The Flash: The Complete Sixth Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Flash: The Complete Sixth Season



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
“My name is Barry Allen, and I’m USUALLY the fastest man alive!"

Outside of Arrow itself, The Flash is THE longest running DC Arrowverse show out there, and in my opinion, one of THE best that the franchise has to offer. What started out being introduced in the second season of Arrow, The Flash became The CW’s most popular DC live action show, and still is one of their highest rated shows on the network to this day. However, even the greatest have slumps, and even the biggest shows got hit hard with the Covid-19 pandemic this year. Unlike The Blacklist, The Flash decided not to wrap up the season early with an animated episode. Instead, the show runners decided to end the season at episode 19, leaving the season boxset unfinished. But fear not, those lost episodes are not going to be crammed into a recap episode or ignored completely. Instead, Greg Berlanti and crew decided to leave this season “incomplete” and include the final 3 episodes as the beginning of season 7 when it comes later this year (God willing). So think of this little hiccup as an extended break for the ending of season 6 (and of course the second half villain) rather than a bungled season finale.

Anyways, Iris, Barry and the rest of the Star Labs team have to deal with the fallout of last season (sorry few tiny spoilers ahead). With the timeline being reset XS is wiped from existence, leaving Barry and Iris to mourn for their future daughter’s “death”. However, time in Central City doesn’t stop for the grieving, as a new bad guy emerges from the ashes in the form of Bloodwork (Senhill Ramamurthy of Heroes and Covert Affairs fame), a doctor who is desperate to cure cancer. So much so that he infuses his cure with dark matter to make it viable, accidentally turning himself into a meta that can control blood (sounds weird, but man is it a nasty super power).

At the same time the crew are coming to grips with Barry’s future in the upcoming “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover that we’ve spent YEARS waiting for. Barry is determined to avoid fate, only to take a jaunt through time and come face to face with what is actually coming, and instead turns his determination to change his destiny, into determination to be the hero that very well may have to give his life so that his friends (and of course the multiverse) can live.

About this time in the show we get the second half villain, which kind of gets shafted a bit due to the Covid-19 virus forcing the final few episodes to got get slid over to next year. THIS new villain comes in the form of Mirror Master, a trickster who turns friends against friends, adding a nice slice of mystery and intrigue to the series. Sadly we’ll have to wait till next season to see how team Flash gets to wrap up his arc, but better late than never.

As a HUGE The Flash fan ever since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed what DC has done with the character in The CW. However, the show has started to show some wear points. One of the biggest gripes about Arrow was that “Team Arrow” got too big and unwieldy. Instead of being about Arrow and his adventures with a a few friends, it became bogged down with unnecessary soap opera drama, and too many superheroes in the kitchen. The same has kind of become true with The Flash in a lesser way. Team Flash has added new characters each year, and this year in particular feels a bit crowded. I mean, I like that Cisco becomes Vibe (although he’s now not a meta this year due to Caitlin’s “meta cure”), and even Ralph Dibny (e.g. Elongated Man) works well as a counter balance now that Cavanaugh is mostly gone, but now Iris is part of the team for the last few years, Joe’s wife Cecile, and now we have a few new converts again. The season suffered for it two fold. One of those folds was due to the virus (sorry, not much the show runners could do with that one), but also that this season was almost not about Flash at all. So many episodes were side jaunts with Killer Frost (always hated how they treated her character to shoehorn her into the show a few years back), Ralph, Iris, etc etc etc. Leaving only a few episodes to really focus on the character we’re all here to see…..The Flash.




Rating:

Rated TV-14




Video:

This is the boring part of the review. As with many other long running shows, The Flash: The Complete Sixth Season looks and sounds pretty much identical to previous seasons, so this is going to be kind of like a broken record. Yup, great digital look to the show, with glossy colors, shiny shiny costumes, and of course lots of brooding darkness as Barry Allen has to fight his villains in abandoned warehouses and the like. There’s still some spotty CGI due to the budget of the show (Bloodworks “tentacles” are really obvious), but other than that this is a fantastic looking encode that mirrors the previous seasons excellence.






Audio:

Over the years the crew at Warner Brothers have created stellar sound mixes for the show, and it shows that they are still paying attention at the mixing board. This season is no different, with an excellent 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that rocks you to your core during the action (I did get a kick at the theme song for the movie Flash) and is more than capable of being quiet and reserved during dialog heavy conversations. Surrounds are active with the woosh and zip of the Flash’s lightning, and the score roars and rumbles with ambient noise. Bass is deep and punchy, making this another home run for the show.






Extras:

• "Kiss Kiss Breach Breach – Noir" (Special Episode)
• "Kiss Kiss Breach Breach – Noir" Commentary by showrunner/executive producer Eric Wallace
• The Best of DC TV's Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2019
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Bonus disc for "Crisis on Infinite Earths"

Final Score: ​

Every show in the Arrowverse has it’s low points, and unfortunately this season was the low point for The Flash. I liked even the weaker seasons of the 6 season show so far, but this one was probably the most mediocre. Some of that is due to the upset of the world wide virus that is sucking the fun out of life right now, but some of it is due to the writers trying a bit too hard to turn the show into a soap opera. Season 7 has so far promised to go back to the shows roots, but we’ll have to see. At least Warner Brothers Blu-ray set is exceptional as usual, and I like that each of The CW Arrowverse seasons this year come with all 5 crossover episodes of Crisis on Infinite Earths on a single Blu-ray so that they can be watched together, instead of having to piece together the 5 parter from individual seasons. Decent Watch.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh
Created by: Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 1096 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 25th, 2020

Recommendation: Fun Watch