DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray Review)
Control your own fate and catch up with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment releases the complete first season of the epic series on Blu-rayTMincluding Digital HD and DVD on August 23, 2016. Before the second season returns on The CW, fans can watch all 16 exhilarating episodes from the first season, plus nearly an hour of extra content, including the 2015 Comic-Con Panel, featurettes, and a gag reel.DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is The CW’s #2 show among Total Viewers, coming in only behind The Flash.* DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete First Season will be available on DVD and Blu-ray (including Digital HD) formats. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow stars Victor Garber (The Flash, Titanic), Brandon Routh (Arrow, Superman Returns), Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who), Caity Lotz (Arrow, Mad Men), Franz Drameh (The Flash, Edge of Tomorrow), and Ciara Renée (The Flash), with Dominic Purcell (Prison Break, The Flash) and Wentworth Miller (Prison Break, The Flash). Falk Hentschel (The Flash), and Casper Crump (The Flash, Arrow) are recurring guest stars in the series. Based on the characters from DC Comics, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Blindspot, The Mysteries of Laura), Marc Guggenheim (Arrow), Andrew Kreisberg (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl), Phil Klemmer (Chuck, Political Animals), Sarah Schechter (Arrow, The Flash, Blindspot, Supergirl, The Mysteries of Laura) and Chris Fedak (Chuck, Forever).
**Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.**
Season 
From the creators of The Flash and Arrow comes this Super Hero team-up that combines characters from both series, as well as new heroes from the DC Comics pantheon. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront the unstoppable threat of the immortal Vandal Savage— a threat which not only puts the world at stake, but all of time itself.
Legends Of Tomorrow was a big big deal coming into the 2015-2016 television season. Surrounded by a lot of hype, the should would mix and match the DC TV comic universe world’s with some of the former side and supporting characters. Villains, heroes, time travelers…coming together to save us from Vandal Savage and save time and space. The first trailer dropped and it looked out of this world, almost like it could have been a theatrical event. Big expectations were happening for this “event”.
And “event” is what everyone thought it would be. A shorter season, maybe one time deal or mostly standalone affair that another Legends Of Tomorrow would bring something different. But, as the season kept going, it became more apparent that the intentions weren’t for a grand event, but for a hopeful new series to add to the roster of DC shows. In wake of this, the show sorta started jumping all over the place and having a much looser focus and the sense of urgency lightened up. With a time traveling story about beating a guy to the punch, it was rather uncaring and took too much time dilly dallying because of having too large of an episode order. If Legends Of Tomorrow had been an 8 episode fully serialized event, it may have been something amazing. Instead, it turned out to be a solid show with some terrific episodes and moments here and there.
That’s not to say the show isn’t worth it. And maybe some of that is by being caught off guard in thinking the show was going to play differently. It wound up surpassing Arrow and being second only to The Flash as one of the network’s top shows. Where it stuck out among them was in its big action set pieces and ability to be able to swap settings and environments on a dime. It also had the luxury of being able to play roulette when it came to the pairings of their characters.
Those characters were mostly good. Lets start with the “not good” first by just forgetting about the Hawkman/Hawkgirl newbies to the universe. Both pretty much sucked and were poorly performed. Which sucks, as the prospect of Hawkgirl could have been something, but they honestly didn’t know what to do with her and either sidelined her most of the time or had her just deal with boring girl relationship drama stuff. Fear not, though as the rest of the cast was plenty fun to sit and chew on. Some characters even bettered or redeemed themselves here being apart from their normal shows.
Sarah Lance (White Canary) winds up becoming a complete all-star here on Legends, and one of the best characters with the stronger of the character arcs. She’s a lot more fun and intriguing here as opposed to Arrow where she just kinda of tired out, felt like a duplicate character and like she was being used just to mug the camera. Plus Caty Lotz pairs with Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller tremendously. The trio of Rory, Canary and Captain Cold is the most enjoyable on the show. Miller’s Captain Cold of course is probably the best thing about the show. Rory is another character, like Sarah who becomes much more interesting and likable on Legends.
The rest of the cast manages to be their solid selves we already were enjoying to begin with. Victor Garber is one of those actors in television that you’ll watch in just about anything. Here he grounds it and brings in that adult rock character that all the DC shows have. Brandon Routh continues his adorable and great turn as Ray Palmer (The Atom). He gets sucked into some really crummy melodrama, but we like him so we manage to deal with it while hoping for those other moments.
While Legends Of Tomorrow was merely solid when we wanted it to blow us away isn’t a bad thing. In fact, the show had a tremendously awesome season finale. Knowing what we know now, and being ready for it (as well as I think the showrunners who may have shifted gears on their plan during production of season 1), Season 2 should be a lot of fun and a different experience. Plus we get some new heroes (Like Vixen) to add to the time traveling brigade.
Episodes
Pilot Part 1
Pilot Part 2
Blood Ties
White Knights
Fail-Safe
Star City 2046
Marooned
Night of the Hawk
Left Behind
Progeny
The Magnificent Eight
Last Refuge
Leviathan
River of Time
Destiny
Legendary
Video
Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Clarity/Detail: Legends of Tomorrow has a nice cross of vibrancy and the darker, “grittier” (ugh) in its look being a hybrid of some of the DC shows. Fitting as its a blend of all of them. The image is nice, sharp and full of cool details like costuming ticks and and territorial textures. This is a nice uptick from the the TV broadcast picture and manages to hold onto keeping the CG looking solid.
Depth: This is a very nice, loose, free and spacey image. Movements are natural and smooth. There are some great action scenes that give a real 3 dimensional vibe to the whole ordeal. Maybe the best of all the DC shows in this regard.
Black Levels: Blacks are deep and rich. No crushing witnesses. Shading, darker lit scenes and the shadows are strong suit and look pretty good.
Color Reproduction: Coloring is rich and bold, with good reds, yellows and blues among the many. White actually carries a strong palette and looks nice.
Flesh Tones: Skin tones are natural and maintain consistency throughout the season. Some scenarios, flashbacks and places can change the tones to fit color timing, but overall, the natural state of things is solid. Facial details like freckles, dimples, wrinkles, stubble and cuts and scrapes all come through crystal clear.
Noise/Artifacts: Clean
Audio
Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, Portuguese 2.0 Dolby Digital,
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Dynamics: Legends of Tomorrow sounds beautiful here in this 5.1 mix. It might be the most action packed of the group of DC shows. There are scenes with a lot going on and this track manages to capture it all and rapt the viewer up in the middle of it. Effects are well layered with good distinction. A nice healthy balance of the mix of score, vocals and effects carry this over nicely.
Low Frequency Extension: Explosions, gun blasts, giants stomping and a lot of sci-fi noises (lol) fill the subwoofer with many different twists and turns and beats and bumps.
Surround Sound Presentation: Legends of Tomorrow provides a lively 5 channel performance. Many full on battle scenes take an edge to give some buffer to the rear speakers while building an awesome back and forth up in the front.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is crisp, set to a great volume and plenty clear. All diction comes intact.
Extras
DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow: The Complete First Season comes with an UltraViolet digital copy featuring all the episodes.
Disc 1
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: 2015 Comic-Con Panel (HD, 18:49) – Warner Bros. Television Presents a Night of DC Entertainment at Comic-Con 2015: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Features the exact same intro as the Supergirl Blu-ray had for the panel featurette (Except the cast inserts of LOT cast not Supergirl).
Gag Reel (HD, 7:03) – Starts with a retro intro credits sequence for the show.
Disc 2
Jonah Hex: Hex Marks the Spot (HD, 6:59) – Journey behind the scenes of “The Magnificent Eight” as producers bring the legend of Jonah Hex and the ways of the Old West to life. They talk about using the Sergio Leone westerns as a backbone for the vibe and aesthetic of the episode. Details on the costuming are gone over as well. Oh, and they talk about Jonah Hex in terms of his history and use on the show.
A Fantastic Voyage: Touring the Waverider Set (HD, 8:57) – Journey behind the scenes with the production design team responsible for bringing the Waverider to life. From the origin of the time traveling ship, to the VFX that completes the illusion, a complete look.
History in the Making (HD, 13:04) – Explore the cross over between fact and fiction, as the Legends team makes contact with a variety of eras thought the series. They talk of how fun it is to make each episode a “mini movie”, giving them their own genre, style and characters.
Summary
Legends Of Tomorrow is a nice, solid full on super team entry into the DC television canon. While season one was fine, the hope is that season 2 grasps everything much better. Most of the cast is intact to return as well as some exciting new faces. This Blu-ray brings the show home with great picture and audio quality as well as the traditional slew of extras that these shows include. A pickup for the DC collector for sure, and for those that need to catch up!
