Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 29, 2014

The clock was already ticking by the time Duck Dynasty: Season 5 hit the airwaves, but in the inverse of “time flies when you’re having fun,” the hands on the Robertson Family’s “fame clock” have slowed inexorably, extending their alotted fifteen minutes for just a while longer. While there have been relatively fewer of the imbroglios that erupted over the past year or so, the Robertsons can still make national headlines when, for example, Jep (who coincidentally or not is featured in a lot of Season 6’s episodes) suffered a seizure while hunting recently. Still, Duck Dynasty has become an exercise in repetition and almost self-parody at times. There is an undeniable sweetness and of course goofy humor in many of the interactions between both the increasingly extended Robertson clan as well as their employees and tangentially related folks, but it all seems more forced and artificial than ever in this sixth season. The show’s viewership continues to decline, but there are obviously still enough rabid Robertson fans around to keep Duck Dynasty a viable property—for now.

The show’s high water benchmark of around twelve million viewers for isolated episodes a few years ago is but a distant memory now, as only about a third to a fourth that number tend to regularly tune in nowadays. That’s still a more than respectable number by cable standards (and indeed even for broadcast standards), but it indicates that more and more people have grown tired of the overly contrived and increasingly fake seeming world of Duck Commander and the Robertson clan.

That very fact makes the “stunt casting” of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal even funnier (in an ironic sense) than it otherwise would have been. Jindal, whom some political pundits accuse of having Presidential ambitions in 2016, may have thought this would be a brilliant marketing effort, but it fails on several fronts. First of all, the Robertsons’ “market” is self-evidently shrinking faster than you can bleat out a duck call, but perhaps even worse, this particular episode smacks of everything that is wrong with Duck Dynasty, from ginned up conflict to faux chaos to really awkward interactions by supposed “guest stars”.

Part of the dubious artifice here is the subliminal but unavoidable fact that it’s obvious that film crews are following the Robertsons around, documenting their supposed “natural” behaviors. And yet when an episode relies on a supposed prank like toilet papering a house, more cynical audience members might be asking themselves how this could be a “surprise” with scores of people in attendance, hovering over both the pranksters as well as the ostensible “victims”. Over and over again this season, these completely artificial “events” are staged, and it’s more apparent than ever that they are being staged. This may be a knee jerk reaction to some of the Robertsons “going rogue,” so to speak, in an effort to prevent or at least forestall the kind of train wreck that has recently scuttled Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (in terms of general public reaction to various behaviors, not the specific issue afflicting Mama June as this review is being written).

Duck Dynasty has always coasted on the considerable good will that the Robertson family generates courtesy of their inherent charisma and countryfied charm. But as the series has struggled to find new things to do and/or say, it’s become more and more obvious that Duck Dynasty is inventing situations that have either been done to death before or are simply too pretentious to ever register as anything other than completely fake feeling. The first person confessionals still manage to have a slightly more authentic ambience, but truth be told, it’s a perilously low bar and one that Duck Dynasty seems intent on lowering even further.

For those wanting to catch up on what all the fuss is (or at least was) about, our reviews of previous seasons of Duck Dynasty can be found here:

Duck Dynasty: Season 1 Blu-ray review

Duck Dynasty: Season 2 Blu-ray review

Duck Dynasty: Season 3 Blu-ray review

Duck Dynasty: Season 4 Blu-ray review

Duck Dynasty: Season 5 Blu-ray review

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A&E Home Entertainment Networks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This season is very much in line with the previous seasons, or at least those with a progressive presentation, though the continued use of older establishing shots of various Robertson-centric locations is a bit baffling, especially since the quality of some of them is dubious at best. Otherwise, though, the show continues to mine some picturesque locales, with outdoor sequences offering good depth of field, and the overall series boasting excellent sharpness and clarity. There are still some issues with nighttime or otherwise dark sequences which struggle at times to offer much in the way of shadow detail. While not revelatory by any stretch, this season maintains the generally high quality of the look of the series.

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Again as with previous Blu-ray releases of Duck Dynasty, Duck Dynasty: Season 6 features a serviceable if largely unremarkable DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. There is occasional obvious directionality in terms of the some of the ambient environmental effects, but this is not a showy mix by any stretch of the imagination. Dialogue and first person confessionals are presented very cleanly and clearly, with no issues of any kind to report.

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Featurettes (1080i; 19:11) include:

  Reinventing Duck Commander

  Firefighter Academy: Robertson Style

  The Governor Visits Duck Commander

  Jep Meets Lily's First Boyfriend

  "Rolling" With the Roberstons

  Willie the Joker

  Godwin's Rotten Pickles

  Mother's Day 2014

  Si's New Hobby: Couponing

  Willie's Day at the Dojo

Disc Two:

• Deleted Scenes (1080i; 10:52)

Duck Dynasty: Season 6 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The problem with casting a wider and wider net, as Duck Dynasty has attempted to do over its past couple of seasons, is that it only becomes obvious how stuck in a rut this show has become. The newer featured members of the Robertson family are mostly either bland or tired retreads of the core characters audiences have come to know (and in some cases, love). But the situations depicted in this season just smack of desperation a lot of the time. Maybe it's time for the Robertsons to take a good, old fashioned vacation (without camera crews tagging along). For those who still enjoy the series (and there are evidently millions of you), technical merits here continue to be generally strong.