Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

An Electrifying Debut

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 10, 2018

The CW's Black Lightning is based on a DC Comics series dating back to the 1970s, but it isn't part of the network's existing "Arrowverse" and its crossover relations (though BL's creators haven't ruled out some sort of connection in the future). The show was originally developed for Fox TV, which passed on it before a pilot was even filmed. Undaunted, series creator Salim Akil (director of the Sparkle remake) pitched the series to the network that previously saved Supergirl after CBS dropped it, and The CW was smart enough to say yes. The result is an inventive addition to its superhero lineup that respects the conventions of the genre while adding a distinctive new flavor to DC's ever-expanding TV roster.

As a teenager, Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) discovered that he could absorb, channel and control electricity, which gave him an array of superpowers, including strength, the ability to shield himself with an electrical field and lightning bolts that he could sustain and control. With the help of Peter Gambi (James Remar), a technological wizard who raised Jefferson after his father, a crusading reporter, was murdered, Jefferson became "Black Lightning", a superhero battling crime in his local community of Freeland. Gambi, who masquerades as a custom tailor by day, helped Jefferson expand and refine his powers through the signature illuminated suit that became an emblem of fear to Freeland's street gangs. (And yes, there's a mysterious back story that explains why a high-end tailor happens to possess such rarefied technical expertise.)

Black Lightning's nemesis was Tobias Whale (Marvin "Krondon" Jones III), an albino criminal kingpin directly responsible for the death of Jefferson's father. Nine years ago, believing that he'd vanquished Whale, Jefferson put away Black Lightning's costume to concentrate on long-term social solutions as the crusading principal of Garfield High, a charter school that specializes in preparing local African-American students for college education and professional careers. Jefferson also needed to pay more attention to his family. His two daughters, Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain), were growing up without him, and his double life as Black Lightning had already cost Jefferson his marriage to Lynn (Christine Adams), the girls' mother, who could no longer live with the daily fear that her husband's latest death-defying exploit might by his last.

Anissa is now a teacher at Garfield, as well as a med student in her spare time. Jennifer is a sixteen-year-old Garfield student with an athlete boyfriend and a familiar array of teenage issues. Lynn is an M.D. working as a researcher in advanced neuro-biology, and she and Jefferson cooperate in raising their girls, even though they continue to live separately. Gambi and Jefferson rarely see each other. Jefferson devotes his days to rallying students for success and navigating the politics of the local school board, with the help of Asst. Principal Kara Fowdy (Skye P. Marshall), whose longing looks in her boss's direction suggest more than a professional interest.

But gang violence is growing in Freeland. A group known as "the 100" has taken control of a local motel, where they force young girls into prostitution and send dealers into the streets to peddle a ferocious designer drug dubbed "Green Light". When Jefferson's own family is threatened by the forces of the 100, he finds himself once again at Gambi's door, reluctantly donning his old suit (which Gambi has been busily upgrading in the hope of Jefferson's return). Black Lightning reemerges on Freeland's streets, a beacon of hope to the neighborhood and a thorn in the side of the local police department, which considers him a vigilante—and which, as it turns out, is laced with corruption. The only cop Jefferson can trust is Inspector Bill Henderson (Damon Gupton), with whom he grew up and who doesn't realize that the electrically charged voice that sometimes calls him on the phone belongs to his childhood pal.

The thirteen episodes of Black Lighting's first season provide an array of formidable opponents to challenge Freeland's meta-human defender, including a high-level drug dealer with the street name of "La La" (William Catlett); a funeral parlor owner known as "Lady Eve" (Jill Scott), whose loyalties are complicated; and, later in the season, a shady government operative named Martin Proctor, who is played by the reliable Gregg Henry with the same evil relish he brought to his villains for Brian De Palma and his double-crossing small-time hood in Payback. But Black Lightning's greatest challenge is his old enemy Tobias Whale, who, to Jefferson's shock, has reappeared in Freeland, not only undamaged but but also unaged and enhanced with super-strength. Tobias is always accompanied by a ghoulish assassin named Syonide (Charlbi Dean Kriek), who rarely speaks but whose aim is deadly.

Multiple layers of back story are explored as Black Lightning punches and pulses through the underworld territory that has changed so drastically during the years when Jefferson busied himself as Garfield High's full-service principal. But the glue that binds the series is the emotional bonds among the Pierce family that are repeatedly tested as Jefferson re-enters the fray. Additional challenges are presented when Anissa begins to manifest powers that are similar to her father's but not identical. (She too can manipulate electricity, and her breathing can generate shockwaves.) Unaware of Jefferson's alternate identity, Anissa keeps her abilities secret, but before long Freeland has a new meta-human defender on its streets, who calls herself "Thunder". It's only a matter of time before Black Lightning and Thunder collide, without realizing they're father and daughter.

Black Lightning doesn't shy away from contemporary hot-button issues. In the pilot episode, Jefferson must endure a traffic stop and frisking by the police for the familiar crime of "driving while black", even though he's well-known in the community—creator Akil relates in the extras how the incident was based on his own experience—and Anissa is a crusading activist, among whose current causes is the removal of a Confederate statue. There are also echoes of past racially charged horrors like the Tuskegee Experiment. But Akil and his writers' room have ensured that such material is organically integrated into their larger narrative, which hews to classic genre tropes and provides a satisfying arc for the reluctant but formidable hero of the title. Season One resolves its core plot lines, but it also leaves plenty of loose ends for the show's creative team to explore in the second season, which is currently slated to air in the fall of 2018.

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Specific information about the shooting format for Black Lightning was not available, but like most television today, it's obviously a digital production, with the work allocated between two cinematographers, Scott Peck (Fear the Walking Dead), who shot the pilot, and Eduardo Enrique Mayén (Greystone Park). The image on Warner's pair of 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays reflects all the usual virtues of digital capture that one expects to find in contemporary TV: superior detail, excellent sharpness and clarity and an absence of noise, interference or other artifacts. The show's palette ranges from everyday naturalism (or at least the TV version) in the halls and classrooms of Garfield high and the two Pierce households, to the stylishly noirish shadows of Gambi's establishment, to the florid and often fluorescent hues of the villains' lairs and workshops. The clean bright whites of Lynn Pierce's lab are nicely rendered, and the nighttime blacks of the city that Black Lightning patrols are deep and solid.

The alert viewer who is familiar with Warner's Blu-ray presentations will notice that the menu on each of the two discs is the minimalist style used by the Warner Archive Collection (see the final screenshot accompanying this review). Warner's TV division is attempting to control costs by borrowing a few pages from WAC's playbook, including its disc authoring facility, but they haven't yet adopted WAC's practice of maximizing bitrates. Having stipulated that all thirteen episodes of Season One must fit on two discs, plus extras, the TV division has achieved average bitrates that vary between about 17 and 18 Mbps, and I have been told that they are proud of the image quality they've managed to deliver at such relatively low rates. Within the tight parameters they've been given, the compressionists have achieved a capable encode.

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Black Lightning's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, is an energetic, room-rattling mix driven by the propulsive soundtrack by Kurt Farquhar (The King of Queens) and a song selection that ranges from Nina Simone to contemporary hip-hop. (The music rights must have cost a fortune; the pilot alone features selections from over a dozen songs.) Dynamic range is broad, and the bass extension is deep, clean and powerful. Rear channel effects are not as numerous or striking as an action feature, but the surrounds are fully utilized to provide atmosphere and extend the soundstage. The mixers have been careful not to let the dialogue get buried in sonic acrobatics, and it remains clearly intelligible and appropriately prioritized.

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Come Visit Georgia PSAs (disc 1) (1080p; 1.78:1): The show's crew describe the advantages of shooting in Atlanta and surrounding areas.
• #1 (5:13)
• #2 (6:02)



• Art Imitating Life: The Pilot Episode (disc 2) (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:02): How creator Salim Akil's real-life experience of arguing with a policeman during a traffic stop translated into events in the pilot episode.



• A Family of Strength (disc 2) (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:09): Akil discusses the series' distinctive focus on family and the tensions faced by a character who has one life as a lone hero saving the world and another as a husband and father to two daughters.



• Gag Reel (disc 2) (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:15): Tame but mildly amusing.



• Deleted Scenes (disc 2) (1080p; 1.78:1; 32:38): The scenes are not separately listed or selectable. All but the first are preceded by a title card listing the episode from which they were cut and, occasionally, a brief description.



• Black Lightning: 2017 Comic-Con Panel (disc 2) (1080i; 1.78:1; 17:25): This panel was held before filming began. Participants include creator Salim Akil, executive Mara Brock Akil, Cress Williams ("Jefferson Pierce"/"Black Lightning"), Christine Adams ("Lynn Pierce"), Nafessa Williams ("Anissa Pierce"/"Thunder"), and China Anne McClain ("Jennifer Pierce').

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Black Lightning was a mid-season replacement on The CW, which means that it appeared in the same year as Black Panther in theaters and just fifteen months after Marvel's Luke Cage on Netflix. Some may see this mini-renaissance of African and African-American comic book heroes as a response to current social issues, but it's important to remember that all of them are based on venerable comic book franchises created many years ago. Their current emergence in film and TV reflects as much a need to keep feeding the voracious superhero entertainment machine as it does contemporary concerns. But good dramatists make creative use of the era in which they work. Salim Akil and his team have skillfully reimagined Black Lightning for today's world, and the results are satisfying, memorable and highly recommended.