The Flash: The Ninth and Final Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Flash: The Ninth and Final Season



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



​

Movie
Uggggg. I can’t believe I’m actually HAPPY for The Flash to end. Back 9 years ago I was one of it’s biggest proponents, as it was actually superior to Arrow at the time. The first couple of seasons hit the ground running introducing us to Reverse Flash and Zoom, only for the show to slowly but surely get worse and worse with each progressive season. Much like the rest of the Arrowverse, later seasons became bogged down with “Team insert name here” instead of focusing ON The Flash himself, despite Grant Gustin giving the role his all every episode. It got to the point with the last 2-3 seasons that I was only watching out of loyalty, and not out of any real love of the show. Iris had gotten super annoying. Most of the good side characters had been butchered or left, and Grant himself was holding up the series on his skinny shoulders. It was pretty obvious from season 8 that the show was on the verge of cancellation, with The CW pretty much wrapping up the Arrowverse as fast as possible, but for some reason the powers that be decided to give The Flash one more season to wrap things up.

Well, I’m not sure why, as this is probably the worst season yet. A truncated season that uses 3 different story arcs to complete the Arrowverse, and slink into the night as another show that lived on WAY past it’s sell by date. Thhe season starts out with Barry (Grant Gustin) obsessed with a book that he created that outline future events thanks to his time traveling, including an event where he has an upcoming fight with Captain Boomeraing. Unfortunately Boomerang tries to steal a super duper battery which ends up exploding in the process, trapping Iris (Candice Patton) and Barry in a time loop until they can figure out how to complete the Groundhog Day esque loop that they’re in.

The second arc (which is sort of an intermission) is more of a filler set of episodes, with a strange story line that just goes no where, and only serves to pad out the already shortened run time. Not only do they not really add anything to the season’s story, but they are the most boring episode set of the series as well, but I guess it was needed to meet the contractual episode count or something. The last arc (dubbed A New World) wraps up the whole Arrowverse as neatly as possible, even bringing back Oliver Queen to bring everything back to where the Arrowverse first started over a decade ago. It naturally pulls the old time travel stunt, bringing Barry back to a day in his past, and even sets up some decent potential with an old enemy. Unfortunately the final two episodes sort of squander that hope, leaving us once more feeling like this series has just pushed itself past the sell by date by a good few seasons, and not even the creative team is worried about keeping up even a facade of quality writing.

Overall it’s sort of sad to see The Flash fade off into the sunset, but also sort of a relief. I genuinely loved the series for over half of it’s runtime, but by Season 6 the creativity had started to fade, and now we were at full downward trajectory rivaling that of Happy Days and How I Met Your Mother. Fans were just waiting to see it end, and despite some interesting aspects of the season, it was just another evil speedster that the Flash has to out run, and we rinse and repeat the same old “team Flash” controversies and friction that pads out the 13 episode show into just more filler. Ah well, I really did love you, but it’s time to put you to rest.




Rating:

Rated TV-14




Video:

If you’ve seen the last few seasons of The Flash you’ve seen them all in terms of video quality. Broken record time again, but the ninth season looks really really good for a CW TV show. It’s all bright and shiny digital for the daylight sequences, and the black and inky warehouse style fights at night look equally good. There’s some mild banding and crush, but very minimal. In fact, I’d say the only really bad aspect of the transfer is the fact that you can see the cheap CGI a bit TOO much (the show’s budget has never been able to showcase really great consistent CGI). Still a good looking digital transfer though.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is as stellar as ever, with a bombastic and aggressive mix that utilizes tons of bass and the kinetic nature of Barry Allen to create an immersive mix that uses a TON of surround activity. The track opens up in the time loop with a bone crunching battle between Team Flash and a lava monster meta, and doesn’t let up with Gorilla Grodd roaring, Read Death screaming, and the swirling swooshing of crackling speed force energy encompassing the listening position.






Extras:

• The Flash: The Saga of the Scarlett Speedster (featurette)
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel

Final Score: ​

As I said, The Flash is a long time coming in wrapping up, and I have mixed feelings about the conclusion. On one hand I hate to see an old friend go, but on the other hand it was time to be put out of its misery. The Blu-ray looks and sounds about what you would expect. Good video, good audio, the trimmed down median level extras that we had gotten used to in previous years. But unfortunately, the season is for the completionist fans only.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker
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: 780 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 29th, 2023

Recommendation: Hardcore Completionists Only