Glee – The Complete First Season (2009 – 2010/Fox Blu-ray)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C Episodes: A-
Recently
it feels as if the second half of 2010 has shaped up to be the ‘best of’
television on Blu-ray. With Dexter: Season 4 taking the best
suspense/drama and Always Sunny taking
best comedy, Glee: Season 1 must be
best musical/variety show. Other series
over the years have used music to their advantage to add atmosphere or add a
funny or touching moment, but not many have gone all out to make a full musical
series. Glee was a breakout hit for FOX that managed to quickly garner a
huge fan base before FOX could put it on the chopping block. Anyone remember Firefly or perhaps the Family
Guy incident? Anyhow, Glee embodies everything creative as
its hilarious stories, lovable characters and fantastic music choices have
captured the attention of audiences all over the world.
The
series pilot set the mood for the rest of the series with its ingenuity and
heart. Glee starts with Spanish teacher Will Schuster (Matthew Morrison)
resurrecting an element of his past by starting a glee club at the High School
where he teaches. Mr. Schuster has fond
memories (from the 80’s) of when glee club ruled the school and took
Nationals. But in 2010 times have
changed and Mr. Schuster is about to find that if you want something bad enough
you will have to fight for it. Glee gathers a cast of lovable losers,
prima donnas, jocks and cheerleaders. Each
character is unique in their personality and presence; and the cast surly has
presence. The jocks and losers all have
their troubles, all dealing with the ups and downs of High School life in a
very different ways.
Outside
of the normal troubles that we all have, these characters have ousted
themselves in to further loserdom or been knocked down a peg (in the jocks
cases) by joining glee. Teenagers are
cruel and look at any opportunity to attack like rapid wolves; glee club being
the newest target. If it wasn’t bad
enough that the glee club had to watch their backs among their peers, but they
must guard themselves against the faculty as well. It seems that cheerleading coach Sue
Sylvester (played by the brilliant Jane Lynch) also has it out for The New
Directions (glee clubs name) as well.
She finds their diversity and upbeat spirit in the face of adversity
appalling (not to mention them taking some of her huge cheerleading budget) and
will stop at nothing to bring them down.
Outside of the great music and talented cast, it is Jane Lynch’s Sue
Sylvester that steals every scene she is in with her off beat/dark humor and
over the top attitude. The array of
personalities creates a host of various subplots that are interesting and
engaging.
With
music from the likes of Journey, Queen and Madonna how could you go wrong? The cast is abundantly talented as each lyric
comes from their mouth. The only problem
I would have with the series is its tendency to lean toward the melodramatic. Each episode has a life lesson of sorts that
is a little too preachy and whereas I can agree with the drama-edy (drama +
comedy) aspect the series has embraced; at times they lean too far towards
drama. All I can say is for Glee to keep up the good work. It is amazing series that has years left in
it, as long as they don’t break up a working formula.
The
technical features are not as amazing as I would have hoped for this First Season on Blu-ray, but they are
good enough. The series 22 episodes are
SQUEEZED onto 4 Blu-ray discs that make the show that was once brilliant on HD
TV, appear compressed and lifeless at times in this 1080p 1.78 X 1 AVC @ 18
MBPS digital High Definition image throughout each show. The picture often appears flat and the colors
are not as vibrant as they should be for this “show choir,” very enthusiastic
series. Black levels, as well as skin
tones are nicely rendered. The needless
choice of squeezing Season 1 on 4 discs,
however, has left the series plagued with banding, grain and aliasing
throughout that is overly noticeable at times.
The one area where this Blu-ray should be perfect IS NOT as the sound
(like the picture) lacks the life and has seemingly stripped away an element of
enthusiasm from this soundtrack. The 5.1
DTS-HD Master Audio appears to have suffered from the 4-Disc treatment as well
(why not put it on 6 discs?) as almost everything comes from the front. The dialogue is nearly perfect, but when you
expect the soundscape to kick in for a big music number the rest of the
speakers are left lifeless. I would even
venture to say that the sound is in fact a 3.1 mix and not the 5.1 the box
would lead you to believe; sad to say. I
wanted to be singing along to the music, not worrying about why it wasn’t
delivering.
The
extras have the nice feature of Glee Jukebox that allows the viewer to re-experience
all of the songs from the 22 episodes. I
found this feature to be very abrupt as it jumps from one song to the next,
with no gradual opening or close, as it often times chopped of first and last
notes/words. Other features include Glee
Karaoke, Staying in Step with Glee, Bite their Style: Dress like a Gleek,
Unleashing the Power of Madonna, Making a Showstopper: Bohemian Rhapsody,
Welcome to McKinley, Glee Music Video of “Somebody to Love,” Full Length
Audition Pieces, Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session, Deconstructing
Glee with Ryan Murphy (all too short 3mins), Dance Boot Camp, Jane Lynch A to
Glee (an odd 1minute of nothing), Video Diaries and finally several “Things you
don’t know about” segments about 4 different cast members. There is an HD bonus feature entitled Behind
the Pilot, which is a split screen video commentary with a ton of cast and
crew. It was not extremely insightful
and also it felt very tense as the plethora of personalities in the room
canceled each other to the point most were silent. The extras were mostly short tid bits of
nothing, with only the Video Jukebox being worthwhile.
I was
disappointed by the picture, sound and extras, but I am glad to have the whole
season on Blu-ray. It is an amazing
show, with an amazing cast that seems to only be getting better. Whereas I would say hold off and wait until a
more audio/visual stunning disc set is released, I don’t think that will be
happening anytime soon.
I suggest
embracing the phenomenon and become a Gleek.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
