Major Crimes: The Complete Fifth Season - DVD Review

[Michael Scott]

Major Crimes: The Complete Fifth Season

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

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Movie
The non-serialized cop drama genre is pretty much full to the brim right now. So far they’ve even outpaced Law and Order as the reigning champion with shows ranging from The Mentalist to Criminal Intent to CSI. Take your pick of various twists to the general premise, differing lead characters that you like, and voila! Have fun. I’m in no way bashing the genre as they make fun time wasters for someone who just wants to come home, watch an hour of TV without worrying about what you missed the week before, then head of to bed. It’s the staple of American life and many shows are simply fantastic in that little niche. For those not in the know, Major Crimes is actually a spinoff of the VERY popular show The Closer which starred a very likeable and charismatic Kyra Sedgwick. The show ran for a solid 7 seasons before Kyra and the powers that be cancelled the show claiming that Kyra wanted to end on a high note instead of dragging the show through the mud with weaker and weaker seasons just to make a buck. However, Fans were NOT very happy about the cancellation as The Closer seemed nowhere near its death knells. Thus, Major Crimes was born.

While I say that Major Crimes is a spinoff, it would be more accurate to label it as a CONTINUATION of The Closer, just with Kyra in the lead. Mary McDonnell’s Sharon Raydor character replaces Kyra’s Brenda Johnson as captain of the L.A.P.D. and continues on right where she left of. The same supporting cast (for the most part), including the faces we all know and love like the stodgy Lou Provenza (G.W. Bailey), the annoying but hilarious detective Mike Tao (Michael Paul Chan) and many more. Many of us were worried that Major Crimes was set up to fail from the get go, as Kyra wanted to end the show on a high not, and this new spinoff was basically just more of the same stuff, just with Captain Brenda Johnson at the help (a huge pull for the show). I was included in those worried fans and just decided to skip Major Crimes so as not to taint the memory of my beloved The Closer. Well, I was bored a few months back and decided to start binging a few seasons and color me a bit surprised when I really enjoyed the show. Much of the same feel is still there as The Closer, so fans will be more than comfortable in the setting, and the episodes didn’t go downhill that much. There are still “villain of the week” episodes as you would expect, but Mary McDonnell is a solid replacement for Kyra (I still call her Madame President for all you BSG fans out there) and the mildly serialized plot lines were pretty good.

Working my way up to Season 5 was no problem as I binge watched 4 seasons in about a month. The 5th season is about on par with the 3rd and 4th, which is basically saying it’s “par for the course”. There’s a lot of fun episodes such as the crew breaking up a murder in Mexico, a dirty cop getting caught selling drugs to adult film stars, a psychopath with a bag of guns and intent to kill and many more. At the same time, the familiarity is also a slight negative in the grand scheme of things. We’ve seen it all before, and in fact we’ve seen it all before for about 12 seasons if you included the 7 years of Kyra helming the same supporting cast. These cop dramas are ALL the same on the surface. You have good cops looking for bad people, all within the space of about 42 minutes in front of the camera, rinse and repeat. What makes the shows unique and appealing to different people are the characters and their interactions with each other. Bones has Booth and Dr. Brenner, NCIS has Ducky, Abby and the rest, etc etc. THOSE people are what really make the shows worth watching. The same goes for Major Crimes. I love the characters and love the interactions but after 12 years it’s REALLY hard to forge new ground, especially with the only really major person being replaced is Kyra with McDonnell. It’s not a knock against the show, but rather the fact that the show has hit a wall with out fresh and innovative they can be. Something which makes me drop the ratings from simply fantastic, to really good.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Major Crimes: The Complete Fifth Season is pretty much what you would expect from a modern day cop drama. It’s got a clean feel to it with a natural looking color grading that shows off great detail and sharp clarity for a 480p DVD. Warner has spread the season over 5 discs, giving us an impressive bitrate for the episodes and the results are generally very pleasing. There’s some mild softness that happens on DVD and there’s a flicker of digital noise in some of the office complex shots. Outdoor sequences tend to be bright and very well saturated in the color department, and the overall fine detail is quite commendable. I didn’t notice any macroblocking or other digital arftifacting to my eyes with the hints of digital noise being the only major flaw.







Audio:

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse here. The 5.1 Dolby Digital track is AGAIN what you would expect from a police drama show on modern day TV. It’s front heavy, but also fairly active in the surrounds when the detectives get out in the field and have to take down a bad guy, or when the musical score is implemented. It’s simple, clean, precise, and having very flaws to my ears. The LFE is a bit sparse, and sometimes I felt the higher end of the vocal spectrum felt a bit constrained. It could be because the Dolby Digital track is compressed at the 384 kbps range instead of the normal 448 kbps, but it’s hard to tell as the track is solidly capable in all other aspects.
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Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Bloopers

Final Score: ​

The show is in NO WAY unenjoyable. If you’ve watched the show over the years you know it’s still a blast to watch and more than capable of keeping its ratings high with good characters that we’ve all come to know and love. This latest season luckily is not showing any signs of slowing down after the slight hiccup that was the changeover from The Closer and is actually slated to receive a 6th season coming up this year. I’m actually sad that I put off watching the show for so long due to my fear that it would ruin the legacy that its predecessor forged so carefully. It’s a fun show and Major Crimes: The Complete Fifth Season is a very solid presentation from Warner Brothers. The audio and video is very clean and well done for a modern drama and my only real complaint with the package is the VERY VERY scant extras. Recommended as a fun watch.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Mary McDonnell, G.W. Bailey, Tony Denison
Created by: James Duff
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 MPEG 2
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: NR
Runtime: 885 Minutes
DVD Release Date: May 30th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Fun Watch