DC's Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fourth Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fourth Season



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
I’ve got to say, I never actually believed I’d say this, but DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fourth Season may very well be one of the best seasons of The CW DCTV lineup for this last year. I mean, this was the little engine that could, as Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl have kind of been the dominant shows for the last 4-7 years, while Legends has kind of been the cast of series that started with some less than admirable results for it’s debut season. The hodge podge of superheros worked better the second season, and actually improved even more for season 3, but with Supergirl struggling to keep from preaching you to death, and Arrow and The Flash kind of just being average, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has gone full on balls to the walls crazy insane for their fourth season. And it’s actually a really good thing.

Legends has always been a bit more goofy and out there due to the time travel motif, but they kind of found their groove in season 3 by being more crazy than any of the other DCTV superhero shows, and reveled in the ensemble cast. Last year we even introduced John Constantine into their universe after Fox literally dumped his TV show, and now we get him full time. That means the producers said “what the hey, lets just go absolutely bonkers this season and have fun with it!”, and we get to enjoy murderous unicorns, fairy godmothers, dragons, John Constantine’s inner demons (some literal demons), trips to hell, lots and lots of winking and nodding at the camera (including Ray constantly making little jabs of “maybe this will boost our ratings!”).

After defeating the demon Mallus last year by literally cuddling him to death (trust me on this one, it was hilariously epic) the Legends are finally done with the time aberrations they caused from season 2 (or just about, they wrap up the last one in the first few minutes of Season 4). UNNNNNNFORTUNATELY they kind of messed things up a bit more. The idea to let a gigantic monster out of it’s case to defeat Mallus had some unforeseen consequences. You see, when they opened the door to let it out (cosmically speaking) they kind of let out a whole bevy of demons/baddies/monsters in the process, and now the Legends have to do what they do best once again. Fix their own mistakes by rounding them all up and sending them back to hell with the help of John Constantine.

The series has a core cast of characters, but what really makes them unique is the rotating ensemble cast of secondary characters that come and go throughout the years. This years addition is of course John Constantine himself, and Nate’s father Hank (played by Back to the Future’s Thomas F. Wilson), and an old romance of Constantine’s whom he MIGHT have accidentally damned to hell sometime in the past. Old romances are destroyed, new ones formed, and once again Sara Lance’s hilarious bisexuality is almost at parody levels.

This season really IS the best that Legends has ever been. If I could describe the lunacy of this season (which actually didn’t participate in any of the CW DCTV crossovers this year) as being a cross between traditional time traveling super heroes and Disney’s Once Upon a Time, just a little darker and a little crazier. Constantine himself is a very welcome addition to the crew, and actually makes up the bulk of the fight against the REAL enemy behind the scenes (always one of those) and his use of magic brings some much needed change to the series.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Legends of Tomorrow has always had a stellar looking video quality, but I was a bit nervous when I saw that the show was going to have 2 BD-50s again instead of 3. However, being only 16 episodes it’s not out of the question to have great quality, and the artifacting that we saw with Season 1 of the series being on 2 discs seems to have not been replicated outside of some mild banding. The series benefits from being a super bright and colorful show, with all sorts of colors literally bursting from the seams. The digital photography makes good use of the colors, and even the CGI for the show seems to have been fine tuned a bit more this year as well. Clarity is sharp across the board, with a light and airy feeling to the whole color grading system, and once more, blacks are consistently strong. The banding I mentioned does show up in some of the darker scenes, such as when we’re in a bar in hell, but otherwise this is a very impressive looking encode for Warner.







Audio:

More broken record time. Once again the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that Legends sports is a real treat to listen to. The mix is highly aggressive, has a lot of punch with Gideon jumping in and out of time, and the action really encompasses the viewer. Constantine's magical spells adds some serious low end oomph and the constant barrage of mystical creatures and energy blasts livens up the sound stage quite a bit with some very raw and energetic activity. The score is typical for the show, with a lots of horn and synthesized "dun dun duns!", and flows effortlessly through the 6 channels. Bass is powerful and punchy, but the dialog is never compromised at all throughout the show's 16 episodes. Warner has always prided themselves on making the CW DCTV shows the best they can be in terms of audio, and this year is no different.







Extras:

• ALL 16 one-hour episodes
• DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Legendary Storytelling
• Post Production Theater
• Gag Reel
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Legends of Tomorrow season 4 isn’t 100% perfect. It does suffer a bit in the center episodes of the season, but they made the smart decision to cut back the year’s episode count back to 16 once more instead of the 20+ range, as it made the filler less noticeable this year, and a much tighter run. The craziness makes this one of the most insane and fun season the series has had yet, and I’m actually starting to enjoy it more than some of the DCTV front runners like The Flash and Arrow. Warner’s Blu-ray release is top notch in regards to technical specs, but sadly we’re left with even fewer special features than usual. All in all, a fantastically fun ride, and definitely recommended.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Brandon Routh, Katy Lotz, Franz Drameh, Nick Zano, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Dominic Purcell,
Created by: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Phil Klemmer
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Italian DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Italian
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: NR
Runtime: 677 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: Own on Blu-ray and DVD 09/24/19

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will have to catch this series from season 1. lol.