Why So Blu?

The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season (Blu-ray Review)

It’s time for my September ritual!  The Big Bang Theory returns to the Blu-ray format.  Truth be told I’m excited to be covering the release for the third year in a row now.  You can find my Blu-ray coverage of season seven here and eight over here.  This year it’s the complete ninth season right here baby.  Warner Bros. always does a bang up on these seasonal Blu-ray releases.  That’s why I’m overjoyed to be tackling this today and hopefully for years to come.  They can never end the Big Bang Theory from airing anew for years to come can they?  Don’t answer that!  I want to be appreciative for what I have here.  Therefore, let’s talk The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season.

Season 

Leonard, Sheldon, Penny, Howard, Raj, Amy and Bernadette are all back for one of television’s funniest shows – The Big Bang Theory.  I’m not just making that moniker up of one of television’s funniest shows.  Let the facts talk for themselves.  The Big Bang Theory was recently ranked as the #1 series with total viewers among Adults 25-54, Men 18-49, and Men 25-54 on broadcast TV and dubbed a “sweetly romantic comedy” that is a “hopeless sitcom addiction” by the Daily Mail.  The Big Bang Theory continues to entertain and excite viewers and critics all over the world, averaging 21 million viewers per episode!  Since it’s now September, fans will be able to re-live every laugh and enjoy The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season on Blu-ray  (including Digital HD) on September 13th.

The hit CBS sitcom stars series favorites Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch and Kevin Sussman are all back this season with more celebrity guest appearances to boot.  Highlights include the following when the ninth season picks up shortly after Season Eight’s somber cliffhanger involving Amy and Sheldon’s dissolution.  We find Sheldon embarking on soul-searching adventures and attempting to come to terms of life without Amy (meaning he really misses her).  Meanwhile, Leonard and Penny awkwardly tie the knot in Las Vegas.  But how this will affect the Roommate Agreement with Sheldon?  Will they all live together?  Ha ha.  Howard and his wife, Bernadette, are finally living alone in his mother’s house void of Stewart while Raj is not only able to talk with women without alcohol this season again, but finds the challenges of getting exclusive with only one, Emily (Laura Spencer).  Of course there’s some unexpected plot twists, celebrity guest appearances and many moments of social awkwardness that made the show the success it is.  Most importantly though, Penny doesn’t have boy hair this season.  Yahoo!

This was also the first season to feature every main cast member of the show, including former main cast member Sara Gilbert, who made a guest appearance in the 200th episode.  Yep!  You heard that right.  We’re already past 200 episodes now.  Oh yeah!  We even get to meet Sheldon’s meemaw as well as Leonard’s dad.  If nothing else, Season Nine continues all the relationship drama that has been steadily increasing each and every year.  We all have to grow up, right?  The characters all learn that life is far more complicated outside of the lab so to speak as love and friendship never produce predictable results.  However, that’s not to say things are not always a bit predictable throughout as laugh out loud surprises still happen from time-to-time.  The show starts to lose steam at times and then all the sudden certain episodes air that rejuvenate the fun of it all.  I don’t know, but I could watch this show still for many years to come.  It’s going to be a very sad day when things are said and done with this sitcom.  What’s beyond Season Ten?  I wish I knew so I can prepare myself for the inevitable.

This season ended a bit weird for me.  The past couple of years the show has left us on cliffhangers, leaving us wanting more, but the 24th episode “The Convergence Convergence” ended and I was like surely there’s another episode left.  Nope!   That was the season finale.  Hmm.  Surely Season Ten can’t be it.  However, there’s much more to explore here.  This is one of the first season’s without Howard’s mom, but don’t worry because Bernadette proverbially fills her shoes and has her voice down perfectly.  Ha ha.  I would dare say the main crux of the season though is Sheldon’s awkward chasing and romance with Amy.  There’s an event that transpires in this season that everyone has been waiting a long time for.  But much like the season finale that event happens and passes with very little enthusiasm.  It should have and could have been so much more in my opinion.

Even though there’s a bit of familiarity with everything going on in Season Nine it’s not like you still won’t have fun with it all.  You will!  There’s no denying the birth of a very catchy song in this season.  Oh yeah!  I’m talking about you “Thor and Doctor Jones.” There are also those classic Big Bang Theory zingers thrown at you that will make your side and insides hurt in a good way through the power of laughter.  The onscreen chemistry and charisma is still all there.  The stories may be wearing thin at times, but the actors continue having a good time onscreen and dammit I can’t help having fun alongside of them all with each and every episode.  Again, like having to put your best friend (dog) to sleep (euthanizing), I’m in no position in life for this show to end on me.  I need it in my life for not only my selfish geek love of the material, but for the laughs it provides me each and every week.  You know what they say about laughter, right?  It’s the best medicine and The Big Bang Theory continues to provide the laughs well into and throughout its ninth season here.

So when you slide off the outer shell from your Blu-ray Combo Pack of The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season  and you open the case you’ll find two Blu-ray discs.  We’ll talk a little more about what’s all on these Blu-rays in greater detail down below in the Special Features section, but all I want to cover here before moving onto the A/V vitals of the presentations is the fact that Episodes 1-12 (as listed in order below) can be found on the first Blu-ray disc where as Episodes 13-24 are housed on the second Blu-ray disc.

1. The Matrimonial Momentum
2. The Separation Oscillation
3. The Bachelor Party Corrosion
4. The 2003 Approximation
5. The Perspiration Implementation
6. The Helium Insufficiency
7. The Spock Resonance
8. The Mystery Date Observation
9. The Platonic Permutation
10. The Earworm Reverberation
11. The Opening Night Excitation
12. The Sales Call Sublimation
13. The Empathy Optimization
14. The Meemaw Materialization
15. The Valentino Submergence
16. The Positive Negative Reaction
17. The Celebration Experimentation
18. The Application Deterioration
19. The Solder Excursion Diversion
20. The Big Bear Precipitation
21. The Viewing Party Combustion
22. The Fermentation Bifurcation
23. The Line Substitution Solution
24. The Convergence Convergence

Video  

• Encoding: AVC MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Clarity/Detail: I said it before each year I review The Big Bang Theory on Blu-ray and I’ll say it again here.  The level of detail and clarity is outstanding.  Compared to their initial television broadcasts, this IS the way to experience The Big Bang Theory.  If you watch the show with eagle eyes like mine you can’t help noticing all the little details in the background, easter eggs and textures abound in the clothing, furniture, electronics, etc.  Despite the characters in the foreground, everything you see onscreen is eye-popping razor sharp.  Every time I watch an episode I see things that I missed the first time around due to the clarity of it all.  All the little artifacts and trinkets found in the backgrounds here are almost as amazing as the show itself.  I know it’s shot for television and it doesn’t have that cinematic feel like a film on Blu-ray, but anyone that nitpicks the clarity of this presentation is just pure evil.  LOL.  I’m joking.  They just suck.  You get the “picture.”  Things look Vulcan good here!
• Depth: Because of the clarity and sharpness of the image, the onscreen characters all have that three-dimensional pop we know and love on the Blu-ray format.  Therefore, the onscreen subjects are so separated from the backgrounds, which are still incredibly rich and detailed in themselves, that the image seems to go on and on forever in the depth department.  Bazinga!  You can’t touch this unless you’re Mr. Fantastic and you have arms that reach well beyond belief.  I’m serious though guys and gals.  Any set you find the characters in here throughout all episodes go on forever.  I love it!
• Black Levels: Black levels are all deep, solid and inky throughout here like the ink in the iconic comic books the guys on the show all bow down to and worship.
• Color Reproduction:  I found the colors in this Blu-ray’s video presentation to be like the show itself, rich, full of sprite and of course so very vivacious and vibrant!  Howard is still able to pull off colors and clothing schemes that I can never imagine myself ever having the courage to try.  Ha ha.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones all look natural throughout thanks to the excellent use of set lighting.
• Noise/Artifacts: There’s absolutely nothing my eyes could detect here that I believe could ever conceivably distract you from enjoying this sharp, vibrant, picture-perfect Blu-ray presentation.

Audio 

• Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish (Castilian and Latin) 2.0 Dolby Digital
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Dynamics: The Big Bang Theory is a television comedy so don’t expect any miracles here.  While we want the dynamics to be larger than life here, there’s nothing wrong with them just being satisfactory either when it comes to grading comedies.    Don’t get me wrong, there are some noticeable moments, but for the most part it is what it is, a bunch of geeks sitting around in an apartment having fun with their inner geeks and awkward social insecurities, and now…their shaky relationships too!
• Low Frequency Extension: The LFE is very subtle and non-existent at times.  This is a primetime comedy, that’s it…nothing more and nothing less.  So you can kind of draw your own conclusion as to how much the LFE channel will be employed throughout, but nonetheless it is there.
• Surround Sound Presentation: Rest assured, the surrounds are here, but like the LFE at times you have to seek them out and listen for them.  Quite honestly, you really don’t notice the rears at all until the traditional transition screens appear that catapult us the viewers from one scene to another or that segregate the commercial breaks.  That familiar swishing and swirling sound creeps up and pumps up the rears behind you and at times straight at you through the center channel.  I can see you always wanting more of course.
• Dialogue Reproduction:  Spoken words are spectacular here in this category.  After all, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record I know, but The Big Bang Theory is a comedy we’re watching and you couldn’t ask for anything more in the dialogue department.  From the laugh track to the loud, clear and intelligible dialogue throughout not one spoken word was missed here on me and my big Yoda ears.  Hear you I do!

Extras 

Here’s the best part of this extras section.  It’s not the supplemental features listed below that matter to me.  Oh no!  It’s the fact that this 2-disc Blu-ray set also includes a Digital HD copy of all 24 episodes from Season Nine.  Yahoo!  I know what I’ll be watching every night for awhile on my dining room Roku TV while eating.  That’s right baby!  I’ll be watching Season Nine’s digital versions of The Big Bang Theory on my favorite UltraViolet player, VUDU. Plus there’s also an insert inside good for redemption of three episodes from the upcoming tenth season.  However, let’s stop talking about my eating habits and instead focus on what else is here.  I took the time to watch all the below extras and here’s what you’ll find in each of them.  The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season includes five new featurettes, the 2015 Comic Con Panel and a hilarious gag reel!

• The Big Bang Theory Gives Back (HD, 5:08, Disc 2) – The cast and producers, led by creator Chuck Lorre, welcome the first Big Bang Theory scholars onto their set to celebrate the new scholarship they created at UCLA.  The scholarship focuses on students going into STEM studies, Science Technology Engineering and Math.
• BBT: The Big 200! (HD, 5:33, Disc 2) – Here we can walk the red carpet with the cast as they celebrate their entrance into the exclusive club of television shows that have reached 200 episodes.  The cast are intimate and candid as they discuss how surreal it feels to have been on the air successfully for so long.  We also go behind the scenes at live studio tapings too.  It’s quite interesting!  I wanna be there!
• Love IS Rocket Science (HD, 11:27, Disc 2) – Much like the Twitter questions on disc 1 the cast is raw, natural and stripped as they talk candidly about love on the show.  We also see past moments from all the seasons that deal with “love.” The cast of The Big Bang Theory answer how you define love and many more questions about all their shaky relationship shifts that happened in Season 9.
• #Just Ask BBT: Who Will Get The Couch? (HD, 4:59, Disc 1) – Here we have the actors raw, upfront, personal and candid and contain a bunch of general questions asked via Twitter about the real lives of the actors.  Who will get the couch when Leonard moves out?  Obviously, Sheldon!  Duh!  LOL.
• #Just Ask BBT: If I Had To Go To Mars… (HD, 7:20, Disc 1) – This is pretty much the same as the previous segment asking the characters about what they do in real life, how they differ from their characters, etc.  At least I know if Leonard and Penny have a boy, they would name it Lenny.
• 2015 Comic-Con Panel (HD, 26:07, Disc 1) – Kunal Nayyar moderates the writers and producers of The Big Bang Theory in a panel that gives you the inside story on how your favorite episodes and moments came to be.
• Gag Reel (HD, 8:45, Disc 2)

Summary 

There you have it.  Another year down and masterfully archived on the Blu-ray format and another season to look forward to starting soon on CBS.  How long will this show go?  I wish I had a crystal ball that could tell me because I’m yearning to know that too.  However, it all boils down to this.  Don’t live in the future.  Live in the present.  Appreciate what you have because it just may not be there tomorrow.  Thankfully, I’m pretty sure these Season Nine Blu-ray discs will be there when I wake up tomorrow, but what I’m trying to say is I appreciate these yearly Warner Bros. television Blu-ray releases and I cherish them each and every day upon my HD altar.  I’m a man of simple tastes, but Warner Bros. exceeds my expectations each and every year with the fatastic HD presentations they provide us of The Big Bang Theory.  Ladies and gentlemen, Season Nine is no exception. It’s phenomenally rendered and reproduced in all its 1080p glory in this 2-disc set.  You know you need it in your home media library.  The pre-order link is down below.  The first step on the road to salvation is achieved by clicking on that link and pre-ordering today.  Enjoy!

*

Re-Live All The Laughs of

The Big Bang Theory Season 9

on Blu-ray September 13th

PRE-ORDER Now!

*

*

*