V: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray]

Since the first season of V was a bit of a mess, having production delays, hiatuses and a storyline that never went beyond, "Holy shit! Aliens," it was imperative that this second, and final, season of the sci-fi remake tried to establish some narrative depth and character trajectories. And while the "Arc of Story: Mining the Human Emotions" Blu-Ray supplement details their efforts, discussing alien motivations, character conflict and a variety of storyline options, the actual ten episodes come off as a repetitive, melodramatic mess, with the occasional hint of something better. For the most part, this season is about maternal instinct and the passive, but vindictive, nature of female conflict as dictated by emotion, with the V Queen, Anna (Morena Baccarin), trying to enact a plan of interspecies breeding and manipulated DNA involving the son of plucky agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell). As they battle behind the scenes, playing nice on the surface and acting pleased as punch that their children, Tyler (Logan Huffman) and Lisa (Laura Vandervoort), are getting along so wonderfully, the world vacillates between concern for the looming V spaceships and gratefulness for the technology and environmental rejuvenation the aliens bring. And, again, since maternal motivation is the driving force of the season, Anna continually bickers with her fallen queen mother about the nature of the human soul, similarly having trouble controlling her daughter, Lisa, whose alliance gradually shifts to that of the humans. Because the show was meant to run for several more seasons, tensions never escalate to actual battle, playing out as more of a cold war struggle than anything else. Perhaps if the series had been given more time to find its footing, the oft-expository nature of things might have actually "mined" human emotion, as the aforementioned supplement suggests. Also included with the two-disc set is a featurette on the visual effects and the inevitable blooper reel.