Arrow premiered on The CW in the fall of 2012, only a few months after Smallville completed it's ten season run. Smallville in it's later seasons featured Green Arrow as a regular character. So when I heard there was going to be a TV series based on Green Arrow I thought it was a spinoff from Smallville. I was wrong.
While not as brooding as Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, Arrow takes a more serious tone than the previous incarnation from Smallville while still featuring facets I think fans like to see in live action adaptations of comic book characters and that includes costumes. Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow wears a somewhat more utilitarian and darker version of the costume as compared to the one used in Smallville. However it is reminiscent of it enough that we can revel in the character's heroic adventures that feature DC Comics characters like China White, Dead Shot, Deathstroke, Huntress, and the major nemesis for the first season, Merlin.This is a reboot of the Green Arrow story so despite my frequent mentions of Smallville above, the two shows are not related.
Oliver Queen returns to Sterling City following being marooned on an island and presumed dead. As the series progresses we see Oliver Queen work out and develop into his Green Arrow persona and as is the case of shows like this, there is always someone who misunderstands the hero and hunts him as a vigilante. The fight choreography for the show is excellent and the production values are better than average for a CW original series.
Warner Home Video presents Arrow: The Complete First Season in a 9-Disc Blu-ray, DVD, Ultraviolet Digital Copy Combo pack housed in a nine-disc Elite Blue BD case with in a cardboard slipcase. An insert containing episode details and disc content information is included for both the Blu-ray and DVD discs. There are four Blu-ray Discs and five DVDs within the set. Aside from the differences in screen and audio resolution, the extra value features are identical on both formats. A second insert containing a limited time redemption code for an Ultraviolet Digital Copy of the complete first season is also included within the case.
The Blu-ray Discs present all of the first season episodes of Arrow in AVC 16 by 9 widescreen format encoded at 1080p/24fps and the picture quality is crystal. English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Sound is provided for all of the episodes along with optional dubbed language soundtracks in French, Castilian Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese. English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired along with French, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Latin Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Portuguese, Finish, Swedish, Japanese, and Korean Language Subtitles are encoded onto the four Blu-ray Discs too.
The DVDs contain standard definition presentation of all season one episodes across the remaining five discs in 16 by 9 enhances widescreen with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound and a Portuguese Dubbed Language Soundtrack. English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and Chinese, Portuguese, Latin Spanish, French, Thai and Korean Language Subtitles are encoded onto the five DVDs as options.
With the exception of an Arrow panel at Paley Fest 2013 (27:24), which is presented in 1080p/60p, all the bonus content is presented in AVC encoded 1080p/24fps high definition with Dolby Surround Sound. Deleted scenes for 9 of the 23 episodes are presented in short reels for their respective episodes with the largest of which contains a reel of five deleted scenes (6:25) for one episode. It would have been a lot easier to just have the deleted scenes as one long reel that can be viewed with optional individual chapters per episode rather than spreading them out across the four Blu-ray Discs.
The balance of the extra value materials are on disc four and include a documentary about the development of the series for television (29:34), a featurette about the stunt work (18:53) and a gag reel (2:28). The interactive menus are easy to navigate.
Arrow: The Complete First Season on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and Utraviolet Digital Copy is available now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Warner Home Video. The second season premieres on Wednesday, October 9, 2013 on The CW.
(C) Copyright 2013 By Mark Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
