The sci-fi drama Manifest ran for three seasons/42 episodes on NBC, from 2018-2021, before being canceled. However, due to its popularity on the streaming service, Netflix picked up the series for a final 2-part fourth season of 20 episodes, which aired from 2022-23.
On April 7, 2013, Montego Air flight 828 left Jamaica bound for New York City. While en route, it experienced some rough turbulence, but nothing that felt too out of the ordinary to the passengers on board. However, when the plane landed, the passengers discovered that it was now November 4, 2018. For them, the flight just experienced a bit of turbulence, and they haven’t aged a day, but their families and loved ones on the ground had given them up for missing and dead for over 5 years! Some of the families have moved on, some have still kept the candle burning, and on the flip side, some of the passengers are just becoming aware that they lost family members during that missing 5 year gap.
NYPD cop Michaela Stone (Melissa Roxburgh, Valor) had just been proposed to by her boyfriend/partner Jared (J.R. Ramirez, Jessica Jones) before she left for the family trip to Jamaica. She had been in a dark place, and was using this vacation to clear her head. However, she was still madly in love with Jared, and planned to accept his proposal upon her return. However, during the five year gap, Jared had moved on, marrying her best friend.
Meanwhile, Michaela’s brother Ben (Josh Dallas, Once Upon a Time) was also on board and is unaware he’s in a similar situation with his wife of 15 years. Grace (Athena Karkanis, Zoo) had already dealt with her mourning and had started to move on, but is now ready to forget that and make things work with her husband. Their terminally ill son Cal (Jack Messina) was also on flight 828. However, new advances in science over the those missing 5 years may now be able to save him, thanks to a treatment that passenger Saanvi Bahl (Parveen Kaur, Beyond, The Strain) had helped to develop just before the flight, and that has been in clinical trials for the past five years.
The creators of the series described it as being Lost meets This is Us, and to some degree that is accurate (but the ending is far better than both of those!). At the core of the first season is this mystery of what happened to these passengers and why. Michaela, Ben and the other passengers are now inexplicably linked to one another, all experiencing “callings”—they hear voices and see things that give them warnings about bad things that are going to happen, or urge them to find or do things that usually result in helping someone in trouble. There were over 100 passengers on Flight 828, each with his or her own similar story, and so the series starts off with more of a passenger-of-the-week format, exploring the background and story of that passenger. Was there a reason these particular people were on that plane? What exactly happened to them, and have the passengers been affected in some way by their experience? That’s something the FBI and NSA Director Vance (Daryl Edwards) are eager to figure out, while the passengers just want to get back to their normal lives. However, they quickly discover that there is nothing normal about their new lives, and there is some deeper connection among them and some unknown force guiding them down a particular path.
Amidst this mystery, the series also follows the Stone family drama. Cal’s twin sister Olive (Luna Blaise, Fresh Off the Boat), who was not on the flight, is now a teenager, and Ben missed out on his daughter growing up. Cal is now physically younger than his twin sister, and they are at different stages of their lives. His old friends are also all grown up, so he feels out of place. Ben feels a bit distant from his wife, and Michaela doesn’t know how to act around Jared.
By the end of the first season, the series no longer follows a passenger-of-the-week type storyline, and becomes more about exploring the general idea of what is going on with the passengers as a whole. In fact, the mystery expands beyond just these passengers and flight 828. Their incident is just the tip of the iceberg—this thing is much larger than they initially believed. The first season finishes quite strong, setting up some exciting twists and cliffhangers for the rest of the series to explore. The show’s mythology expands with each season, with new mysteries to explore. While I found some of the early episodes a bit hit or miss, and sometimes the show gets a little bit over-the-top and goes off the rails, but I still enjoyed it overall. And the series finale provides a really satisfying conclusion to the series.
The main cast remains pretty much the same for much of the series. The second season adds Matt Long (Jack & Bobby) as a regular as Zeke Landon, a hiker trapped in a remote cave during a blizzard who experienced similar time loss as the Flight 828 passengers. The third season adds Holly Taylor (The Americans) as religious zealot Angelina Meyer, a Flight 828 passenger who sees it as her mission from God to stop the Callings. There’s a big time jump at the end of season 3/beginning of season 4 for Cal, and Ty Doran takes over the role for the final season.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has only released this series on DVD, both in individual season sets as well as this new Complete Series release. The contents of the discs are the same, only including the episodes and no bonus material. The series is also available to purchase in HD digitally. The picture quality of the DVD looks quite good, but it was still noticeably duller and less detailed than the show’s original HD airings on NBC/4K airings on Netflix. That said, I got used to this pretty quickly, and it did not detract from my enjoyment while binging the series via the DVD. The 5.1 audio track sounds great, providing clear dialogue, and some immersive moments—which is quite noticeable when the plane encounters turbulence in the pilot episode.
The Complete series DVD release contains all 4 seasons/62 episodes of the series split across 14 discs, with 4-5 episodes per disc. The discs are placed overlapping on trays in a thick multi-disc plastic case, which is placed inside a cardboard slipbox. The inside of the keepcase lists the episodes contained on each disc. Unfortunately there is absolutely no bonus material.
What’s Included:
- All 4 seasons/62 episodes of the series on 14 discs.
- Season 1 (2018-19), 16 episodes (11:24:32)
Disc 1 (2:51:10): “Pilot”, “Reentry”, “Turbulence”, “Unclaimed Baggage”
Disc 2 (2:50:59): “Connecting Flights”, “Off Radar”, “S.N.A.F.U.”, “Point of No Return”
Disc 3 (2:51:06): “Dead Reckoning”, “Crosswinds”, “Contrails”, “Vanishing Point”
Disc 4 (2:51:17): “Cleared for Approach”, “Upgrade”, “Hard Landing”, “Estimated Time of Departure” - Season 2 (2020), 13 episodes (9:17:55)
Disc 1 (2:51:15): “Fasten Your Seatbelts”, “Grounded”, “False Horizon”, “Black Box”
Disc 2 (2:51:37): “Coordinated Flight”, “Return Trip”, “Emergency Exit”, “Carry On”
Disc 3 (3:35:03): “Airplane Bottles”, “Course Deviation”, “Unaccompanied Minors”, “Call Sign”, “Icing Conditions” - Season 3 (2021), 13 episodes (9:19:02)
Disc 1 (2:52:00): “Tailfin”, “Deadhead”, “Wingman”, “Tailspin”
Disc 2 (3:34:59): “Water Landing”, “Graveyard Spiral”, “Precious Cargo”, “Destination Unknown”, “Bogey”
Disc 3 (2:52:03): “Compass Calibration”, “Duty Free”, “Mayday: Part 1”, “Mayday: Part 2” - Season 4 (2022-23), 20 episodes (14:57:10)
Disc 1 (3:30:02): “Touch-and-Go”, “All-Call”, “High Flight”, “Go-Around”, “Squawk”
Disc 2 (3:43:29): “Relative Bearing”, “Romeo”, “Full Upright and Locked Position”, “Rendezvous”, “Inversion Illusion”
Disc 3 (3:44:59): “Final Descent”, “Bug Out”, “Ghost Plane”, “Fata Morgana”, “Throttle”
Disc 4 (3:58:40): “Furball”, “Threshold”, “Lift/Drag”, “Formation”, “Final Boarding”
- Season 1 (2018-19), 16 episodes (11:24:32)
- 480i / Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
- Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH
- This release contains no bonus material.
Episodes: (44:58:39)
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DVD:
Extras:
Final Thoughts:
Manifest has an exciting premise, and the show does a good job of balancing exploring the mystery of what happened to the passengers on flight 828, with the character and family drama surrounding the aftermath of loved ones disappearing for 5 years and suddenly returning. Throughout the 4 seasons there are lots of twists and turns, and new mysteries to explore, though it can get a bit ridiculous at times. Overall I did enjoy the series, and found that it builds to a really satisfying conclusion (thanks to the fourth season from Netflix, otherwise we would have been left on a cliffhanger). Warner Bros. has only released the series on a barebones DVD, with no bonus material, and no HD/4K disc option for those who want to watch the series the way it originally aired—for that, the only option is to pick up the digital HD release. That said, based on the show itself, the DVD release still comes recommended for those looking for a physical disc option.
Manifest: Complete Series [DVD]
$59.96 $55.94 (as of November 2, 2024 16:30 GMT -04:00 – More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Manifest: Season 1
$19.99 (as of November 2, 2024 16:30 GMT -04:00 – More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
