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The “V” in the title of this television series stands for the visitors from another world. These Visitors show up on Earth’s doorstep one day professing to want humanity. Are they friendly Visitors? Hardly. In reality these creatures which look humanoid are actually reptilian creatures looking for water and food. What’s the food? Well, we are of course. Once this is discovered a all out war breaks out between these visitors from another world and Earth. An underground resistance is led Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) and Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) against these creatures. In the original mini-series the Visitors saw as nothing but cattle led to the slaughter. When the mini-series became an ongoing series, the producers had to find something else as part of the conflict between humanity and the Visitors. They found in a half human/half alien hybrid that the Visitors seems to feel will increase their chances of survival. As if having ships that could blast us back to the stone age doesn’t provide enough of an advantage. ***

Really the V in the title stands for vapid. Writer/director Kenneth Johnson (“The Incredible Hulk”) took a half hour premise from an old “Twilight Zone” episode (in turn based on a short story by Damon Knight) which turned on the punning title (“To Serve Man”…it’s a cookbook) and spun a fun mini-series out of it. While the show could be somewhat clichéd, Johnson managed to turn our expectation on its head by making the aliens appear human. Unfortunately, the TV series, despite some fun moments, is little more than a cheesy variation on the B-movie from the 50’s and 60’s. “V: The Complete Series” doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the original mini-series. Still, “V: The Complete Series” manages to be fun in a guilty pleasure sort of way much like the third season of the original “Star Trek” and the recent “Star Wars” movies. ---

Here’s where “V: The Complete Series” falls far short of the competition. When “Battlestar: Galactica” was released last year, it came with very good transfers and loads of extras including commentary tracks. Why doesn’t this series have it as well? When the mini-series came to DVD, it sold amazingly well which prompted Warner to release this set. It also came with commentary tracks, featurettes and extras not seen here. It’s a pity that the series is being treated like some poor cousin to the mini-series. Fans of the show are purchasing it when they could just continue to watch their taped copies of the show. I realize that extras might have increased the cost but for a series that isn’t all that old, I’d expect better. There has to be promos in the Warner vaults for the show. ---