DC’s Legends of Tomorrow The Complete Fifth Season Blu-Ray review

September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 Jeffrey Lyles 0 Comments Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, Courtney Ford, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Dominic Purcell, Jes Macallan, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Matt Ryan, Nick Zano, Tala Ashe

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.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has found its niche in the CWVerse as the show that largely ignores the fact that it was originally set as a catch-all spot for various Arrowverse heroes and villains. It’s more the goofy, silly and irreverent little brother that means well and always manages to get in trouble.

Its fifth season continues its drastic clash from the rest of its superhero counterparts, which doubled down on the ethos and melancholy subplots. That alone makes Legends a breath of fresh air. A number of casting changes suggests the fun might not last much longer though.

Astra Logue seeks revenge on John Constantine (Matt Ryan) and summons a slew of infamous historical figures for another chance to raise chaos throughout history. While most of these encores are known only for deed, some have a personal stake for the team.

The writing remains incredibly inspired if you embrace the nuttiness. There’s some clever Scream, Romeo and Juliet and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood parodies as well as hilarious encounters with Marie Antoinette, Genghis Khan and Rasputin. To some extent the show’s writing succeeds in spite of the characters, but the cast takes the material to higher level.

That’s why the constant shifts in the cast prove disappointing. Only Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz and Dominic Purcell remained from the first season. While cast departures and arrivals is common for superhero shows, Legends seems to shake up its roster more than most and that’s before the awkward mid-season write-off of Ray (Routh) and his girlfriend, Nora (Courtney Ford).

Even still, the Waverider crew feels bloated thanks to the elimination of the Time Bureau where Sara’s girlfriend Ava (Jes Macallan) operated. Nate (Nick Zano) and the bumbling idiot Gary (Adam Tsekhman) also worked there allowing for a different dynamic. Now everyone’s hanging around for the various time missions and this leads to various team members sitting on the sidelines for most or all of several episodes.

Macallan doesn’t fare as well as previous seasons as she’s basically just a Sara understudy. In some episodes, Ava fills in while Sara is away in Star City. Nate also feels aimless spending most of the season bouncing off fellow bros Ray and Behrad (Shayan Sobhian).

For the second season another regular cast member is basically playing another character. Last season Maisie Richardson-Sellers (The Kissing Booth 2) switched from being Vixen to the shapeshifter Charlie. This time, Tala Ashe plays a major shift from her futuristic tech whiz Zari to a vapid social influencer in the post Crisis world. Ashe makes this a funny twist as she pulls off mindless millennial off very well. Purcell remains terrific at the deadpan comedy and Sobhian fits in nicely as Zari’s brother.

Matt Ryan’s Constantine remains a high point of the season although with the emergence of HBO Max, it sure seems like a new Constantine series or including him on the Justice League Dark would make a better use of his spot-on portrayal.

In general, the effects continue to show improvement from previous seasons. The shorter, 15 episode season likely helps make better use of the budget than spreading it out over 23 episodes. If you’ve enjoyed the Legends ride so far this is one of the better seasons thanks to it’s unapologetic fun nature and unpredictable scenarios.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Special Features

Deleted Scenes
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 Post Production Theater (featurette)
Gag Reel

*Special Features are subject to change

Blu-Ray Bonus Disc

All Five Epic Episodes of the DC Crossover Event Crisis on Infinite Earths from Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
Special Features:
Crisis Past and Present: Kevin Conroy Bat Legend
Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Architects Return
Crisis Past and Present – Superman vs. Superman
Characters in Crisis: Pariah
Crisis Management
Character in Crisis: The Anti-Monitor

Getting Crisis in one swoop is great although in this case it’s kind of odd that the season starts with the fifth installment of Crisis. This was probably a case where started with episode 2 would have made more sense. Or at least packaging the Crisis disc in the Disc 1 slot.

The Crisis featurettes are fun, especially listening to the writers and showrunners geek out about interacting with Crisis on Infinite Earths co-creator Marv Wolfman.

15 One Hour Episodes

Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour Five
Meet The Legends
Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me
Slay Anything
A Head of Her Time
Mortal Khanbat
Mr. Parker’s Cul-de-Sac
Romeo V Juliet: Dawn of Justness
Zari, Not Zari
The Great British Fake Off
Ship Broken
Freaks & Greeks
I Am Legends
The One Where We’re Trapped on TV
Swan Thong

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. This is basically the same high quality you could expect when watching the broadcast HD version.