Power: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray] 
Cast: Omari Hardwick, Lela Loren, Naturi Naughton
Release Date: Now Available On Blu-ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
Synopsis:
“Power: The Complete First Season” is the story of James “Ghost” St. Patrick, a wealthy New York City nightclub owner who caters to the city’s elite. He wants to build an empire and turn the club into a Fortune 500 business, but there’s just one problem: Ghost is living a double life. When he is not in the club, he is the kingpin of the most lucrative drug network in New York for some very high-level clientele. His marriage, family and business all become unknowingly threatened as he is tempted to leave his criminal life behind and become the rags-to-riches businessman he wants to be.
The Starz Original Series ‘Power’ follows James St. Patrick (Hardwick), owner and operator of Truth, the hottest new nightclub in New York City. But running a club is only a small part of James, he’s also one of the biggest drug dealers in the city, known in the underground as Ghost and operating a highly profitable distribution system along with his partner Tommy (Sikora) and with his wife Tasha (Naughton) always at this side, supporting his every move. At least, that is until by happenstance James runs into an old love of his named Angela (Loren) who he hasn’t seen since high school and has never been able to let go. Unfortunately unbeknownst to James, Angela also happens to be an attorney working a secret case with the intention of taking down James’ supplier through the man called Ghost. Soon everything becomes unraveled, a war begins to edge closer and nothing will ever be the same once everything runs its course.
This Blu-Ray release marked my first viewing of the series ‘Power’ and while I must say I initially went in without too many expectations and uncertain of exactly what to expect, I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. It’s a powerful, emotional and at times even somewhat gritty series that is as much about the music and the city as it is about the stories and lives of these characters. It benefits from being honest and realistic, never making the mistake of taking things into overly complicated or illogical territory and all the while keeping things thoroughly entertaining.
For those of you who may still remain skeptical of whether it’s worth your time, I would highly recommend checking it out. I was mostly sold by the conclusion of the first episode and as a whole I found it to be a riveting and quite well done series; I’ve also now found myself highly anticipating the second season which is set to premiere Saturday June 6th at 9PM on Starz. Those of you who are already fans of the series will surely want to make sure to pick up a copy of ‘Power: The Complete First Season’ on Blu-Ray to add to your collection, while it may be lacking in the area of bonus content, it does deliver highly impressive high definition video and audio presentations on all eight of the first seasons episodes.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘Power: The Complete First Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the first seasons episodes. The video presentation looks phenomenal on all 8 of the included season one episodes. The video is sharp, clean and detailed, never faltering for a moment or causing anything occurring on screen to become indiscernible or negatively affected, even during the numerous dark scenes. Overall, these are top notch high definition video presentations all around that should not disappoint fans of the series.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtrack on all 8 Season One episodes. These lossless multichannel soundtracks are quite impressive as well, delivering a clean, discrete and surprisingly active presentation on each episode. All five available channels are regularly utilized to their fullest potential to immerse the viewer with everything from the music (an important focus of the series) to more natural elements including crowd chatter and other common auditory elements ever present in an always busy town such as New York. Overall, just as with the video presentation, the 5.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtracks are fantastic and certainly contribute in a positive way to the overall experience of the series.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘Power: The Complete First Season’ doesn’t include much in the way of bonus content, the only area of the release that’s really lacking in any way. The Blu-Ray release includes 4 short Behind the Scenes Featurette’s that explore different aspects of bringing the show to life and include interviews/comments with members of the cast and crew including series creator/executive producer Courtney Kemp Agboh, Actors Omari Hardwick, Naturi Naughton, Joseph Sikora and more. The 4 included Featurette’s are: ‘The New Series’, ‘The Style of Power’, ‘NYC – The City of Power’, and ‘The Music of Power’ each of which runs approximately 2 minutes in length.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
‘Power: The Complete First Season’ is Now Available to own on Blu-ray & DVD from Starz & Anchor Bay Entertainment!
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