Batwoman: The Complete First Season Blu-Ray review
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.
Batwoman has been one of the better additions to the Bat Family in DC Comics. With little chance of a live-action Batman series coming to The CW, Batwoman made the next best choice for the network. The casting of Ruby Rose was met with a mix of excitement and the expected hate from trolls who just wanted to be difficult about a show featuring a lesbian hero.
Season 1 review:
Rose played Kate Kane, who returned to Gotham to learn her cousin, Bruce Wayne, was Batman. Deciding to carry on the family tradition, Kate changes up the Batsuit with the aid of Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson) and tries to make Gotham a safer city.
Unfortunately what could have been a fresh, completely radical departure from the rest of the Arrowverse (a la Stargirl) felt like a retread of the same old, same old show viewers have already experienced through seven series of Arrow.
Family drama was a key component of the series and self-destructive going nowhere relationships became a focal point. It also didn’t help how quickly Batwoman settled into the Arrow checklist with the socially awkward tech whiz, the spunky kid (step)sister (Nicole Kang), the love interest left behind (Meagan Tandy) and police officer father (Dougray Scott).
Another area where Batwoman struggled was Gotham effectively mined the core Batman universe and storylines unlike Supergirl, which liberally borrowed characters and subplots from Superman.
The season’s biggest problem was the over reliance on Kate’s unhinged and psychotic sister, Alice (Rachel Skarsten). Alice was played far more like a co-lead than a season-long villain. It was rare when Alice didn’t appear in an episode and Skarsten had a far showier and dynamic role than Rose. At some point it felt more like Skarsten was the star of Batwoman.
Over the course of the season, Rose seemed to get more comfortable in the role especially in playing the duality of the Kate/Batwoman personas. Rose kept improving her chemistry with Johnson and Kang, which felt like the better dynamic of the series.
Fight scenes were on par with the level of Arrow, an important aspect of Arrowverse shows. After a solid debut, the show saw its ratings steadily drop and in the middle of the pandemic, Rose announced she was departing the show. That throws the season finale in a bit of a turn spin.
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Episodes
- Pilot
- The Rabbit Hole
- Down, Down, Down
- Who Are You?
- Mine Is a Long and a Sad Tale
- I’ll Be Judge, I’ll Be Jury
- Tell Me the Truth
- A Mad Tea-Party
- Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour Two
- How Queer Everything is Today!
- An Un-Birthday Present
- Take Your Choice
- Drink Me
- Grinning From Ear to Ear
- Off With Her Head
- Through the Looking Glass
- A Narrow Escape
- If You Believe In Me, I’ll Believe In You
- A Secret Kept From All the Rest
- O, Mouse!
BLU-RAY & DVD FEATURES
- Gag Reel
- Deleted Scenes
- On The Set
- The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2019
VIDEO/AUDIO
With a full 1080p full HD video and DTS-HD master audio for English 5.1, the video quality is impressive. It’s not reference quality, but you won’t have any issue with how it looks or sounds.
Own Batwoman: The Complete First Season on Digital, Blu-Ray and DVD August 18th on Amazon and Target.