V: The complete first season DVD review

Warner Home Video Entertainment / Region 4 / Released November 2, 2010

We are of peace – always…

Like everyone else we were a little surprised to hear that a remake of cult 1980’s show V was being remade and we were even more surprised when it turned out to be the best new show of the last 12 months! The Complete first season has just been released on DVD and it is even better watching it again, especially several episodes at a time as the nuances of the story pull together and give you a deeper understanding of what is going on and where the show is headed.

The series begins in epic style with the arrival of giant alien space ships over 29 of the Earth’s major cities, led by Anna (the beautiful Morena Baccarin) the aliens have a distinctly human appearance, claim to be of peace and willing to share their advanced technologies which could end many human diseases and improve greatly our quality of life.

Most people welcome the “Visitors” with open arms but some are altogether more suspicious, soon a growing resistance movement, led by FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) is taking steps to find out just what the “V’s” true intentions are. Ramping up the tension considerably as each episode continues and we gradually learn more and more about the V’s with the biggest bombshell revealing their real lizard like appearance. Also a big reveal is that the V’s have actually been here for years and that one member of the resistance group, Ryan Nicholas (Morris Chestnut) is actually a V himself. Meanwhile Erica’s teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman) is very much taken with the V’s, falling hard for Anna’s daughter Lisa (Laura Vandervoot) and joining the V development program.

The heart of the story is the attempt by the resistance group, dubbed the Fifth Column, to discover the V’s true intentions and as the first season progresses we, the audience that is, learn that Anna’s intentions are not going to be good for mankind!

A truly fab series, every episode going one better than the last until the finale leaves you breathless. There are lots of extras too including unaired scenes, featurettes of the background to the series, audio commentary on episode 11 and an excellent featurette on the special effects.