Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season (Blu-ray Review)
The flagship of the DCTV universe on the CW network, Arrow (Which, well, its deemed the “Arrowverse” for that reason), will be heading into its seventh season this coming fall. Oliver Queen have gone from being hip and dark, too cool to call the vigilante what he is to fully embracing the Green Arrow. Its been a ride and still has held itself strong while the universe surrounding it has introduced meta humans, time travel, aliens and more. As always, the previous season arrives on Blu-ray, giving you ample time to catch up before the next season (If you decided not to catch up using Netflix first). It will come with the usual set of bonus materials to accompany it. You can pick yourself up a copy on or pre-order one for the release date August 14th.
Season 
Following the devastating explosion on Lian Yu, Oliver Queen returns home to confront a challenge unlike any he’s ever faced: fatherhood. Oliver is determined to embrace this new role while continuing to serve and protect Star City as both Mayor and The Green Arrow. But enemies past and present, including Black Siren, Vigilante, Ricardo Diaz, Cayden James and others, threaten him on all fronts. And bonds within the ranks of Team Arrow—veteran John Diggle; tech genius Felicity Smoak; former police captain Quentin Lance and brilliant inventor Curtis Holt, plus newest team members Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog and metahuman Dinah Drake—have become dangerously decayed. The future of Star City is at stake.
Last season (fifth), Arrow delivered one hell of a cliffhanger. It was good to hang onto for a whole summer, but ultimately the repercussions, though personal, kept pretty much the whole cast intact. By season’s end we’ll see a little bit of a shake up and an interesting angle on the story going forward. But, while the cast is still here, they aren’t altogether. The sixth season splits up team Arrow in two and pits them against one another. It really does a solid job on turning a mirror on not just Oliver Queen, but there veteran characters of the show. There are some really great moments too, like with one Felicity and Curtis where things seems buddy buddy for Felicity and they collaborate and he has to remind her, “No, I’m not happy with you” during it.
There is worry during the sixth season of Arrow maybe starting to near the end of its potency. In particular, there was an episode where Oliver and Diggle had to save a school bus with Oliver’s son on it that felt more like an early Smallville story or something skewing way younger. Maybe not so much its stay, but its possible Arrow has been around many years and is isn’t long for the 23 episode order anymore. Because if you tightened up this season, its has a pretty terrific story. The action is still great for TV, and characters continue to be fun, especially with the Black Siren version of Laurel really coming into her own this season and giving Cassidy some of the best material she’s had on the show.
Arrow’s sixth season kept trucking along pretty solid, with a familiar kind of villain story, but also said goodbye to a few key figures and looks to be taking a turn toward something fresh and new next season. Everyone here continues to be game and they had some fun switching up the dynamic, but it’ll be fun to see everyone more or less fighting together next time. As the founding cornerstone of the universe, its been around a bit longer than its branches have, and one has to assume that Arrow will land on its target sooner rather than later. But, Amell is really into this and embracing it, so I imagine the show continues as long as he is game.
Episodes
Fallout
Tribute
Next of Kin
Reversal
Deathstroke Returns
Promises Kept
Thanksgiving
Crisis on Earth-X, Part 2
Irreconcilable Differences
Divided
We Fall
All for Nothing
The Devil’s Greatest Trick
Collision Course
Doppelgänger
The Thanatos Guild
Brothers in Arms
Fundamentals
The Dragon
Shifting Allegiances
Docket No. 11-19-41-73
The Ties That Bind
Life Sentence
Video
Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Layers: BD-50
Clarity/Detail: Arrow is the grimdark show, so there are many a dark corner and nighttime sequence involved. Its all handled quite well with great details coming through. As per usual, this is a nice uptick from the broadcast, with a more confident looking and performing image. Patterns, textures, defects and such all come through quite well in this crisp, sharp image.
Depth: Movements are free, spacey and cinematic in appearance. The dimensional aspects on display here are decent.
Black Levels: Blacks are very inky and the detail that resonates through them. Despite being a very dark show, detail is not hidden and no crushing was found.
Color Reproduction: Everything errs on the side of dingy, but still manages a bold appearance in its own right. Greens and reds stick out. This season is a bit more bright and colorful than the previous three, if not by that much.
Flesh Tones: Skin tones appear natural and have a consistent look throughout each episode of the season. Some episodes may vary on their given look or lighting angle they take for story purposes. Detail is always high with freckles, wrinkles, blemishes make-up and stubble.
Noise/Artifacts: Clean
Audio
Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, Spanish (Castillian) 2.0 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 2.0 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish (Castillian), Spanish (Latino), Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Dynamics: Arrow once again provides a rock solid and satisfactory presentation with its 5.1 DTS-HD MA track. DC’s pure action-based show, surely delivers with good depth and layers in the sound effects, with good intricacies in hearing debris and other follows throughs beyond just the impact. Its all woven together in a very balanced mix with the score, vocals and effects.
Height: N/A
Low Frequency Extension: Explosions, arrows piercing things, magical bursts of energy, impaling, guns, vehicle engines and all the like thunderously pound through the sub woofer.
Surround Sound Presentation: Like all the DC shows, its a more front-heavy experience, but rears do provide some assistance in battle with good awareness of where things are be it up front or behind. Accuracy to screen with movement, travel and distance is excellent.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is crisp, clear and features accurate volume placement.
Extras
Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season is a 4-Blu-ray Disc set that comes with an Ultraviolet digital copy of every episode as well as an insert booklet.
Disc 1
The Split of a Man: Deathstroke (HD, 11:48) – An overview of Arrow’s best and most popular villain, with interviews from cast and crew, from a show perspective and bringing him back for Season 6.
Disc 2
Inside the Crossover: Crisis on Earth-X (HD, 41:59) – A very awesome roundtable discussion of showrunner/producers of each of the series as they talk about this past year’s crossover, what goes on in bringing these worlds together, how they compliment each other and more.
Disc 3
Revenge in Ones and Zeros: The Story of Cayden James (HD, 10:52) – Showrunners discuss Michael Emerson’s hacktivist mastermind villain and his involvement in Season 6.
Disc 4
The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2017 (HD, 58:27) – Instead of the usual “just Arrow panel” form SDCC 2017, they’ve mad one grand DC montage panel that even includes Gotham in the mix.
Summary
Arrow delivers another solid season in its sixth year. One has to wonder if the end is nearing for the show as it heads into its seventh season. And, if that will set a cap precedent for the other shows in the Arrowverse. Once again, Warner Brothers delivers a terrific presentation of the show that outdoes its broadcast counterpart and supplies a decent grouping of extras (Though I’m absolutely positive 2 of the exact featurettes are going to appear on the other shows’ Blu-ray releases). Collectors are already going to pick this up and that’s mainly who this is geared toward.
