Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 12, 2018

Someone somewhere along the line obviously felt it was smart, maybe even “hip”, to remove the “Green” from Arrow’s title, a decision that may now be called into question since another superhero franchise with a color in its title, namely Black Panther, took the box office by storm recently. Of course panthers of various and sundried hues have long been a staple of film, though few would probably mistake The Pink Panther for the Marvel franchise. This is all said with tongue planted firmly in cheek of course, but Arrow by any other name (or at least adjective) enters its sixth season with an increasing feeling of lethargy and cliché. There’s a perfect example early in the first episode, which in time honored fashion ports over snippets from the ostensibly cliffhanger fifth season finale to document a calamitous explosion on "the island" (if you need to ask, you haven't been watching) where a coterie of series regulars has of course ended up. In what is actually kind of a hilarious little moment, while several of these characters are running hither and yon to escape bombs going off (which are all of course rather conveniently placed far enough away not to really present much danger), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) just ups and trips on nothing, predictably instantly putting her in harm’s way. It’s even funnier since at that point Felicity is not even running, but is instead kind of striding, albeit quickly, and her fall just seems willfully contrived. When it ends up creating a bit of a muscle strain for John Diggle (David Ramsey), who supposedly “rescues” her (by reaching out and offering his hand so that she can stand up), even some longtime fans of this series may be rolling their eyes in frustration.

Our reviews of the series' previous seasons can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

Arrow: The Complete First Season Blu- ray review

Arrow: The Complete Second Season Blu- ray review

Arrow: The Complete Third Season Blu- ray review

Arrow: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray review

Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season Blu- ray review

One of the things that has continually frustrated me about Arrow is how it tends to revisit material that has already been dealt with, both in terms of Oliver’s exploits on “the island”, as well as his stint as both an entrepreneur and Mayor of Star City. There’s that same repetitive quality in this sixth season, with the series trotting out “supervillains” that have already been seen, as well as once again delivering supposed fractures within the ranks of the Green Arrow’s acolytes, many of which seem ginned up simply to provide a little angst in any given episode. Even the reappearance of Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), who like virtually every other character in the show has an alias (in this case, Deathstroke) may strike some as going to the well once too often, though I personally actually found this particular plot element more tolerable since it ties into what is arguably this season’s big “innovation”, namely depicting Oliver as would be nurturing father to William (Jack Moore).

What is advertised (including on a sticker on the cover of this release) as the show’s “real” innovation this season is crossover episodes, a questionable conceit which seeks to expand the so-called “Arrowverse” by spreading the wealth between this show, Supergirl: The Complete Third Season, The Flash: The Complete Fourth Season and DC's Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Third Season. Fans of any of these shows will no doubt enjoy seeing their favorite heroes (and/or heroines) interact with characters from other series, and for me personally Crisis on Earth X was one of the more enjoyable (if at times patently goofy) episodes of this season, but there’s just the slight hint of desperation in approaches like this. Baby Boomers and/or television historians may remember that ABC attempted to jumpstart a series that actually kept “green” in its title, The Green Hornet, by having then extremely trendy Batman (and Robin, of course) drop by for a little visit, but even that wasn’t enough to get the show past its first and only season. Arrow has obviously lasted a lot longer than that, but it’s feeling increasingly tired and rote in my personal estimation, as if the creative staff and The CW are simply chasing after "green" of another sort, namely cold, hard cash.

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While there's not a huge difference between this season and previous seasons, I'm upping the score slightly since this season tends to get "out and about" a bit more, allowing the palette a little bit more breathing room than it typically has in the heavily green graded "headquarters" scenes. In fact, it's almost been a relief at times over the years when the show offers a natural looking palette (see screenshots 12 and 19 for two reasonable examples), and detail levels really perk up in these moments this season. That said, this series can tend to look just slightly soft at times (see screenshot 1), and some of the CGI is not especially convincing (see the screenshots featuring things that go boom). The show has a kind of manic stylistic approach a lot of the time, especially in the action set pieces and even in the scenes in the high tech headquarters, where peripatetic cameras can tend to make things look even softer. Black levels are just slightly variable and in fact seem to have been intentionally tweaked at times to take on just a hint of green.

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season continues the series' tradition of rather boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes adding to the overall enjoyment of the episodes. (Though it's neither here nor there, and it obviously took me several season to notice this, but I noticed in checking codecs for this review that the Warner Brothers masthead with the tinkly piano riff actually is presented in Dolby TrueHD 7.1, at least according to my PC, which strikes me as a kind of odd mix and match situation.) Each episode has at least one major showdown where surround activity is quite impressive, but the glut of nicely placed "high tech" sounds in the headquarters scenes can make even expository dialogue scenes crackle with a surprising amount of sonic energy. Dialogue, effects and score are all mixed well and prioritized smartly, and fidelity is top notch across the board.

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• The Split of a Man: Deathstroke (1080p; 11:48) reviews some of the backstory and gives further profiling of this character, who plays an important part in this season.

Disc Two

• Inside the Crossover: Crisis on Earth X (1080p; 41:59) is a well done and rather in depth look at one of the supposed calling cards of this season, the crossover episodes.

Disc Three

• Revenge in Ones and Zeros: The Story of Cayden James (1080p; 10:52) profiles the so-called "hactivist turned criminal", played by Lost's great villain Michael Emerson, who may wonder what all the fuss about islands on this show is about (yes, that's a joke).

Disc Four

• The Best of DC's Comic Con Panels San Diego 2017 (1080i; 58:27) features a lot of candid and behind the scenes footage interspersed with the more traditional Q & A panels.

Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was actually encouraged by the fifth season of Arrow, since it seemed to be trying to at least look at new characters and plot developments, but this sixth season felt really repetitive and at times just flat out ridiculous to me. The show continues to mine the action adventure aspect rather smartly, with a lot of fun (and at times intentionally funny) set pieces, but some of the "drama" just comes off as turgid. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.