Why So Blu?

The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Tenth 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 fourth year in a row now.  You can find Gregg Senko’s Blu-ray review coverage of Season 3 here and I took over in season seven here, eight here and the ninth over here.  Plus we now also have exclusive coverage from this year’s Hall H San Diego Comic-Con panel here.  This year it’s the complete tenth season on Blu-ray 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 (please don’t end it).  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 and I need these guys in my life.  Therefore, let’s celebrate this upcoming Blu-ray release and talk The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Tenth 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 already has been ranked as the #1 series with total viewers among Adults 25-54, Men 18-49, and Men 25-54 on broadcast TV.  The Big Bang Theory continues to entertain and excite viewers and critics all over the world, averaging almost 20 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 Tenth Season on Blu-ray  (including Digital HD) on September 12th.

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.  In Season 9 we saw Penny and Leonard tie the knot in Vegas.  We now start out Season 10 with the recreation of Penny and Leonard’s wedding this time with family including Penny’s mother, Susan (Katey Sagal), and brother, Randall (Jack McBrayer), and Leonard’s parents (Christine Baranski and Judd Hirsch).  Hilariously Randall is an ex-drug dealer and con.  Meanwhile, Sheldon and Amy move in together as part of an ongoing “cohabitation experiment.”  Howard and Bernadette prepare for and have a baby while Raj keeps himself busy juggling two girlfriends.  Furthermore, the boys are developing a project for the military and Breaking Bad‘s Dean Norris spends some screen time as the Colonel in charge.  Of course there’s more unexpected plot twists, celebrity guest appearances and many other moments of social awkwardness that made the show the success it is including a heartwarming cliffhanger.  What will Amy say?  Duh!  Most importantly though, Penny once again doesn’t have boy hair this season.  There is a God!

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 were actually better this season and as a result the laughs were much bigger.  All 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 tenth season here.  Thankfully the show was renewed for two more seasons, but I can’t help like feeling they’re all we have.

So when you slide off the outer shell from your Blu-ray Combo Pack of The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Tenth 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 Conjugal Conjecture
2. The Military Miniaturization
3. The Dependence Transcendence
4. The Cohabitation Experimentation
5. The Hot Tub Contamination
6. The Fetal Kick Catalyst
7. The Veracity Elasticity
8. The Brain Bowl Incubation
9. The Geology Elevation
10. The Property Division Collision
11. The Birthday Synchronicity
12. The Holiday Summation
13. The Romance Recalibration
14. The Emotion Detection Automation
15. The Locomotion Reverberation
16. The Allowance Evaporation
17. The Comic-Con Conundrum
18. The Escape Hatch Identification
19. The Collaboration Fluctuation
20. The Recollection Dissipation
21. The Separation Agitation
22. The Cognition Regeneration
23. The Gyroscopic Collapse
24. The Long Distance Dissonance

Video  

• Encoding: AVC MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Size: 2 BD-50s
• 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 penultimate 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, collectibles (my favorite part), 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 on the Blu-ray format.  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 are just out of their Vulcan minds.
• 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 since its inception.  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!  It’s the attention to detail in the sets that makes this show so spectacular to behold on Blu-ray.  It’s also these sets that seemingly go on forever in the depth department.  You have to 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:  Dull is a word you can never use to describe this Blu-ray television set.  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.  There are no banding issues, noise or any other nasty anomaly to complain about here.  Moving on…

Audio 

• Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish (Castilian and Latin) 2.0 Dolby Digital, Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Dynamics: The Big Bang Theory is a television comedy so don’t expect me to write about any dynamic miracles here.  While I’m sure we all want the dynamics to be larger than life here, there’s nothing wrong with them just being satisfactory either when it comes to grading television comedies.    It’s the dialogue that matters most here.  That’s where the main focus is.  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 their non-stop shaky relationships too!
• Low Frequency Extension: The LFE is very subtle and practically 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 when necessary or called upon.
• 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.  There’s always that Bare Naked Ladies opening sequence too for some surround sound activity.  Ha ha.  Who are we kidding here?  This is very front heavy and rightfully so.  Truth be told the audience track and little nuances can also be heard in the rear channels too.
• 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 is missed here.  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 Ten.  Hell yeah!  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 now be watching Season Ten’s digital versions of The Big Bang Theory on my favorite UltraViolet player, VUDU.  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 Tenth Season includes five new featurettes, the 2016 Comic Con Panel and a hilarious gag reel!

• #JustAskBBT 2.0 (Disc 1, HD, 5:17) – Like last year’s Blu-ray set 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.  So in other words this equates to the cast answering fan questions.
• The Ever-Expanding Universe of The Big Bang Theory (Disc 2, HD, 11:22) – The cast, guest stars and Chuck Lorre discuss Penny and Sheldon’s wedding redux here in the season opener.
• Mad Props (Disc 2, HD, 7:59) – Remember me gushing up above at all the props always featured on the show?  Well this one is all about property master Scott London and everything he’s responsible for.
• Who’s the Baby Now? (Disc 2, HD, 7:33) – This one is all about the arrival of Howard and Bernadette’s newborn child, Halley, and features the cast and Chuck Lorre.
• Best of The Big Bang Theory: 2016 Comic Con Panel (Disc 1, HD, 39:13) – Sadly once again this is not a cast driven panel, but more of a writers panel.  However, this is very cool that they include this and it makes me look forward to them releasing 2017’s Comic-Con panel in next year’s Blu-ray set.  However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  In this 2016 Comic-Con panel co-creator Bill Prady and current showrunner Steven Molaro are joined onstage by science consultant Dr. David Saltzberg.  The moderator is Melissa Rauch (AKA Bernadette), and the surprise guest on the panel is Jack McBrayer, who plays Penny’s brother, Randall, int he beginning of Season Ten here.
• Gag Reel (Disc 2, HD, 8:20) – You have to love the beefy length of this gag reel.  If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll appreciate this one even more because of the title cards used here.

Summary 

There you have it.  Another year down and masterfully archived on the Blu-ray format and another season to look forward to starting September 25th 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.  According to what Chuck Lorre recently said it sounds like we have this and one more year to go at least.  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 Ten 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 Ten 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 order link is down below.  The first step on the road to salvation is achieved by clicking on that link and ordering today.  Enjoy!

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Re-Live All The Laughs of

The Big Bang Theory Season 10

on Blu-ray September 12th

ORDER Now!

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