Black Lightning: The Complete First Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
The DC TV universe has been an interesting run for sure. It all started with Arrow back over half a decade ago, and then moved on to The Flash (still my favorite of the DC TV universe) and then absorbed the CBS show Supergirl into it’s network of TV series (although keeping her on an alternate Earth so as to reconcile the series not hearing about her before). Then came the rockily started DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (which has gotten much better over its 3 year run), and finally we have Black Lightning, a show that takes up the mantle of an African American superhero that was original created back in 1977 during the Bronze Age of DC Comics. The character is really neat, and with the insane popularity of Marvel’s Black Panther, it was pretty obvious that DC needed to amp up it’s game and bring the black community a super hero of their own to mainline. Unfortunately, while the series has a lot going for it, Black Lightning suffers from a really rocky first season (much like DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) due to heavy handed political proselytizing, weak writing, and a few miscast characters.

The series actually skips the initial origins story like your typical comic book show. Black Lightning is actually a late 40’s High School principal by the name of Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) who gave up being a super powered meta human almost 10 years ago due to the strain it put on his marriage with wife Lynn (Christine Adams). 10 years later though, things have changed. His old nemesis Tobias Whale (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III), the albino mobster who murdered his father, has come back to town and the world needs Black Lightning once more. He is just on the verge of mending things with his estranged wife, when this conundrum comes up again, and Lynn informs him that she will end their tenuous relationship if he goes back to his life of beating up bad guys and coming home injured. However, when their daughters Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain) get kidnapped by pimp and drug dealer Lala (William Catlett), Black Lightning is forced to make his long awaited return, regardless of the consequences.

After getting back in the suit, Jefferson realizes that he still has an obligation to his home town of Freeland. A new drug called Green Light is loose on the street, and it’s violently taking kids lives away left and right. Tobias is back, and dirty cops are ruining almost as many lives as the drug. Putting his promises aside, with the help of his mentor Gambi (James Remar), Black Lightning don’s a new super suit and hits the streets to make sure that innocent have their hero once more.

Black Lightning is….well…interesting to say the least. The concept is fun and the original comic book character had a solid run in his own printed series. I vaguely remember reading a handful of them back as a kid, and remembered actually enjoying them quite a bit. Being that this is The CW, it’s connected to all of the other series, but seems to be centered in one of the alternate Earth’s to The Flash and Arrow, although it might be in Supergirl’s universe as Jefferson mentions her name to his children off hand (although it might be in one of the other 50 some alternate realities, as Supergirl existing on Earth could happen in one of those as well, although I’m betting on him being in the actual TV Show Supergirl just so that there could be some crossovers here and there). But even though it’s one of The CW series, it doesn’t have nearly as much teenage angst and drama that the other series have. It’s grittier, darker, more mature (at least in terms of language), and seems to be aiming at a much more urban demographic than the others. The jokes are very minimal, and the show focuses a lot more on the evil in the world rather than being a selfless being that makes quips right and left.

Some of the main problems are due to the fact that the writing for season one is pretty painful. At least for the first 2/3rds of the show. After the 7th or 8th episode the show DOES get better, but there are still a lot of flaws. Some of them being a freestyle rapper who raps about Black Lightning being back every time something “epic” happens, and the fact that Black Lightning himself is rather limited in his powers. Most of the time he just punches and kicks the baddies (with added electrical effects) and plays with all the little gizmos on the suit Gambi made for him. Then there’s the ridiculously heavy handed political overtones that come through loud and clear (we have everything from people protesting a civil war statue, racist white cops who have to be stopped from using excessive force on a raging drug fueled teenager, comments about how “tough it is to live as a black person”, up to every black person in the show who’s NOT an upstanding principal’s wife and daughter being a Chiraq style gangster selling drugs to little kids and killing everyone around them in “da hood”). While I have zero problem with a certain amount of politics bleeding into a show, it’s done here with so little finesse and with such a heavy hand that it ends up being eye roll worthy rather than impactful.

The good of the show is that it DOES get better from the first half. Krondon as the Albinon Tobias Whale is amazingly well acted, and from what I hear, will be one of the major baddies in the next season. The same thing goes for Lala and his transformation as well. Most of the bad guys are the evil ASA government stooges this season, but the series expertly sets up the next season’s villain’s so well that you almost think of them as this season’s baddie’s until the carpet gets swept from underneath you. The last 3-4 episodes skipped most of the cheesy character development from the weak first half, and actually got some good action going on, but I still feel that the season was WAAAAAAAAAY too rocky for it’s own good.




Rating:

Rated TV-MA by the MPAA




Video:

With typical WB TV regularity, Black Lightning comes to Blu-ray with a very VERY nice looking 1080p encode spread across 2 BD-50 discs. The 6-7 episodes per disc allow for a very healthy mid range bitrate, and the image itself really benefits. The clean digital photography is excellently detailed, with bright and shiny colors (such as the glowing neon blue and yellow of Black Lightning’s suit, or the multi-colors of Thunder’s original spandex). You can see the little intimate clothing details such as missing fiber’s on Tobias Whale’s blue coat, or the smashed bits of rubble after Thunder blasts through a wall. Blacks are deep and inky, and I really don’t see any major signs of banding or crush on the disc. There’s a few shots where the picture is a bit soft, but overall this a is very clean and well detailed TV show from The CW and Warner.






Audio:

The included 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix is a powerhouse, with your typical aggressive mixing used for most of the CW super hero shows. The swooshing and rushing of electrical energy flows through the sound stage, and the impacts of punches and kicks rocks the listener back into their seat. There series is a bit more grounded than say Arrow or The Flash, but it does get fantastic many times, with gunshots rattling all around the listening area, and the sizzle and boom of our super powered heroes signature moves. LFE is punchy and powerful, adding a lot of ooomph to the battle shots, but the show does have a tendency of getting a bit front heavy every once in a while.






Extras:

• Black Lightning Comic-Con panel
• A Family of Strength
• Black Lightning Come Visit Georgia
• Gag Reel
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Black Lightning doesn’t race from the starting gate like The Flash and Arrow did, but it does have some good stuff going for it you enjoy the DC TV universe. The series gets progressively better as the season goes on, and I’m willing to give it a second look when the second season airs in 2019, as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow made huge improvements in its sophomore year, and it would be disengenous of me to write off the series completely just off of a first season. Warner Brothers brings their typical quality levels for audio and video scores for the 13 episode show (which is a deviation from the normal 22-23 episodes of the rest of the show runners in the DC TV Universe), as well as the normal cookie cutter comicon style extras that the other series enjoy as well. While I can’t recommend the show as heartily as I want, I’d say it’s worth checking out at least as a rental if you’re a fan of Arrow, The Flash, Legends, or Supergirl.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Cress Williams, James Remar, Nafessa Williams
Created by: Salim Akil, Mara Brock Akil
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH,
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 780 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 26th, 2018

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will catch it once on Amazon prime/netflix.