V: The Final Battle

Creepy, haunting, eerie – and that’s just the theme music that plays over the opening credits as the iconic red ‘V’ comes towards us. Following the huge success of Kenneth Johnson's landmark original mini-series, a sequel was always on the spray-painted cards...

Still trying to stop the Visitors from totally controlling the Earth, Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) and the resistance decide to do something on a bigger scale. Eventually, after a few successful operations, they stumble upon a bacterium that’ll possibly finish the aliens off for good.

Johnson left after the network wanted to expand from two episodes to three but on a tighter budget (some things never change), so how does it compare? Well, while it's more action orientated and a few cheesy moments that drag it down (the silly birth scene, the awful ‘star child’ climax), this three-part follow-up is still four and a half hours of riveting sci-fi.

Dated, no doubt - just check out the frizzy hairstyles and painted-on jeans - yet it continues the still-dangling plot-threads well. For those that remember it, this is the one with the red dust where the franchise should have finished as the subsequent series was a widespread disappointment. Still, if you're a fan you can just pretend that this is actually the ending.

The whole cast return (well, those that didn't die last time that is); the Kevin Bacon-ish Singer still makes for a gung-ho everyman hero, the perma-pouting Jane Badler remains alluring as alien Diana, the straight-playing Frank Ashmore once again lends weight to the science-fiction as collaborative visitor Martin and the pre-Freddy Kreuger Robert Englund continues as everyone's favourite human-friendly visitor. Plus, with the intensity-omitting Michael Ironside entering the fray as tough-talking, lizard-hating mercenary Ham Tyler, you also get one of the coolest cult-actors out there and an automatic increase on the star-rating.

Leaning slightly more towards action than the fascist allegory-orientated original and with more duff moments, V: The Final Battle is still a worthy follow-up and should definitely be considered a victory.