[Blu-Ray Review] ‘Gotham: The Fifth And Final Season’: Now Available On Blu-ray & DVD From DC & Warner Bros

Gotham: The Fifth And Final Season [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz

Release Date: July 9, 2019

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 8/10

Synopsis:

The fifth and final season of Gotham wraps up the iconic series in an unforgettable event that focuses on Bruce Wayne’s ultimate transformation into the Caped Crusader, while Jim Gordon struggles to hold together a city on the edge of chaos. Following the epic events of season four, the Legend of the Dark Knight resumes as Gotham City is divided between Gordon’s GCPD jurisdiction and some of the city’s most notorious villains such as Penguin, The Riddler and more. As the city’s heroes try to gain control and salvage what’s left of the deteriorating city, it teeters between good and evil, even as new DC Super-Villains, including Bane are introduced.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

The fifth and final season of ‘Gotham’ picks up following the devastating events that concluded season four. With any way in or out of Gotham blocked and the bridges blown, the city has evolved into a chaotic No Man’s Land, with the GCPD competing with the various local gangs and other crime lords fighting for and attempting to hold territory of their own in order to offer a refuge for the innocents suffering and trapped within. With help refused and any attempt to leave being blocked with fatal results, Jim Gordon, Bruce Wayne and Harvey Bullock along with their trusted allies must find a way to hold the violence at bay long enough to convince outside forces that the town is worth saving. But with danger and murderous bad guys looming around every turn, doing so won’t be easy as the final battle for Gotham begins.

The final season of ‘Gotham’ does a pretty capable job of tying up the majority of loose ends from throughout the show’s run, while also finally allowing these famous characters to begin truly developing into the individuals we know as alliances are tested and betrayed and everyone’s true nature becomes known amidst the chaos and uncertainty in which the city finds itself. Embracing the knowledge of it being the show’s final run, it also allows for some breathing room as there’s no longer any need to restrict or temper most of these characters or their surroundings which allows for some noteworthy chaos and fun that helps this notably dark origin tale to go out with a competent bang and wrap things up in a pretty tight bow that should please the majority of its dedicated fans. This 2-disc Blu-ray release of ‘Gotham: The Fifth and Final Season’ in particular offers generally solid high definition video and audio presentations on all twelve episodes of the show’s last season, in addition to a number of worthwhile extras that many are likely to appreciate including ‘Deleted Scene(s)’ from select episodes along with more (please see the special features section in the technical specification coverage of the review below for more detailed information) which will altogether probably make the release well worth picking up for anyone who has made of point of purchasing all of the previous season releases on Blu-ray in order to complete your collection and have the ability to relive the series in its entirety whenever you might desire.

Overall, the fifth and final season of ‘Gotham’ brings the dark origin story to a competent conclusion, while serving up enough chaos, violence and treachery to appease the show’s fans. At the same time, it really allows these noteworthy characters to begin truly forming into the villains (or heroes) that we know, while doing a pretty decent job of tying up the majority of loose ends along the way. This 2-disc ‘Gotham: The Fifth and Final Season’ Blu-ray release is definitely recommended for fans of the series that have been collecting the season sets each year and should be fairly satisfied with the release and its accompanying high definition video and audio presentations if they were pleased with the prior season collections. Although some may be a bit disappointed by the change of menu design and the accompanying lack of extra functions such as continuous disc to disc play all (the discs themselves are mastered similar to the Warner Archive Releases as opposed to the style of the previous four season releases for those familiar with the differences), as a whole the majority of series fans should likely still be fairly pleased with this overall solid Blu-ray release.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Gotham: The Fifth and Final Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the final season’s episodes. The video presentations look pretty great for the most part, albeit granted a lower bitrate than many might prefer. Even so they tend to provide fairly clean, sharp and detailed presentations on each episode that suffer no key faults (aside from a mild instance or two of banding and minimal noise in rare occurrences) and never causing anything onscreen to really be negatively affected or rendered indiscernible at any point. Overall, these are quite capable high definition video presentations that look pretty great altogether and should satisfy most fans of the series who want to bring it home.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 12 Season Five episodes. These multichannel soundtracks deliver crisp, smooth and often notably hard hitting audio presentations on every episode. They constantly embrace all five available channels in order to send the music, along with gunshots, explosions, debris and plenty more whipping throughout the various speakers with regularity, and never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible along the way. Overall, these are wonderful 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that contribute plenty of additional fun to the overall viewing experience and definitely shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Gotham: The Fifth and Final Season’ includes a few enjoyable extras that fans of the series should enjoy. Included on the release are ‘Deleted Scene(s)’ from four of the season’s episodes (running approximately 7 minutes in length altogether), in addition to a few Featurettes that explore different aspects of the series (and the DC TV universe as a whole) and include interviews/comments with the cast, crew and creative team, along with more. The included Featurettes are: ‘Gotham: A Modern Mythology’ (running approximately 16 minutes), ‘Gotham’s Last Stand’ (approximately 1 minute), ‘Gotham Season Five: Best Moments at NY Comic-Con’ (21 minutes) and ‘Villains: Modes of Persuasion’ (38 minutes).