Stars: Jane Badler, Faye Grant, David Packer, Marc Singer

Director: Kenneth Johnson

Summary: Fifty spaceships hover above the world's major cities. The visitors seem friendly but mankind will need a miracle to survive...

Aliens with nice faces and reptilian habits descend over the earth bringing a new and menacing world order with them in this landmark television miniseries. Sixty-five million viewers reportedly viewed the original broadcast. Disguised to look just like humans, the aliens are actually lizard-like creatures out to strip the planet of its water supply and turn humans into food. Although most people are fooled by the visitors and allow the planet to be taken over by the fascist monsters, a group of resistance fighters try to defeat these creatures. Helping the underground movement is a journalist (Marc Singer) who figures out just what the aliens are up to. The story concludes in V: THE FINAL BATTLE.

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Nowadays, the word "event" is thrown around all too often when describing television programmes, but back in 1983 the debut of V: The Mini Serieswas a television event in the truest sense. The appearance of gigantic flying saucers over the world's largest cities heralds the arrival of aliens from a distant galaxy who look human and act benevolently. Of course, things aren't exactly what they seem, and when some suspicious humans start to question the visitors' intentions they uncover a vast alien conspiracy, along with some unusual culinary habits. Soon, the visitors have enslaved the Earth under their fascist rule, and small groups of human rebels are forced underground to fight for the freedom of their entire species. But with the future of the planet still in question the epic story comes to an abrupt end, forcing the viewer to wait for the resolution in V: The Final Battleand the on-going series.

That's not to say that the original Visn't worth the price of admission: in over three hours, it manages to capture the spirit of the great classic science fiction of the 1950s and 60s. The feeling of paranoia and insecurity that runs throughout the whole thing makes it feel, at times, like an expanded episode of The Twilight Zone, only shinier (hey, it was the 1980s). The special effects were impressive for their day, inspiring similarly themed films in the 90s (the gigantic flying saucers were seen again in Independence Day, and the storage area of the mothership turns up in The X Files Movieand The Matrix). What does irritate, however, is the utter lack of subtlety in the allegorical storyline. In fact, it could only have been made more obvious by demanding that the entire cast wear "This is how it was in 1930s' Germany" t-shirts. But if Voccasionally doesn't live up to its own high standards, it's still a remarkably high-quality slice of epic television drama.

On the DVD:The picture is an impressive widescreen 1.85:1 ratio and the soundtrack is adequate Dolby stereo. The DVD boasts a feature-length commentary by writer and director Kenneth Johnson, as well as a 25-minute "Behind the Scenes" documentary. --Robert Burrow

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Feature Length Commentary By Kenneth Johnson, Behind The Scenes, Interactive Menus, Scene Access
Subtitles:	Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Year:	1983
Release Date:	April 8, 2002
Runtime:	189 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 011489
Keywords:	General, Series, Wide, Screen, Fiction, Science, Original, Mini, Tv, Horror, V, Sci, Fi, Miniseries
Genre:	Science Fiction