Why So Blu?

Ballers: The Complete Third Season (Blu-ray Review)

Once again I guess you can say Spencer Strasmore and his boys are back to “ball out” in Season 3 of the hit HBO comedy Ballers releasing on Blu-ray and DVD April 3rd.  I couldn’t be more excited about this season in particular!  It hits home and gets personal for me here.  Not only am I a fan of NFL football, which this show revolves around, but HBO’s Ballers also brought me closer to The Rock as an actor.  I love him now even more than I did in the Fast & Furious films.  Dwayne Johnson takes the reins with his larger-than-life charisma in this series that looks at the whirlwind lifestyles and real-life problems of former and current football players in sun-soaked Miami (a paradise on Earth).  In case you missed it you can read all about my previous Season 1 coverage over here and 2 here.  But wait!  There’s so much more!  Remember I said this season hits home for me?   Well I wasn’t talking about my relationship with the Rock.  Read on below to find out more.  What?  You didn’t think I ws going to shoot my load proverbially in the first paragraph did you?  Of course not!   

Season 

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is back as retired football superstar Spencer Strasmore in Season 3 of Ballers.  The Rock’s comedic sidekick Rob Corddry also returns with fellow cast members John David Washington, Omar Miller, Donovan Carter and more.  In addition the series features several guest stars such as high profile pro-athletes like Dexter Baines, Stephen Curry, Eddie George and more.  And also in Season 3 here we dive yet even deeper into the extravagant, high-stakes, big money world of NFL football.  You all ready to learn more?  Well hike the proverbial ball here already and let’s get this game started.

So remember me teasing you up above that things get personal for me here in Ballers Season 3?  Well for anybody that knows me mildly well they can tell you how obsessed I am with Las Vegas as a future homestead for myself in addition to the Oakland Raiders move there too.  For me it’s like fate.  I grew up and was raised an Oakland Raiders fan and I have always been hung up on the idea of living in Las Vegas for as long as I can remember.  So when the Raiders announced this past year they were moving there I knew this was God’s way of showing me divine intervention that I myself am meant to live out my life there.  I’m like Moses with the Ten Commandments.  That’s how sure I am of myself. Now I realize you may be wondering what the hell does this have to do with Ballers Season 3?  Well, quite honestly, everything!

In the third season of Ballers here, Spencer is still the main man with the plan.  Along with his colleague Joe Krutel (Corddry) they believe they can be the winners in relocating the NFL’s Oakland Raiders team to Sin City Las Vegas.  That’s not to say there is some very big competition standing in their way.  They even go as far to risk it all in attempt to deliver on that promise to the city of Las Vegas and of course the NFL league.  This is done with utilizing familiar contacts who go all in as well as forging bonds and relationships with both new faces and old enemies.  Of course you also get your share of what makes Ballers so darn appealing, the ups and downs of the charismatic and larger-than-life supporting cast such as Spencer’s friend Charles (Miller) adjusting to his new role as a member of the Miami Dolphin’s front office.  Quite honestly too it’s kind of humorous seeing how star athletes seemingly blow their money so foolishly without sound financial advice.

People can say what they want about Ballers.  To me it’s all about the star power of the The Rock here and the relevance of the real world of the NFL brought into the fold here.  It’s far from being groundbreaking or perfect, but its HBO entertainment at its breeziest and finest for me.  The episodes move quickly and the jokes/gags/stakes are large, the language is raunchy and there’s nudity abound.  What more can you ask for in a 30-minute television show?  Oh alright it’s about the NFL and this year is all about the Raiders too.  Sold!  I am in heaven.  By the way you had me at The Rock.  I’m just saying.

Season 3 Episodes:

1. Seeds of Expansion
2. Bull Rush
3. In The Teeth
4. Ride and Die
5. Make Believe
6. I Hate New York
7. Ricky-Leaks
8. Alley-Oops
9. Crackback
10. Yay Area

* All of the above episodes are housed on one Blu-ray Disc.

Video 

• Encoding: AVC MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Clarity/Detail: Whether it’s upscaled from the Blu-ray source or my Apple TV’s HBO app Ballers always looks like a billion bucks on my 4K display.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s the sun-soaked Florida landscapes and rich, green vegetation or the obvious stretch marks always present across the Rock’s upper chest and his shaved chest hair follicles, but things continue to look phenomenal here.  Detail is amazingly impeccable throughout in the textures (you can literally feel the plane seat they are so clear), skin pigments, beads of sweat, pores and veins in Rock’s head, backgrounds, clothing, television sets and character generation, vegetation and the many water environments (pool, oceanside, etc.), not to mention all the Florida honeys, like where I found mine.  It’s a slick and smooth viewing experience.
• Depth: Because of the clarity and detail on display the onscreen characters all pop in the utmost of 3D-likeness against the deep, luscious backgrounds/chiseled environments.  There are too many examples to list here, but you’re just going to have to trust me…depth of field wears a badge of prominence throughout this television series’ Blu-ray Disc.  You have to love it!
• Black Levels: The black levels are deep and inky throughout.  They also brilliantly pop against the contrast of the many Florida neon lights of Miami at night and now Las Vegas in Season Three!
• Color Reproduction: The colors are very vivid and bright, but change tonally from scene-to-scene depending upon the amount generous sunshine creeping through or the way it’s shot.  It’s the utmost of realism too as because anyone that knows Florida for example knows it’s not always sunny 24/7, but gets pretty cloudy and stormy at least once a day. Now into Season Three I’m still head-over-heels in love with the wild green vegetation, bright sun drenched colors and gorgeous blue waters.  Can you tell I spent the majority of my life in grey Cleveland, Ohio and the five most recent years in dull, lifeless Austin, Texas?  Watching Ballers is a breath of fresh air.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones are for the most part all lifelike and natural, and most importantly there’s a lot of flesh always prominently on display throughout here.  However, sometimes they can appear a tad hot, but it’s forgiving.
• Noise/Artifacts: For the third straight year I did not notice any noise or unwanted artifacts that would keep you from enjoying this perfect HBO presentation.  In my biased eyes it’s near perfect in every way.

Audio 

• Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Latin Spanish DTS Digital 2.0 (sans French this season)
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Latin Spanish, German, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
• Dynamics: The dynamics are well developed and equalized here, but like every other drama without a kicking soundtrack, which this show thankfully has, things just get really dialogue and very front heavy.  That’s no fault to this presentation at all, but just the reality of the situation. Other than that dynamics are in check with the utmost of realism and authenticity of how things are balanced with central priority and dialogue is always prominent and clear, which is the most important factor here.
• Low Frequency Extension: Upon hitting play you will instantly notice the subwoofer pumping and jumping from your entire front setup due to the show’s killer soundtrack and musical selections employed throughout here at times due in part to the show’s party like atmosphere in Miami, FL and now Vegas.  That’s because Miami and now Vegas is where the party just never stops, at least not for ballers like what we have in this show.  You have to keep the jams thumping and life interesting, right?  Of course you do!  Other examples include onscreen scuffles, various atmospheric accents during onscreen events, the rumble of a monster truck and other miscellaneous happenings on the show.
• Surround Sound Presentation: Besides  more of the LFE presentation, this is the only area I would have loved to have heard seriously beefed up because without atmospheric and ambiance moments (such as birds or kids at a high school), the rears only really come to life during the show’s soundtrack hits, party scenes, etc.  When the sub pumps and thumps, the rears try their absolute best to put you in the middle of these party-like moments.  As you can imagine this is when this surround track is killer.  Otherwise you just hear minor ambiance in the scenes from them at a very low mix.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialog is clear, intelligible and loud throughout.  I have zero complaints here.  Majority of it is very centralized throughout, but there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s all audible.  And it is!

Extras 

Ballers: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray includes NOTHING in the way of Extras not even the “Inside The Episode” featurettes the previous two seasons housed for each episode.   Do you think they did this to save themselves from packaging a second disc like they did the past two Blu-ray seasons?  The only thing you have to work with here, and that’s if you even consider this an Extra, is the ability to watch this show mobile with the included Digital HD redemption code.  Make sure to redeem it both in UtlraViolet and in iTunes.  Enjoy!

Summary 

Like I said for two years now whether you’re a Rock fan, HBO series fan, NFL fan, drama fan or even an everything Florida fan, I think Ballers has a little something for all to go around here.  The third season here is a strong follow-up to one hell of a great HBO series with both Las Vegas and the Oakland Raiders to boot.  You just can’t beat the larger-than-life charisma that Dwayne Johnson exhumes in this series.  There’s just something magical about the way he moves, talks and that wide, million dollar smile of his.  It’s like his bling.  I just can’t put my finger on it, but I also know I can’t resist it either.  Call it divine intervention, brilliant marketing on the behalf of HBO last year or whatever you want, but I’m a hardcore fan of Ballers and I highly recommend picking up this Third Season Blu-ray set this April.  Why not work on your pump and get yourself ready for the upcoming draft with Ballers: The Complete Third Season.  You know you want to.  So just do it!

 

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Ballers: The Complete Third Season

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April 3rd!

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