9.25.04
V: THE SERIES
DVD Boxed Set Review

Suggested Retail Price: $39.98 
Online Price: $29.99 
Costco:  Not Available

DETAILS: 
* Region 1 
* 3 Discs - 19 episodes
* Entire Series Uncut  
* Fullscreen
* English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish 
* Studio: Warner Home Video 
* Unrated 
* Format: Color w/closed caption
* Runtime: 897 minutes 
* Sound: Mono (redigitized)

Stars: Marc Singer The Beastmaster), Faye Grant, Jane Badler, Michael Ironside,  June Chadwick, Jennifer Cooke, Robert England (Freddy Kruegger), Lane Smith, Blair Tefkin, Michael Wright, Jeff Yagher, 

Growing up the 80's the V mini-series (both of them) and Shogun were the greatest epics I had ever seen. I enjoy watching them even today. Later I would add the four hour-mini "Something Is Out There" to my list of favorites. 

As a young sci-fi fan "V" offered me the best Science Fiction I had ever seen on television. An excellent story for television about aliens coming here in peace with a single minded mission to capture the world and it's resources. With the end of the mini-series word spread in the magazines about a new series based on the minis with the same actors. Life on television was good. 

The Premiere episode came and went leaving Fans wondered what in the hell they had just seen. V had been turned into a cheap imitation of what the mini-series had been. Before the first commercial break you could tell the series budget has been reduced to zero dollars, and would use nothing but effects from the minis whenever possible. The actors get an A for effort. 

Over the years the series became a cult favorite like "Logan's Run". When the series ran on the Sci-Fi Channel fans began recording and trading the episodes on the internet. An impressive fan base had grown via the internet. Cult status had been achieved. Warner Bros. took notice and finally released the entire series on a three dvd boxed-set for a mere $39.98. Mix this with the great mini-series collection and you've got yourself hours of entertainment. 

If you think about bad series, just about anything science fiction from the 70's & most of the 80's was basically crap. Yes, even Battlestar Galactica suffered from poor dialogue and lousy writing despite the $1 million per episode cost. Think about it... Logan's Run, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (due on DVD soon), Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space, the list goes on. 

With time however, bad becomes fun and people want the nostalgia. V: The Series is no different. It's here now, and you can purchase it now.

PACKAGING 

Warner uses a 3 disc fold out style holder with the episode titles and synopsis printed on it. This slides into a stylish chrome box style holder made of cardboard that looks nice but is just to flimsy. 

VIDEO 

V was shot on video and transfer looks awesome. The shows colors are vibrant and the images sharp. The blacks show no fading even during night time shots. I found no pixelation problems and very little debris on the episodes. Either the video was re-digitized for the boxed set or the video masters were incredible.

AUDIO 

The audio is mono that has been turned digital, and it sounds great. There is no slurring or audio fall out. You might have to adjust the volume a bit higher than for normal television but even at a high volume the episodes sounds good.

EXTRAS 

If you were expecting extras you will be disappointed. Other than the standard multi languages there is nothing else with the boxed set. It's not needed and this is likely what kept the price down. 

SUMMARY 

Warner has the dvd transfer technique down to a science. The extras aren't needed and the fans of the series already know everything they want to about the characters.  If you have the V mini-series as part of your collection, this boxed set is a nice piece of bonus material. While the show reuses a lot of special effects from the minis the episodes are still action packed. 

The discs do have auto-play, meaning they go from one episode into the next. Unfortunately it doesn't skip the opening credits between episodes but that is what the remote is for. 

DVD GRADE:  "A" 

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