• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p/24
• Audio Codec: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
• Subtitles: English SDH, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Norwegian, Spanish (Castilian) Spanish (Latin American), Swedish
  
• Region: ABC (Region-Free)
  
• Rating: Not Rated
• Discs: 2 (2 x Blu-ray)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
  
• Blu-ray Release Date: October 18, 2011
• List Price: $49.99

[amazon-product]B003R0MEYU[/amazon-product]

BestBuy.com:

Purchase V: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe

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Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Series
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG  thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Series

[Rating:3/5]

What a shame this series ended the way it did. No, V maybe never had the same spooky, cult appeal of the original mini-series and series, but it certainly had great potential. It came to television with a great looking production, some heavy duty stars well known from other sci-fi series, and a brand name that guaranteed an audience. Unfortunately, it suffered through its first season, which I didn’t find to be as bad as some others did, though I will admit the story became too convoluted.

Along came season 2 which promised to clean up the mess. In my opinion, season 2 did just the opposite. It became more ridiculous, and, alas, gone from U.S. network television was yet another sci-fi series. The genre just can’t seem to make it on television here, despite doing quite big business at the box office.

In this aborted, 10-episode season Anna (Morena Baccarin; Serenity) continues her attempt at total world domination by the Vs, but now she is trying to find a way to extract the human soul in an effort to control the emotions that seem to be taking over her species. Meanwhile, the Fifth Column, now led by FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell; LOST) continues to fight against the Vs, uncovering more of Anna’s supposedly secret plans. But Erica’s son is getting dragged deeper into the clutches of the Vs and the Fifth Column is getting more and more violent, even putting human lives at risk to reach their ultimate goal of defeating the Vs. But Anna has more to worry about than just the Fifth Column, she has her mother, the former queen, being held in secret aboard her ship, plotting to take back her reign with the help of Anna’s daughter Lisa (Laura Vandervoort; TV’s Smallville), herself a Fifth Column sympathizer.

Ultimately, it seems rather pointless sitting through these ten episodes knowing that the series has already been cancelled, especially given that it doesn’t end with any sort of resolution, leaving fans with what feels like no more than a halfhearted effort all around.

Video Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

While V has a sleek, almost cinematic production style, there is something about this AVC/MPEG-4 encodement that is a bit off-putting. Some scenes look very sharp and clean, while other scenes tend to look a little soft. Apparently the series was shot on Clairmont HDTV cameras at 3K resolution and it certainly doesn’t have a film-like appearance, as everything seems rather smooth and lacking in texture. Contrast is also not so great, but Flesh tones are really good.

Audio Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack shows some crackle in louder parts of the dialogue, but dialogue still remains rather intelligible and mostly clean. Surround channels are pretty quiet, until they are “activated” with the odd discrete sound effect during explosions and car chases, making for a somewhat unbalanced sounding mix.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:3/5]

While there are a good bit of deleted scenes on offer in this set that don’t really add much to the story arc, the featurettes are sadly delusional in their assessment of how great this series is on the whole, particularly given its aborted run.

The supplements provided with this release:

• Deleted Scenes (1.78:1; 1080p/24):
  • Red Rain Sc. 13/22/53
  • Serpent’s Tooth Sc. 27/43
  • Laid Bare Sc. 5/11/40
  • Unholy Alliance Sc. 43
  • Concordia Sc. 27/30
• A Visual Masterpiece for the Small Screen (1.78:1; 1080i/60; 00:21:15) – This featurette explores how the show’s producers brought V’s cinematic visual style to television on a weekly basis.
• BD-Live

Disc 2:

• Deleted Scenes (1.78:1; 1080p/24):
  • Siege Sc. 60
  • Birth Pangs Sc. 4/5/22(1)/22(2)
  • Uneasy Lies the Head Sc. 23-A24/52
  • Devil in a Blue Dress Sc. A10/A31
  • Mother’s Day Sc. 7/13/A17/20/21/a23-C24/AA23/25
• The Arc of Story: Mining the Human Emotion (1.78:1; 1080i/60; 00:25:14) – Under the vision of Scott Rosenbaum, the V writers and actors comment on the journey of the second season of V.
• Blooper Reel (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:07:11)
• BD-Live

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:3/5]

A stalled effort at bringing back a cult classic, V goes out with a whimper in its second season, wrapping up none of its story lines. I can’t recommend purchasing this, but if you really want to see it on Blu-ray, it may make a decent rental.

Additional Screen Captures

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[amazon-product]B003R0MEYU[/amazon-product]

BestBuy.com:

Purchase V: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Series
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]

–

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