Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie Review

"Ooo-hooo... witchy woman, she got the moon in her eyes..."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown April 10, 2024

With a five-episodes-lighter season order, Nancy Drew returns to the CW with more ghostly mysteries. The now-dour Supernatural wannabe has long since abandoned its source's central concepts -- solvin' dem crimes! -- and taken up residence in the darker corners of Horseshoe Bay, Maine, where spirits lurk, corporeal entities prowl and a prophecy-spewing immortal ancestor plots and schemes. Every step of the way, I leaned in. Maybe, just maybe, the Winchester boys would roll into town, shotguns loaded with salt, the First Blade in hand, and put an end to Nancy's spellcasting nemesis, leaving the college-aged private detective with simpler mysteries to solve. The way God intended. Alas, Sam and Dean never pop by to set things right, and Nancy Drew only barely breaks its (narrative and literal) curse by season's end, setting up a shaky fourth season that hinges on *dramatic disappointed sigh* a final ax-wielding showdown, a cheap time-bending fake-out and a deadly prophecy that denies our leading lady what her heart truly desires. Cause romance is apparently second, third and fourth on the list of things the CW wanted to cram into an adaptation of a decades-long episodic young readers mystery book series.

When things go awry at Horseshoe Bay's annual Harvest Carnival, a new season-long mystery unfolds for Nancy Drew (Kennedy McMann) as the body of an unidentified young man is discovered on the Hudson fairgrounds. Enter the fast-talking procedural boon the police just love to see waltz into a crime scene: the Drew Crew, with returning faves Georgia "George" Li-Yun Fan (Leah Lewis), Ned "Nick" Nickerson (Tunji Kasim), Bess Turani Marvin (Maddison Jaizani), and good ol' Ace Hardy (Alex Saxon). But no worries. Nancy's been given a more official partnership with the cops, that of Community Liason. Clues stream in by the dozen -- some of which Nancy actually uncovers without the help of ghosts this time around -- as the Crew uncovers a connection between mounting corpses, the newly dubbed Frozen Hearts Murders case, a killer on the loose, and Nancy's immortal ancestor, Temperance (Bo Martynowska). What's a girl to do? Except save the town, bring the local ne'er-do-wells to justice, and wrap everything up in a neat bow set and prepped for the series' fourth and final season.

Developed, helmed and showrun by Noga Landau, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the third season of Nancy Drew also stars Scott Wolf as Nancy's father Carson, Ariah Lee as George's younger sister Ted Fan, Anthony Natale as Ace's father Thom, Erica Cerra as district attorney and Carson's new lady-love Jean Rosario, John Harlan Kim as FBI Agent Park, Rachel Colwell as STEM counselor and Bess's romantic prospect Addy Soctomah, Olivia Taylor Dudley in a dual role as Temperance's deceased daughter Charity Hudson-Dow and later as Temperance herself, Nicole Oliver as Ace's mother Rebecca, Carmen Moore as Historical Society representative Hannah Gruen, Aadila Dosani as Amanda Bobbsey, Riley Smith as Ryan Hudson, Stephen Lobo as Bertram Bobbsey, Rachel Colwell as Addy Soctomah, Geraldine Chiu as Jesse Fan, and Zoriah Wong as Charlie Fan.

Thankfully Nancy Drew's third season doesn't have the feel of a show that's unsure of how much time it has left to tell its story. Other than the always looming chance of cancellation, the showrunners were aware that if numbers held, the series would earn a fourth season to wrap up its various plot threads. The result is a leaner, less listless 13-episode run that boots the redundant meanderings, irritating possession hijinks and increasingly gloomy tone in favor of something more akin to Season One's early stretch. The downside is that it all seems slighter, smaller and sillier. I'm a sucker for immortals on screen but Temperance doesn't make for a very menacing Big Bad, nor do the Frozen Heart Murders strike fear as intended. Rather than merely stop at Supernatural Lite, the show pens additional love letters to Dexter and Hannibal, albeit without the former's anti-hero hook or the latter's stunning visuals and stomach-churning cases. Worse, the various romantic pairings, star-crossed encounters and prophecy nonsense grows exhausting fast, replacing real intrigue and suspense with melodrama and yawn-inducing asexual tension.

But with such a short season, it's all about endings, right? Unfortunately, Nancy Drew doesn't build to much and doesn't wrap up enough of consequence (other than the Temperance tale) with much fanfare. Oh, there are twists aplenty. Too many, to be exact, with each one robbing the next of more and more surprise and power. There just aren't many truly gripping developments or satisfying moments of closure, leaving Season Three reeking of point-five, half-season vibes. The finale hits more like a midseason finale in a longer story, which is fine since the show would go on to earn a fourth season, but it feels odd and incomplete, exiting on a plot point that's meant to be heartbreaking but amounts instead to the TV version of a sad deflating balloon. Nancy's love life has been a constant distraction, not to mention one that's never quite found its footing or place among the endless supernatural misadventures and the Drew Crew's extracurricular casework. But its "resolution" here is both confounding and frustrating, taking on an importance that the finale's preceding twelve episodes don't earn. Is it a terrible season of television? Nah. I'm probably being overly critical. It's unmistakably average, though, and hardly capitalizes on the modicum of potential the series' first season flexed in its earliest episodes.

Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nancy Drew's third season 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation returns to Season One form with a largely warmer and more robust image. While some of the chilliness of the show's sophomore outing is retained, the sun actually comes out once in a while, lending itself to more lifelike skin tones, more pleasing primaries, and a palette better suited to the switch from spirited encounters to witchy weirdness. Black levels struggle to dig deep, hovering around a dark, almost-pitch charcoal, and contrast could use a bit of a tweak to grant the photography more vibrancy. But what we get is in keeping with the series' intentions. The same could be said of the presentation's level of detail. Softness creeps in quite often, particularly in the Crew's diner, where white light streaming in through the open windows tend to make actors and their clothing bloom and almost glow. Edges are cleanly defined and textures are decidedly decent, especially in close-ups, but Nancy Drew isn't a razor-sharp procedural. Likewise, darker sequences suffer from slight crush and dense shadow delineation. There aren't any traces of significant macroblocking, banding or errant noise, and ultimately the third season looks precisely as it's meant to (and certainly better than its digital stream).

Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like its predecessors, Nancy Drew: Season Three's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track does quite well with its low-budget rooted CW sound design. Dialogue is nicely grounded in the mix and always intelligible, while the "floatiness" (for lack of a better term) I noted in previous seasons is absent. Pans are slick and smooth as well, and directionality is fairly precise, despite a prevalence of front-heavy scenes. Rear speaker activity is assertive, particularly during supernatural sequences, and low-end output imbues the mix with a solid sense of weight and atmosphere when called upon. The soundfield is a touch more immersive this time around (a wholly subjective observation, mind you) and I didn't notice anything that amounted to a distraction.

Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Like the Blu-ray release of Season Two, Nancy Drew: Season Three doesn't offer much in the way of supplemental content other than a few deleted scenes and a gag reel. Neither amount to much at all, leaving this 3-disc BD-R set too close to barebones for comfort.

Nancy Drew: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nancy Drew's third season is better than its previous outing, or at least it will be if you're a fan of the show. I can't get past some of its sillier elements being taken so seriously, its reliance on supernatural forces, or its soap-operatic baddies. For everything Season Three improves, there's something else that slips. Paramount's Blu-ray edition is at least a decent release... if you can ignore the BD-R discs and the relative lack of extras. (Deleted scenes and a gag reel don't amount to much.) As AV presentations go, I've seen and heard more striking, but it all falls in step with the series' visual and sonic intentions.