{alltv} Last of 'Hannah' now on DVD

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Miley Ray Cyrus' split personality is now history: The popular Disney TV series Hannah Montana has finished its four-year run and Cyrus has moved into adult territory in her pop-country music, in her movie choices and in her newly sexualized image as an 18-year-old celebrity.

The transition has not been pretty. Amid Cyrus clan squabbles -- Billy Ray Cyrus filed for divorce from Miley's mother, Leticia (Tish) Finley, in October -- Billy Ray publicly and therefore foolishly cited Hannah Montana as a root cause of the friction.

"The damn show destroyed my family," he claimed in February, lighting another firestorm. That makes this week's DVD releases timely. Hannah Montana Forever: Final Season debuted as a two-disc set that completes the series for DVD collectors, most of whom I assume are teenaged girls. Nicely packaged, it is all happy and mushy about the final shoot of the final scene of the final episode, which aired in January. As always, the show was deliberately overacted and geared for teen audiences.

But the extras, including an eerie alternative ending with a flashback, prove to be more illuminating than anyone at Disney could have imagined. One reveal is footage from the original auditions, with Billy Ray on camera with his daughter Miley in May of 2005. She was a little sprout at 12 years old.

Musing on the possibility that Hannah Montana might be a hit show, Billy Ray mused aloud that it would be "a double-edged sword" for him, as father of a future star.

"For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction," Billy Ray said. "I know that this thing, if it goes as big as it seems it has the potential to go, this child's life will never be the same." Now, in 2011, that is true ... and Daddy doesn't seem to like what his daughter has become in her emerging star years. It's heartbreaking.

For fans of Miley Cyrus and of Hannah Montana, however, the DVD release is all upbeat. Even with Miley's ambiguous quote: "It's been interesting," she says about the Hannah Montana experience. "It's been fun." She is not smiling. Jason Earles (who plays Jackson on the show) unknowingly provides more insight by calling the ensemble "a great big giant dysfunctional family."

Enough said. Hannah Montana is over ... forever. "Yesterday's gone," Miley Cyrus sings, "we've got to keep moving on."