Battle 360: The Complete Season One (Blu-ray Review)

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A&E Home Video | 2008 | 580 min | Unrated | Sep 28, 2010
 (TV) (2008)

Documentary

For nearly a decade, the legendary World War II aircraft carrier USS Enterprise held a pivotal place on the turbulent seas of war, engaging in some of the fiercest multi-front battles ever witnessed in modern combat. The only carrier to be front and center in every major sea conflict in the Pacific, the Enterprise and her crew?s battles were marked by intense firepower, instinct and a 360-coordination between the ship, the destroyers, the aircraft above and the submarines below. In each of ten episodes, and using incredible CGI visualizations, BATTLE 360 follows the Enterprise and its men through another conflict of WWII as they fight off the enemy from the air, the sea and underwater.

For more details about Battle 360: The Complete Season One on Blu-ray, see the Battle 360: The Complete Season One Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, September 19, 2010

The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard may be the largest facility of its kind on the west coast, but it's also a curiously unadorned affair and is strangely uncelebrated by people not familiar with its storied past. In 1943 the shipyard was home, at least for a while, to the USS Enterprise, the most honored aircraft carrier of the Second World War, which came in for drydock repairs and left some time later completely refitted and upgraded, able to make it through the rest of the epochal conflict despite being severely damaged by among other things several kamakazi attacks. Anyone who has ever set foot on an aircraft carrier, or stood next to them while they were in port, knows how improbably massive these structures are, and indeed this first season of Battle 360, which focuses pretty much exclusively on the Enterprise, calls the ship (quite rightfully) a "city of steel." I myself stood next to some aircraft carrier whose name I can't recall anymore at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at some sort of official shindig that my father, a U.S. Army General, was invited to when I was a kid. I still remember being awestruck at the sheer size of the ship, something that seemed to tower as high as any skyscraper I had ever seen, and perhaps even more impressively, stretched from side to side several times the mass it attained in height. Battle 360 does an excellent job of recounting the Enterprise's storied history from Pearl Harbor to the doorstep of Japan, four years of incredible conflict and a series of battles which helped define the Pacific campaign. If it's not always easy to get a real feel for the physical size of the Enterprise, the more figurative scope of the ship's contributions to the Allied victory in the War comes through loud and clear.

You were expecting Pixar?

Battle 360 follows the established History Channel tradition of mixing in copious segments of at time pretty basic looking CGI with first hand interviews and expert commentary, as the series moves through Enterprise's history. In fact while the series emphasizes the visual bells and whistles (to mix metaphors) of the computer generated scenes, it's really the interview segments where this series comes fully alive, as some of the few surviving crewmen who once numbered around 2800 on board the ship recount their adventures in several of World War II's most famous battles. Listening to these now quite elderly men discuss coming to terms with fear, or rising above their preconceived notions of what they could accomplish, is a lesson in humility and grace, and is yet another perfect example of why men of this era are so suitably called The Greatest Generation.

Among the epochal battles Enterprise engages in are Midway, where the massive ship's aircraft helps to sink two Japanese ships, the Kaga and Akagi. The Enterprise is accompanied by the Yorktown and Hornet. The Hornet will perish several years later in another battle essayed by the series, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. But of course the Enterprise's story begins, at least with regard to World War II, a bit earlier with the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose carnage the Enterprise escaped by being out to sea on December 7. The ship hauled into port, or at least what was left of it, on December 8, and some of the first hand accounts of witnessing the horrible destruction 24 hours after the "day which will live in infamy" give the episode a really visceral power.

Though the Enterprise was nicknamed "Lucky E," the fact is the ship suffered its own series of misfortunes over the course of the several years it saw action in World War II. Not only was it struck by a devastating bomb in the Battle of Guadalcanal, it later became the victim of Japanese suicide bombers toward the end of the War, when the Land of the Rising Sun became increasingly desperate in its use of tactics, hoping against hope it could cling onto control of the Pacific islands which the Enterprise, along with several other carriers and Marine and Army battalions, were slowly claiming one by one.

While Battle 360 does an artful job of depicting the strategies the Enterprise and her sister ships utilized in various Pacific campaigns, strangely that is not ultimately what most viewers will probably remember once the series comes to a close. While watching various encompassing views of how battles played out is fascinating, and helps to give a literal bird's eye view of huge swaths of area, it's really in the personal stories that the series comes fully alive. While the vets who are interviewed may be close to the end of their lives, their memories are sharp as a tack, no doubt magnified by the traumatic events they lived through. While it's somewhat ironic that Battle 360's sister series, Patton 360, actually tended to focus more vibrantly on the actual battles than the personalities involved (even Patton's famously volatile one), here in Battle 360 while we're still privy to seeing how exactly individual campaigns played out, it's actually how these campaigns affected their participants that becomes the most compelling part of the viewing experience.

Battle 360 offers 10 episodes spread over three Blu-rays:

Call To Duty
Vengeance at Midway
Jaws of the Enemy
Bloody Santa Cruz
Enterprise vs. Japan
The Grey Ghost
Hammer of Hell
D-Day in the Pacific
Battle of Leyte Gulf
The Empire's Last Stand

 

I used to take History Channel to task, back in the "olden days" of SD-DVDs, for not anamorphically enhancing their releases. They finally took my advice (no, really, I'm sure of it) and came to their senses, but now they're making the equal and opposite mistake. On both this AVC encoded 1080p release (in 1.78:1) and its sibling Patton 360, virtually all the archival footage has been anamorphically stretched to fit 16:9 screens. Really, do the producers and distributors of these product not realize that the vast majority of viewers are educated enough about aspect ratios to realize when a brigade looks wide enough to be at least a brigade and a half? Of course, I'm joking, but the odd stretching is completely annoying and unnecessary. Future seasons of any 360 series simply need to blow up and matte 1.33:1 segments as needed, or, preferably, simply pillar box them and show them as they were intended to be seen (which of course used to be the mantra of the widescreen fanatics). On the whole, Battle 360 looks decent enough, and better than that in the contemporary interview segments, which feature excellent detail against some great, inky black backgrounds. CGI is laughably bad at times, almost like an analog to the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons?simple, basic and not very well developed. Stock footage has a slew of problems, from scratches, dirt and debris to the odd decision to frequently superimpose maps and other graphic data on top of the footage, making it even harder to decipher.  

Battle 360 really could have benefited from a 5.1 mix in light of its many exciting battle sequences. But at least we're given a rather respectably robust DTS-HD 2.0 mix which helps to beef up those action segments with some really excellent and thundering LFE. I kept hoping for more directionality, however, especially as planes zoomed overhead or the gigantic aircraft carriers plowed through the turbulent ocean waters. What is here is remarkably vivid, however, with crisp fidelity and some really great dynamic range. The voiceover narration by Wally Kurth is always clear and authoritative, and the onscreen interview segments are also clean and easy to hear. Sound effects abound in this series, as is probably to be expected, but they never overwhelm the spoken material. History really should up the ante, though, and provide a full lossless 5.1 mix for any future seasons of this battle-centric series.  

A middling to pretty good Making of featurette (SD; 29:12) is included on the third disc. It features some interesting interviews with the CGI house as well as some in depth looks at various segments.  

The USS Enterprise is obviously one of the most storied names in the history of United States warfare. There's a reason Gene Roddenberry chose it for Star Trek. This excellent overview of the Enterprise's birth in 1936 through the close of World War II hits all the high points, giving some great accounts of the many important battles in which Enterprise played a leading role. But it's the interview segments with the Enterprise's surviving crew that really hit home here, and make Battle 360 such a gratifying and worthwhile. . .enterprise. Recommended.

No related news posts for Battle 360: The Complete Season One Blu-ray yet.

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Modern Family: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray Review)

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20th Century Fox | 2009 | 513 min | Not rated | Sep 21, 2010

Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (less)
Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese (less)
Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)



Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, September 28, 2010

For a barometer of America's cultural climate, look no further than the network TV sitcom, which, for decades, has served as a telltale indicator of the country's attitudes on family life, relationships, accepted morality, and social norms. Leave it to Beaver was like an advertisement for quaint 1950s domesticity. By the late 1960s, The Brady Bunch tackled the then-novel concept of the blended family. In the '70s, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, and All in the Family?along with its many spin-offs?addressed social issues and rapidly changing values. The Cosby Show gave us a positive example of an African-American family in the 1980s, while Roseanne, Married with Children, and The Simpsons plumbed the darkly comic depths of dysfunction. Seinfeld and Friends showed the lovelorn, sex-obsessed lives of singles at the end of the 20th century, and at the beginning of the millennium, the nation's collective self-awareness was reflected in Arrested Development and The Office. But what of the newborn 2010s? A prime contender for America's next looking glass is Modern Family, a half-hour comedy that shows the country for what it is?complicated, diverse, but still, in many ways, surprisingly traditional.

Shooting your kid with a pellet gun...better or worse than spanking?

The changes to our conception of what a family can and should be have always been evolutionary?rather than revolutionary?and these permutations provide the basis for Modern Family's topical comedy. The show follows three families?actually, one large extended family? who each challenge the "nuclear" norm in one way or another. The Dunphys seem the most traditional?they're white, suburban, upper-middle- class, one mom, one dad, three kids?but parenting in the 21st century, even for a typical family unit, is no easy feat. In the first episode, stay-at- home mom Claire (Julie Bowen) scrambles to find time on the crammed family calendar for her husband Phil (Ty Burrell) to shoot their young son Luke with a BB gun. Why? Because Phil made a deal with Luke?he'd buy him the gun, but if Luke shot one of his sisters, he'd get shot in return. Phil can't go through with it, but he ends up shooting just about everyone, accidentally, including himself. He's one of the show's best characters, a father who tries desperately to seem "with it," but who only succeeds in embarrassing his wife and kids. "I'm a cool dad. That's my thang," he says in one of the show's characteristic to-the-camera confessionals. (Like The Office, Modern Family is a mockumentary.) "I'm hip. I surf the web. I text. LOL: laugh out loud. OMG: oh my god. WTF: why the face." Later, he expresses his fatherly philosophy: "Act like a parent, talk like a peer. I call it peerenting." In other words, he's a total dork. Most of the real parenting falls to Claire, who loves Phil but basically has to treat him like one of her children.

From here, the show's web of relationships gets more complicated. Claire's father Jay Pritchett, played by TV veteran Ed O'Neill, has taken a new wife nearly half his age, a sultry Columbian beauty named Gloria (Sofia Vergara), who has a chubby pre-teen son from her previous marriage to a wild Latin lover. The kid, Manny, is a tender old soul who's completely out of touch with how most kids his age act. He's a hopeless, hapless romantic who writes love poems for older girls, drinks coffee, takes up fencing?his father, according to Gloria, was good at "thrusting"?and wears a poncho on the first day of school to honor his Columbian heritage.

Jay tries to be an active parent to Manny, mostly to make up for his lack of a relationship with his gay, mildly neurotic son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)?Claire's brother?who has just adopted a Vietnamese baby with Cam (Eric Stonestreet), his boisterous partner of five years. I can remember the public outrage from conservatives when Murphy Brown had a child "out of wedlock" in the early 1990s, so it really says something about our cultural state that Mitchell and Cam's atypical family has yet to be decried en masse by opponents of gay rights. If anything, the opposite has happened. People have complained that Modern Family is too modest in its portrayal of Mitchell and Cam's homosexuality? the pair never once share a kiss, or even anything more than a friendly hug, in the entirety of season one. Still, Ferguson and Stonestreet play hilariously off of one another, almost like a latter day?and thoroughly flamboyant?Laurel and Hardy. Their "gayness" doesn't necessarily define their characters, but just as the show plays up the dorky dad stereotype with Phil, or Gloria's fiery Latin passion, Modern Family has a lot of fun exploring the occasional awkwardness of gay parenthood, like when their daughter Lily says her first word?"Mama." ("Every gay father's worst nightmare.")

Screen time is split almost equally between the three familial units, and the show often cleverly subverts certain sitcom staples?like the obligatory Christmas and Valentine's Day episodes?to show how each family responds differently to tradition and expectations. (Look out for Edward Norton in a guest star role during the V-Day episode!) The writing occasionally veers into edgy, politically incorrect territory, but Modern Family is much more mainstream than the far-funnier Arrested Development, which proved too out-there for network TV audiences. That's not to say the show isn't funny?it most certainly is?but it tries to be touching and comedic in equal measures, which sometimes dulls the laughs. Nearly every episode ends on a tender moment?frequently accompanied by a here's how we learned our lesson-style voiceover?and this can get a bit predictable as the season goes on. Nevertheless, I can see Modern Family having a long run on ABC. The characters are well rounded, the casting is perfect, and the writing is sharp and insightful, drawing on sticky family situations that'll be instantly familiar for the show's intended audience?modern families.

 

Shot natively on high definition video, Modern Family makes the transition to Blu-ray easily, with 1080p/AVC-encoded transfers that look sharper, cleaner, and less prone to the banding/macroblocking compression quibbles you get with broadcast TV. Color is realistic and vibrant, with consistently balanced skin tones and rich primaries?see Fizbo the Clown's multi-hued outfit, Cam's flamboyant paisley shirts, or the lush tones of the Hawaii episode. Black levels are deep and defining, and contrast is right on the mark, giving the picture a strong sense of presence. Clarity is no slouch either; the handheld camerawork means there are occasional soft shots, but most of the time the image is crisp and resolved, letting us make out fine facial features and wardrobe details. You'd really have to nitpick to find complaints about the show's presentation?highlights are occasionally overblown, especially on brightly colored objects, and there are a few instances of mild banding. Like I said, though, mere nitpicks. Overall, the show looks fantastic.  

You should know by now exactly what you're getting, audio-wise, with a family sitcom?a dialogue-driven, front-heavy experience that only occasionally calls on the rear speakers for ambience and cross-channel effects. That's exactly what we get with the show's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround presentation. With expectations tempered accordingly, there's no reason at all to be disappointed here. The dialogue is unfailingly clear and balanced throughout the season, from hushed whispers to frantic yelling. The surround speakers don't get much play beyond extremely quiet environmental effects and the rare pan?like Jay's model airplane puttering through the space behind our heads?but this is no big deal. Modern Family isn't Iron Man 2. The incidental music sounds decent?full and vibrant?but I'll warn you, the track that plays over the menu on each disc gets old really fast.  

Deleted, Extended & Alternate Scenes (1080p, 14:54, 20:45, and 9:24)
Each disc contains several scenes that were trimmed for time but are no less funny that what made it on air.

Deleted Family Interviews (1080p, 8:51 and 1:36)
Likewise, here we get more family confessionals.

Gag Reel (1080p, 5:41)
You know the drill?flubbed lines and crack ups.

Real Modern Family Moments (1080p, 10:25)
The show's creators/writers talk about the real-life incidents that inspired many of the moments on the show.

Before Modern Family (1080p, 12:53)
Each cast member gets a chance to explain what he/she was up to before being cast on Modern Family.

Fizbo the Clown (1080p, 4:13)
Eric Stonestreet tells us how the Fizbo character he created as a child got incorporated into an episode of the show.

The Making of Modern Family: Family Portrait (1080p, 9:15)
A quick production documentary of the season finale.

Modern Family: Hawaii (1080p, 5:19)
A profile of the special vacation episode that was shot on location in Hawaii.

 

Will Modern Family eventually become the sitcom that defines the 2010s? Only time will tell, of course, but the show is definitely off to a great start?it's funny, relevant, smartly written, and perfectly cast. There's also a lot to love about this Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox, which features a strong audio/video presentation and a good selection of bonus features. Modern Family earns my Ty Burrell-as-Tom Selleck thumbs up!

• Modern Family Season 1 Blu-ray Announced - July 9, 2010

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has officially announced Modern Family: The Complete First Season for release on Blu-ray on September 21. This sitcom/mockumentary view of today's non-traditional households was one of the highest rated new television shows ...

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The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season (Blu-ray Review)

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Warner Bros. | 2009 | 529 min | Not rated | Sep 14, 2010

Video
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Audio
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0 (less)
Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese (less)
Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
BD-Live
Price
List price: $54.97   Third party: $34.99 (Save 36%)
Listed on Amazon marketplace

Price
List price: $44.99   Best Buy: $44.99

Playback
Region free

 (TV) (2009)

Comedy

Worlds collide in Season 3! A love affair with Penny has opened a big, wide, wonderful world of romance for Leonard. But Sheldon likes the world just the way it was, thank you. All of which makes for a zany comic triangle with brainy, clueless Sheldon and practical, grounded Penny hilariously vying for the role of hypotenuse.

For more details about The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season on Blu-ray, see The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Review

Starring: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, September 21, 2010

How can I possibly discuss with Stan Lee the scientific foundations for inter-stellar flight on a silver surfboard when part of my brain will be scanning his face for signs of contagious skin disease?

I should adore The Big Bang Theory. Scratch that. I should bleed, breathe and weep The Big Bang Theory. I should thank the oft-vindictive television gods on high for a comedy series that celebrates the comicbooks, TV shows and movies I hold dear. I should skip through everything else in my TiVo queue just to watch the latest episode of a sitcom specifically aimed at my narrow demographic. And yet, as each season comes and goes, I find myself falling farther and farther out of love with creator Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady's surprise CBS hit. I know comedy is a fickle mistress, and I know I'm probably in the minority here -- in just three short years, the series has nearly doubled its viewership, earned prime Thursday Night real estate and forged new ground with unabashed geeks and fanboys of all stripes -- but I rarely feel that surge of anticipation... that infectious flutter of excitement that comes as you sit down to watch a new episode of one of your favorite shows. Don't get me wrong, Big Bangers. I laugh. Oh, how I laugh. I nod. Oh, how I nod. Sometimes, just sometimes, I even clap at the obscure bravado of it all. But there's something inherently contrived about Sheldon and Leonard's misadventures in life and love; something that begins with the series' canned laugh track, seeps into its overtly sitcom-y subplots and illuminates the fact that, beneath all the clever comicbook shoutouts and unexpected subculture references, much of what happens in The Big Bang Theory is strangely familiar.

It might also interest you to know that Wil Wheaton currently ranks sixth on my all-time enemies list, right between director Joel Schumacher, who nearly destroyed the Batman movie franchise, and Billy Sparks, who lived down the street from me and put dog poop on the handles of my bicycle.

While story occasionally takes a backseat to whatever retro t-shirts, videogame memorabilia and '80s sci-fi classics claw their way out of nostalgia's primordial ooze, Theory's cast eagerly latches onto every light-up green lantern and Cylon-domed BSG... erm, toaster that enters the fray. Not that I mind. When the series focuses on the gang's mundane hijinks -- engaging in science lab rivalries, shooting the breeze over boxes of back issues, entering Magic-the-Gathering-esque tournaments, hunting for ordinary jobs, debating ownership of the One Ring, installing state-of-the-art home security systems, fantasizing about Katee Sackhoff or getting competitive at a comicbook signing -- the setups and payoffs are nothing short of inspired. A few jokes and gags fall flat, sure. That's the nature of any twenty-three episode beast. But Lorre and Prady's writers know their target audience and pander accordingly. It's when dating and romantic relationships take center stage that the series starts to flail.

Allegiance to male comrades before women who sell their bodies for money.

And therein lies the problem with Season Three. Experimental physicist Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Nebraskan girl-next-door Penny (Kaley Cuoco) become an item, newly disgraced theoretical physicist Sheldon (Jim Parsons) becomes jealous, Howard (Simon Helberg) begins seeing a microbiology undergrad named Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) continues his inexplicably successful conquest of the female of the species. The Big Bang Theory isn't Friends, nor should it be. Yet it wades into Ross-and-Rachel waters time and time again, sinking each time it tries to swim. Leonard and Sheldon are at their best struggling to find companionship, not when they actually find it. Strip away the comicbooks, Halo helmets, Wii-motes, vocabulary gymnastics, calculus equations and quirky insecurities. What remains is the same, tired ground sitcoms have been treading and retreading since Lucy and Ricky moved into their 68th Street brownstone.

I asked myself... what is the most mind-numbing, pedestrian job conceivable and three answers came to mind. A toll booth employee, an Apple Store Genius and what Penny does. Because I don't like to touch other peoples' coins and I refuse to contribute to the devaluation of the word "genius," here I am.

My relationship with The Big Bang Theory is easier to define: strictly casual. While I'm a sucker for reference-laced humor, television comedies like Arrested Development, Community, Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation and The Office are more my speed. No obnoxious laugh tracks, smart single-camera coverage, and not a single pre-packaged, three-wall set in sight. I've made a number of notable exceptions over my thirty-odd years -- The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends and, most recently, How I Met Your Mother -- but a show has to bring something special... something refreshing to the sitcom table to make me sit up and take notice. And that something has to be more than pop culture references, regardless of how much each one might appeal to my particular breed of geek. (I'm genetically predisposed to Marvel Comics, '80s cartoons, NES classics, Batman and Green Lantern, and Battlestar Galactica, among other things.)

Okay, please don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather swim butt-naked across the Ganges with a paper cut on my nipple and die a slow agonizing death from a viral infection than work with you.

So no, I'm not ready to commit to The Big Bang Theory. But a casual relationship can still be fun, right? Galecki and Parsons are pitch-perfect as their respective socially inept megaminds, Helberg and Nayyar keep each episode light and leveled, a steady stream of recurring characters and hey-isn't-that guest stars are deployed wisely, and only Cuoco is a drag. (She gives Penny her all, but the writers' go-to country-girl schtick grows old, and I didn't buy her season-long relationship with Leonard for a second.) Solid laughs abound -- situational and interpersonal -- and only a handful of one-liners, slapstick interludes and derivative scenarios spoil the momentum. If the showrunners jettisoned the laugh track and ventured out beyond the boys' apartments and local comicbook shop, the series would immediately elicit more enthusiasm from people like myself. But the Rules to Sitcom Happiness both Lorre and Prady penned for Two and a Half Men prevail here as well, and The Big Bang Theory writers seem more concerned with delivering a viable sitcom than in giving geeks round the world the brazen call-to-phasers they truly deserve. Too harsh? Perhaps, particularly since my series score is still relatively high. But Theory always seems to leave me a wee bit unfulfilled, and I'm beginning to despise it... even if just a little.

Roommates agree that Friday nights shall be reserved for watching Joss Whedon's brilliant new series, 'Firefly.' Might as well settle it now. It's going to be on for years.

 

While much of The Big Bang Theory's humble 1080p/VC-1 presentation is bound, for better or worse, to the series' source and production values, a few technical issues hold Warner's television transfer back from perfection. The third season's twenty-three episodes are spread across just two discs, and while each entry's short length and lack of lossless audio should alleviate any subsequent limitations, minor artifacting, banding and other digital anomalies pop up from time to time. It isn't a deal-breaker by any means, but it is unfortunate. Thankfully, other aspects of the presentation are more sound. Colors are bright and vivid, black levels are fairly well-resolved, skintones are nice and warm, contrast is earnest (albeit a tad inconsistent when the lights go down) and edge definition is, for the most part, sharp and satisfying. Fine detail and shadow delineation aren't always up to snuff, and softness and crush sometimes creep into starkly or dimly lit scenes, but in each case, the series' showrunners, not Warner's encode, appears to be to blame. All in all, The Big Bang Theory's Blu-ray debut isn't going to elicit any tears of joy or inspire any hyperbolic praise, but it will please the sitcom's fanbase.  

I can't think of a word that better describes Warner's 640bps Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track than "passable." Dialogue is healthy, intelligible and neatly centered, lines are never lost in the mix, and sound effects remain crisp, clear and smartly prioritized throughout. However, little else impresses. LFE output is dull and diluted, the rear speakers are limited to supporting the series' hollow laugh track and delivering its already negligible ambience, dynamics are weak and rather thin, directionality is a joke, pans are merely adequate, and the whole of the experience is as front-heavy as they come. Temper any rage you might feel though. The Big Bang Theory couldn't offer much more, even if it arrived with a lossless audio mix in tow. As is the case with many multiple-camera sitcoms, the series' sound design is flat, two-dimensional and rather uninvolving. Hardly the stuff of high definition legend. Will fans mind? Not really. Comedy is king here, and Warner doesn't make any technical missteps. But does it sound any better than its DVD counterpart? I don't have a standard definition copy on hand, but I can't imagine the two are very different. Consider yourself warned and duly informed.  

The Blu-ray edition of The Complete Third Season doesn't offer much in the way of special features. Two quickie EPKs -- "Takeout with the Cast" (HD, 10 minutes) and a "Set Tour with Simon and Kunal" (HD, 8 minutes) -- prove to be little more than amusing diversions, a rapidfire "Gag Reel" (SD, 8 minutes) is funny enough to warrant a mention, and a BD-Live Portal houses the usual assortment of Warner trailers. Nothing more, nothing less.  

To those who thoroughly adore The Big Bang Theory: I'm thrilled you aren't distracted by its sitcom-iness. I really am. I would love nothing more than to sit down, take in an episode of a comedy designed to appeal to my personal geek sensibilities, and walk away grinning. But try as I might, I just can't shed my hangups, and my enjoyment suffers as a result. Unfortunately, the series' first Blu-ray release will disappoint diehards and casual fans alike. Its noteworthy video transfer is hobbled a bit by a few glaring issues, its Dolby Digital audio track is passable at best and its supplemental package consists of a whopping twenty-six minutes of material. Proceed with caution.

• This Week on Blu-ray - September 14-20 - September 14, 2010

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been a huge success for Disney, though its commercial appeal was almost universally questions prior to the first film's release. In hindsight, this may have been a contributing factor to the film's grand success ? no one ...
• Big Bang Theory Season 3 Blu-ray Announced - June 23, 2010 For the first time, Warner Home Video is giving a Blu-ray release to a half-hour sitcom, with the announcement of The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season, with a street date of September 14. This two-disc set will include the 23 episodes of season 3 of this ...

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