The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan

Release Date: On Blu-ray & DVD August 25, 2015

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 10/10

 

Plot Summary:

Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies.

Picking up following the events of season four, Rick, Daryl and most of the group find themselves locked inside a train car as prisoners, having finally arrived at Terminus merely to discover it’s far from what they had hoped for. Rescued just in time courtesy of some assistance from Carol and Tyreese who had been traveling behind them with Rick’s infant daughter, the group escapes the clutches of Terminus and soon finds refuge inside of a local church occupied by a Preacher with some dark secrets. Unfortunately their dealings with the folks at Terminus may not yet be resolved and they still must locate Beth who was taken prior to their capture and remains missing, alive and captive elsewhere.

While I was admittedly disappointed with a large portion of last season and its faltering in so many aspects, the fifth season of the massively popular AMC series ‘The Walking Dead’ managed to bring me back into the fold with a much more intense and emotional season that improves upon the fourth in many regards. Nonetheless, the fifth season finds itself in many ways a disappointing carbon copy of the previous year’s formula around the half way point, then seems to correct its course once again and brings us to one of the most interesting locations the show has yet to introduce, in addition to concentrating on some long awaited events which couldn’t have possibly pleased me more. While the fifth season may not be the most impressive season of the series to date, it’s an unquestionable improvement over the fourth and perfectly builds to what is certain to be quite the monumental sixth season.

Fans of AMC’s smash hit series will definitely want to make certain they pick up a copy of ‘The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season’ on Blu-Ray to add to their collections. It delivers phenomenal high definition video and audio presentations in addition to a hefty collection of bonus content including Audio Commentaries with members of the cast and crew, a number of Deleted Scenes and a great deal more (more detailed information regarding the bonus content can be found in the special features section of the technical specification coverage below) making this a definite must own.

VIDEO:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on each of the fifth seasons episodes. The video presentations look fantastic, delivering a sharp, detailed and gorgeous presentation on every episode with no notable faults discovered within. They hold up admirably during even the numerous fast moving and darkly lit sequences that are so frequent on the series, never resulting in anything occurring on screen to become indiscernible in the slightest. Overall, these are impressive high definition video presentations that should easily please the fans.

AUDIO:

The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtrack on all 16 Season Five episodes. These lossless multichannel soundtracks sound phenomenal, delivering clean, discrete and often quite aggressive audio presentations, utilizing all seven available channels with regularity to surround the viewer with the shows always gorgeous score in addition to numerous action and zombie oriented auditory effects, while never resulting in any dialogue which may be occurring simultaneously to be rendered inaudible. Overall, these 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtracks are fantastic and deliver in every possible way, they won’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season’ includes the usual impressive collection of bonus content. Included on the release are a number of Deleted Scenes from various episodes (approximately 16 minutes worth altogether) in addition to Audio Commentary tracks with numerous members of the cast and crew on episodes 1, 5, 9, 10, 12 and 16. Episode one in fact contains two separate Audio Commentaries, while the other episodes include one each. We are also treated to an impressive collection of Behind the Scenes Featurettes which explore the fifth season in depth and contain interviews and comments with members of the cast and crew along with plenty of behind the scenes footage. There are both ‘Inside The Walking Dead’ Featurettes (running approximately 3-6 minutes each on average) and ‘The Making of The Walking Dead’ Featurettes (also approximately 3-6 minutes each) for every single episode in the season. Plus for the rabid fans out there who aren’t content with those 32 Featurettes alone, the release also includes a number of others exploring different aspects of this fifth season, these include: ‘The Making of Alexandria’ (running approximately 10 minutes), ‘Beth’s Journey’ (approximately 4 minutes), ‘Bob’s Journey’ (5 minutes), ‘Noah’s Journey’ (4 minutes), Tyreese’s Journey (7 minutes), ‘A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz’ (8 minutes), ‘A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt’ (8 minutes) and ‘Rotters in the Flesh’ (5 minutes).

*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: 10/10

‘The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season’ arrives on Blu-ray & DVD August 25, 2015 from AMC & Anchor Bay Entertainment.

 

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