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"As silly as it sounds: NBC finally approved V: The Series...after having already resolved the story!"

---from the article

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NBC really had a good idea on their hands, and totally blew it. Do I need to be more specific? Very well: consider if an alien race comes to Earth, with the same fascist attitudes of the Nazis in WW2, albeit with technologies far superior to our own. That sounds interesting. Yet NBC wasn't sure, so they reduced the idea to a four hour pilot, which aired under the guise of a two-night mini-series. Even TV Guide at the time, in their Cheers & Jeers section, berated NBC for not labeling the open ended "mini series" a pilot. When people demanded a resolution to the open ended story, NBC agreed to one...though once again, only as a mini-series. The resulting resolution, in all of three "episodes," was far less than the original story ---or its fans--- deserved. Unfortunately, "V: The Final Battle" would turn out to be merely the peak of V's sad downward spiral.

As silly as it sounds: NBC finally approved V: The Series...after having already resolved the story! The problem? The Final Battle was resolved with a War of the Worlds "twist," where Earth was infected with a new virus that could kill the alien visitors, and not us. The Series' reversal of this story arc was inane: the virus cannot survive in certain climates. While anyone with a brain larger than a walnut would simply synthesize more of the virus and disperse it as needed, we're to believe the location the aliens land is too stupid to know this. They land in downtown Los Angeles. Interpret that as you will.

Some spin control may say that the series' plan was to just be an action series, and not as "gritty." Well, okay; let's analyze it from that perspective. For one thing all the most major special effects moments were clips from the higher-budget mini-series, re-integrated into the series. This meant that there were few air battles or other major sci-fi style fights worth mentioning. As for hand to hand combat; as shown in the series opening credits, the most major action moment was when series lead Marc Singer attacks an alien visitor by sliding down a shuttle cockpit and attacking the alien with his crotch. Yes; his crotch. In short terms; even as a simple action series, this was pretty bad, indeed.

The real tragedy of the series, however, is how far it swayed from the original concept. The idea was to make a brilliant sci-fi allegory to the politics that led to the tragic events of World War 2, particularly The Holocaust. Yet the meanest new "enemy" of V: The Series was some idiot corporate bigwig who tries to profit from the visitor occupation. Ask not how many people (not many, really) appreciated the new "anti corporation" message. Demoralizing the story from "a Holocaust against all humankind" to "alien corporate takeover" was a travesty. The original mini-series was gritty enough to give an adult nightmares. The only nightmare from The Series was in how totally laughable it was.

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