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DVD Review: GLEE – THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON

Jan 12, 2015 Posted by in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

The fifth season of Glee starts with some big changes at McKinley High. Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) has returned, but in one of her typical unscrupulous plans, she has managed to get Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) demoted to janitor and takes over his job. She immediately threatens Will (Matthew Morrison) that if his Glee Club doesn’t win the championship, he’s also going to be fired. Sue has enlisted new Cheerio Bree (Erinn Westbrook) to help her in her mission to take down the Glee Club once and for all.

Meanwhile Artie and Kitty find themselves an unlikely couple and must decide whether to take their relationship public. Seniors Sam, Mercedes and Blaine all head into their final year, and Blaine has an important question to ask Kurt before he heads back to the city. And in New York, Santana finds a new, unfamiliar romance, while Rachel discovers a promising start to her Broadway career.
 

The first 13 episodes of the season once again split time between what’s going on with the New Directions in Lima and what’s happening with the graduates in NYC. However, the final 7 episodes of the season concentrate soley on the New York side of things as newly-graduated Blaine, Sam and Mercedes move out to the city to join the others. The season closed with a finale which would have worked fairly well as a series finale, had the show not been picked up for the current/final sixth season of 13 episodes.

The fifth season opens with a double-bill of Beatles-themed episodes, followed by a special tribute to “Finn Hudson”, allowing the cast and viewers to deal with the surprising death of actor Cory Monteith. This episode also brings back many of the original cast members—something that occurs several times during this season. The “previously unaired” Christmas special allows the show to rewind the clock for an episode, while the 100th episode features past and present New Directions members reinventing past performances from the series.

The fifth season also includes episodes showcasing Katy Perry/Lady Gaga and Billy Joel. And some of the topics covered in the season’s episodes include twerking, hate crimes, STDs, a school lock-in, the origin of Sue’s red track suit, and an homage to Carrie. And in NYC, we see Kurt starting a band, Amber trying to start a singing career, Rachel auditioning for Funny Girl, Sam becoming an underwear model, and Artie going to film school. We also see how Kurt and Blaine struggle with their relationship while living under the same room for the first time.

Coach Beiste (Dot Jones) gets a much larger role during the first half of the season. And many other recurring guests are also back this season, including NeNe Leakes, Kristin Chenoweth, Gwyneth Paltrow and Whoopi Goldberg. The extensive list of the season’s guest stars also includes Peter Facinelli, Demi Lovato, Adam Lambert, Michael Lerner, Dana Davis, Rick Worthy, Galadriel Stineman, Josh Sussman, Skylar Astin, Chace Crawford, Shirley MacLaine, Gary Dourdan, Eric Roberts, Jim Rash, Richard Kind, June Squibb, Billy Dee Williams, Tim Conway and Kristen Schaal. And appearing as themselves are Ioan Gruffudd, Marlee Matlin, Jackée Harry, and Johanna Rohrback.

When I first watched this season as it aired on Fox, I couldn’t help but feel the series was well past its prime. While the performances were still great, the writing has gotten sloppy and the stories often just didn’t work. The season did work a bit better for me watching it the second time around via the DVD, not having to wait a week between episodes. However, overall it was still a bit of a mess at times. That said, there are some really great performances this season, and I think the show works better it stops splitting time between Lima and NYC. However, even in NYC, the characters are a bit too spread out, and the STD plotline from that side of things was one of the most absurd of the season.

As for the DVD presentation itself—while it looks and sounds great, I was really disappointed that Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment decided to drop the Blu-ray format with only two seasons left of the show! It’s really annoying that while the series aired in HD, there is only an SD option for home viewing. Plus, I can’t fit this season on the same shelf next to all my shorter Blu-ray cases of the first four seasons!

This time around there are also far fewer bonus features than we’ve seen on the releases for the previous seasons. In addition to the usual Music Jukebox, there are just two behind-the-scenes featurettes that total around 22 minutes. While these are entertaining, it would have been great to get a gag reel, some deleted scenes, some audio commentaries, or anything else!



What’s Included:

Episodes: (878 min)

  • All 20 Episodes of the Fifth season:
    Disc 1: “Love, Love, Love”, “Tina in the Sky With Diamonds”, “The Quarterback”
    Disc 2: “A Katy or A Gaga”, “The End of Twerk”, “Movin’ Out”, “Puppet Master”
    Disc 3: “Previously Unaired Christmas”, “Frenemies”, “Trio”, “City Of Angels”
    Disc 4: “100”, “New Directions”, “New New York”
    Disc 5: “Bash”, “Tested”, “Opening Night”
    Disc 6: “The Back-Up Plan”, “Old Dog, New Tricks”, “The Untitled Rachel Berry Project”
  • 480p / Widescreen 1.78:1
  • Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Portuguese

Extras:

  • GLEEful: Celebrating 100 Episodes of Glee (8:31)
    The cast talks about what it was like getting back together for the show’s 100th episode, how they miss Corey, and more. Includes and intro by Chairman/CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Television Dana Walden, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with Jenna Ushkowitz (“Tina Cohen-Chang”), Matthew Morrison (“Will Schuester”), Chord Overstreet (“Sam Evans”), Kevin McHale (“Artie Abrams”), Darren Criss (“Blaine Anderson”), Jane Lynch (“Sue Sylvester”), Blake Jenner (“Ryder Lynn”), Harry Shum Jr. (Mike Change, Jr.”), Becca Tobin (“Kitty Wilde”), Alex Newell (“Wade ‘Unique’ Adams”), Melissa Benoist (“Marley Rose”), and Kristin Chenoweth (“April Rhodes”), Chris Colfer (“Kurt Hummel”), and Lea Michele (“Rachel Berry”).
  • Glee in the City featurette (13:35)
    The cast and producer talk about the challenges and changes for them and the characters with the move to New York City. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Executive Producer/Writer/Director Ian Brennan, stars Darren Criss, Chord Overstreet, Kevin McHale, Amber Riley (“Mercedes Jones”), Adam Lambert (“Elliot ‘Starchild’ Gilbert”), Chris Colfer, and Lea Michelle.
  • Glee Music Jukebox
    This feature is available on each disc and allows the viewer to watch the musical performances from the episodes contained on that disc. Select an individual song from the list for each episode, or choose Play All or Shuffle mode for continuous playback.

 


Final Thoughts:

My Rating
Episodes:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Worth a Look

While this fifth season of Glee certainly isn’t the best of the series, it does have some great musical performances and some interesting storylines. And it sets the stage as the series heads into its final season. It’s disappointing that there is no Blu-ray release this time around, but the picture and sound quality on the DVD is still quite remarkable. The lack of bonus features is also a big disappointment—just two interesting but short behind-the-scenes featurettes this time around. That said, fans of the show will certainly want to pick this up.