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Glee: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Review

  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
  • Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
  • Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
  • Subtitles: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
  • Region: A (Region-Locked)
  • Rating: Not Rated
  • Running Time: 1001 Mins.
  • Discs: 4 (4 x Blu-ray)
  • Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • Blu-ray Release Date: September 13, 2011
  • List Price: $69.99

[amazon-product]B003L77GB0[/amazon-product]

Purchase Glee: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Series
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG  thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

The Series

[Rating:2.5/5]

Another season of Glee, another season of high school drama and teen angst set to slickly produced, Autotuned pop-hits of the last few decades. Gone is the promise of growth that arose in this musical series in its debut season and in is a major sophomore slump afflicted by characters reverting to their pre-season 2 states, numerous aborted sub-plots, and so many hookups and breakups it’ll have your neck sore from doing double-takes.

Glee: The Complete Second Season started off with promise in its first episode, openly mocking some of the criticisms and jokes levied at the series, but then quickly fell into a quagmire of uninteresting story lines apathetically set to a soundtrack nowhere as interesting as the previous season’s. Rachel (Lea Michelle) is back to her diva-like ways, showing no growth in character from last year, while her relationship with Finn (Cory Monteith), becomes less believable by the minute, the more clingy and insecure she becomes. Puck (Mark Salling ) is a good guy, then a bad guy, then an okay guy and dating someone, Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink) completely unbelievable that his character would ever date. Then there’s the Santana (Naya Rivera)–Artie (Kevin McHale)–Brittany (Heather Morris) love triangle that devolves into an afternoon special about loving and being true to one’s self. Bleh. In fact, the whole season feels like one afternoon special after another with a few bright spots thrown in, but the failures vastly outweigh those. One failure is “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” episode, a terribly watered down attempt at honoring this midnight showing B-movie classic in which the producers couldn’t even see fit to give us a proper Frankenfurter, but instead give us Mercedes (Amber Riley) pretending to be a drag queen.

Fans can only hope this series is set back on track for its third season, but who knows? With the amount of iTunes downloads they sell, a 3D movie on the way plus an American Idol-esque reality competition based on the franchise, what’s the motivation to change anything?

Video Quality

[Rating:4/5]

While Glee looks strong, it doesn’t look absolutely amazing. The AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement shows none of the deficiencies of the broadcasts, so blacks are very stable, whites are clean, and compression artifacts are nonexistent during all of those glitzy musical numbers with plenty of motion and lights flashing. Still, the image can look a bit too grainy and sometimes a little on the dark side.

Audio Quality

[Rating:4.5/5]

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is really good on Glee‘s second season. Despite some apparent clipping on dialogue here and there, the musical performances sound big and dynamic, with deep, tight bass, a wide stereo field and ample amounts of ambience in the surround channels. During the course of the series’ dialogue-driven scenes, there are also some good atmospheric and a little bit of use of the surround channels for some discrete panning; plenty of door slamming and school bell-ringing in particular.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:3.5/5]

The set is full up with HD supplements on its fourth and final disc, while each disc is authored with the Glee Music Jukebox that lets you mix your own Glee musical performance playlist.

The supplements:

  • Glee Music Jukebox
  • The Making of the Rocky Horror Glee Show (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:06:47)
  • Exclusive bonus song – “Planet, Schmanet, Janet” (1.78:1; 1080p/24; English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1; 00:01:11)
  • Building Glee’s Auditorium with Cory Monteith (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:31) – The star gets behind the scenes on the second season’s newly-built auditorium set.
  • A Day in the Life of Brittany (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:45) – The actress gives a tour backstage in character.
  • Shooting Glee in New York City (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:10:31) – A brief on-location look at the big New York City finale.
  • Guesting on Glee (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:08:06) – Some of the guest stars who appeared on this season are interviewed.
  • Stevie Nicks Goes Glee (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:03:34) – Stevie Nicks appears on set as Glee performs her famous song “Landslide.”
  • Sue’s Quips (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:15)
  • Santana’s Slams (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:51)
  • The Wit of Brittany (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:20)
  • Getting Waxed with Jane Lynch (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:06:08) – Jane Lynch shows off her wax model.
  • Glee at Comic-Con 2010 (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:14:54) – A Q&A with the cast and creators at Comic-Con.

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:3.5/5]

Glee: The Complete Sixth Season disappoints on content, but delivers in its HD performance. So, if you don’t mind a second-rate version of the first season of this series, then this is the set for you.

Additional Screen Captures

[amazon-product]B003L77GB0[/amazon-product]

Purchase Glee: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Series
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]

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