I was watching this again using my reviewer's eye, I did wonder what had happened to all the military. Maybe the Visitors quickly herded them up to their motherships but you would have thought auxiliary staff and families might have noticed them gone missing long before removing scientists.
Much of this story shows the birth of the first human/Visitor hybrid, Resistance leader Julie (actress Faye Grant) Parish's capture and escape, not to mention the same for ex-cameraman Mike (actor Marc Singer) Donovan and Visitor Fifth Columnist Martin (actor Frank Ashmore) as they unveil the Visitors purpose. After that, much is made of messing with the Visitors' plans, exposing what they are on public television and purging them from the planet. For the record, this wasn't that successful but then again, neither was the follow up twenty episode TV series which was severely hampered by low budget and poor use of the metaphor.
Essentially, this final three-parter shows the Visitors losing the fight. In some respects it looks rather too easy and a lax security on the Visitors part to succeed. Whether it lives up to the original two-parter has to be your own judgement call. The performance of the cast gives it some believability although don't question everything too deeply.
GF Willmetts
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