Why So Blu?

Legends Of Tomorrow: The Complete Fifth Season (Blu-ray Review)

Always waiting as the last Arrowverse show to premiere in the television season, Legends of Tomorrow has been my personal favorite of the bunch since its second season. While a rather eclectic and large group of heroes, only two of them really had some time out from under the sun during the big Infinite Crisis crossover, to which Sarah Lance made a funny remark to write it off.  Their previous season left things in a rather interesting mostly happy cliffhanger, having had one of their members wiped from existence following a grand victory. As per clockwork, its their turn on the Blu-ray release conveyor belt. And like those hour hands prior, it contains a bonus disc with the entire Infinite Crisis run and all those bells and whistles of bonus features with it. You’ll be able to grab this season when it arrives in stores and on virtual shelves September 22nd. Pre-ordering form the paid Amazon Associates link below is always appreciated.

Season

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow follows a group of misfit heroes as they fight, talk, and sing their way through protecting the timeline from aberrations, anomalies, and anything else that threatens to mess with history. After saving the world via the power of song and themed entertainment in last season’s finale, the Legends are major celebrities. Some struggle with the transition from lovable losers to A-list stars, while others start letting fame go to their heads. When a documentary crew decides to film the Legends in action, distracting them from their original mission, Astra Logue frees history’s most notorious villains from Hell in a bid for power. It’s up to the Legends to forgo fame and stop these reanimated souls (who they quickly dub “Encores”) from wreaking havoc on the timeline, whether it’s Rasputin popping out of his coffin and trying to become an immortal tsar or Marie Antoinette (and her head) turning the French Revolution into a deadly, non-stop party.

Despite starting (proper) after the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover, Legends of Tomorrow still suffers from the fallout of the gigantic multiverse conjoining effort. And that’s not really related to story content, moreso having do with the production blow-back repercussions from Crisis. With Caity Lotz needed for the crossover, it appears obvious that shoot was going on parallel to Legends of Tomorrow’s regular shooting schedule. Lotz’s Sara Lance is either absent or sidelined during a lot of the fifth season of Legends and it really suffers with that hole there. A ship (or Waverider) without its captain doesn’t quite gel without her. Personally, I find Sara Lance (aka White Canary) to be the best character of the entire Arrow-verse, so perhaps I have a bias. Without her, they try to have Sara’s squeeze Ava (Jes Macallan) assume the mantle but it doesn’t quite carry successfully and the show itself struggle between whether her or Matt Ryan’s John Constantine (Whose novelty is starting to feel stale) is the head chief to command the show.

Part of some traditional fun with the show is how they’ve taken actors or characters and shaken them up a bit. The original captain, Rip Hunter saw some different angles on him after the first season when he’d return.  Most recently they’d done it with Maisie Richarson-Sellers as she played Amaya and then a shape-shifter Charlie who took the form of Amaya. Unfortunately they attempt that with Zari (Tala Ashe) this season and it just falls flat on its face. Zari was one of the strongest, level headed characters on the show and they’ve spun her into an alternate universe air-headed influencer and left us with a bland, uninteresting brother character in her place. I was open to see where it would go or how they would handle it, but I just kept thinking “What are they doing? Is this over yet?” But by show’s end, it seemed content to leave it be.

As I poo poo on season five, know that its not all bad. I have a high expectation for the show and the fifth still delivered plenty of the goods I enjoy about the show and also picked up in the final 1/4 of the season finishing well enough. There are those fun screwing around episodes that present themselves. One in particular was the episode that riffed on some popular television series and it was undoubtedly a lot of joy. Plus, Caity Lotz in 60s-Star Trek garb as a pseudo Captain Kirk was absolutely stunning and something I never realized I needed in life. Perhaps we can get a Star Trek reboot someday with her as Jamie T. Kirk? The show also climaxes in true Legends fashion with the ridiculous fun its been known to have in “Swan Thong” (And yeah, it delivers on that title).

Legends of Tomorrow followed suit with the CW DC TV shows this year in having an off year. This was easily the weakest season since the inaugural one. Worry not, its far from that dreadful misfire, but for the high bar set following that, this fifth season is pretty mediocre and average all together at best. There were some big departures this season, which the show has typically overcome but these were sort of different. And how much longer does Dominic Purcell’s “Mick” have as he seems like he’s starting to check out. With no crossover planned for the next season, hopefully Legends can get back to itself and Sara Lance can once again captain the ship and be a big player for the whole season. As always, though, I’ll be there, eager waiting!

Episodes

Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour Five

Meet The Legends

Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me

Slay Anything

A Head of Her Time

Mortal Khanbat

Mr. Parker’s Cul-de-Sac

Romeo V Juliet: Dawn of Justness

Zari, Not Zari

The Great British Fake Off

Ship Broken

Freaks & Greeks

I Am Legends

The One Where We’re Trapped on TV

Swan Thong

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Layers: BD-50

Clarity/Detail: Over the years with these DC shows, the presentation of them comes around like clockwork and they all pretty much line up to their previous seasons’ audio and visual standards. Legends of Tomorrow has had a nice cross of vibrancy and is darker 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, Italian 2.0 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH, Italian SDH

Dynamics: Over the years with these DC shows, the presentation of them comes around like clockwork and they all pretty much line up to their previous seasons’ audio and visual standards. 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.

Height: N/A

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

Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fifth Season is a 4-Disc set that comes with an episode guide insert sheet and a digital copy of every episode in the season. Disc 4, featuring all episodes of the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover event, is only available on the Blu-ray edition and is a “limited edition” exclusive. Pretty much all the bonus features, or ones with any weight to them, are on the Crisis disc.

Disc 1

Unaired Scenes (HD, 13:33)

Disc 2

Unaired Scenes (HD, 11:56) 

Disc 3

Unaired Scenes (HD, 6:42)

Post Production Theatre (HD, 3:50) – A collection of stand in shots for intended pick up shots for shoots as done by the post production team and inserted into the normal sequences. While done for some fun, this is actually a pretty interesting and worthwhile bonus feature.

More Fun Moments Collection (HD, 11:58) – Some fun little extra things standalone like commercials and the Mr. Rogers riff scene in episodes.

Gag Reel (HD, 8:12)

Disc 4

Crisis On Infinite Earths (HD) – All 5 episodes of the major crossover event are here on the bonus disc.

Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Architects Return (HD, 11:55) – Various credible talking heads discuss the original ambitious comic book run that is the source for the crossover. They also go into how they crafted it to fit their universe while also keeping in line with what the comic was.

Crisis Management (HD, 13:08) – “It was not a burden, it was a gift.” The writers and showrunners discuss the collaboration of talents in front of and behind the camera to bring this to life. They talk about how they geeked out and would walk over to other shows’ sets just to enjoy the whole experience come to life.

Crisis Past and Present: Kevin Conroy Bat Legend (HD, 3:17) – This focuses on the decision to bring animated Batman icon Kevin Conroy to be the live action elder Bruce Wayne in Crisis. Conroy discusses how his voice is much more difficult to maintain for a 12 hour live action shoot than a 2 hour voice recording booth session.

Crisis Past and Present: Superman vs. Superman (HD, 4:37) – On this one we look at Brandon Routh’s continuation of his Superman Returns man of steel.

Characters in Crisis: Pariah (HD, 4:20) – This piece talks about Pariah in the comic book arc and how they utilized it in this televised version of the story.

Characters in Crisis: The Anti-Monitor (HD, 4:55) – Subject says it all, as the show story editors/producers talk about how the villain works in the Arrowverse.

Summary

Sadly, like the rest of the Arrowverse last year, Legends of Tomorrow saw itself on a rather pedestrian season in year five that feels compromised most by the Crisis crossover. The Blu-ray set follows the standard of the previous couple of years and of the other shows released this year. Luckily, the Legends of Tomorrow set is one of the few to add a bit of its own flair to the bonus features regardless of how few there are. Luckily they have been priced pretty fair in the past couple years.

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