Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Strike Back: Season Six Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 27, 2020

It can get downright confusing when discussing British television series due to that very word — series, which in British parlance can refer to what we dunderheaded Americans typically call a “season”. In that regard, some may wonder about Strike Back: Cinemax Season Six (as it’s been branded on this release), since may online data keepers actually refer to this set of episodes as the seventh “series” (in British terminology) of the show. While I “inherited” Strike Back as a review item starting with its fourth season (i.e., of Blu-ray releases in the United States) and therefore can't authoritatively discuss what was included on the domestic Blu-ray releases of the previous three seasons, it appears that the discrepancy is due to the fact that there was an initial series that aired in the United Kingdom before Cinemax got involved with the show starting with its second season (and/or series), a series (and/or season) which made it to the United States as Strike Back: Season One (is everything becoming as clear as mud now?). Compounding the confusion with this particular show is the fact that the UK series (meaning seasons, of course) all had subtitles to differentiate them, so that the second series (which became the first season on this side of the pond) was also known as Project Dawn, and all subsequent years (see what I did there?) also having descriptive subtitles. In that regard, this sixth or seventh season (depending on who’s counting) was branded as Strike Back: Silent War in the UK, but because things can never be simple, was apparently marketed as Strike Back: Revolution in the United States, though the discs in this set carry no such sobriquet.

Our reviews of the previous whatever you want to call them of Strike Back can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

Strike Back: Season One Blu-ray review

Strike Back: Season Two Blu-ray review

Strike Back: Season Three Blu-ray review

Strike Back: Season Four Blu-ray review

Strike Back: Season Five Blu-ray review

Alin Sumarata, who portrays Lance Corporal Gracie Novin, kind of handily sums up the general zeitgeist of Strike Back in one of the so-called Declassified featurettes included as supplements on this release, when she states, “Things of beauty and value are here only to be destroyed.” Luckily, those beautiful things don’t include all of the rather sumptuous locations the show has visited through the years, with this set of episodes exploiting a number of gorgeous (if treacherous) places like Malaysia, and Kuala Lumpur in particular. As Sumarata also opines in one of the Declassified featurettes, this at least gets the Strike Back force out of the desert, though the jungle setting may not be that much of an “improvement” in terms of the environments the characters have to survive in.

Sumarata’s involvement at least hints that this season/series will have some returning characters (unlike at least a couple of previous iterations of the show), and there is indeed a main trifecta again consisting of Sumarata’s Novin, and the two Sergeants (one from the United States, the other from the United Kingdom), Samuel Wyatt (Daniel MacPherson) and Thomas “Mac” McAllister (Warren Brown). There is a new Commander, in this case a martinet, no nonsense type named Colonel Alexander Coltrane (Jamie Bamber). The series’ tendency to treat its computer experts as veritable “red shirts” is joked about in another Declassified featurette, but this season adds the rather appealing character of Lance Corporal Manisha Chetri (Varada Sethu), who manages to get out of headquarters and into the field, something that allows the character to play into events a bit more viscerally than some of her predecessors. A final “team member” (kinda sorta, anyway) is a Russian captain named Katrina Zarkova (Yasemin Allen), who kind of attaches herself to Section 20 after her own Russian team is wiped out in a massacre in the first episode.

While the underlying “McGuffin” of this year’s adventures, the search for some stolen weaponry, is kind of “been there, done that,” the show’s setting in Malaysia offers a really exciting opportunity to introduce some more overt martial arts aspects (courtesy of a subplot involving so-called triads) into one of its calling cards: the virtually required moments in each and every episode that offer hand to hand combat. There are some really inventively staged fight scenes that include everything from a bout in a bowling alley to that great standby in any number of sleazy movies, a skirmish in a women’s prison yard. Aside from its frequent fighting aspect, Strike Back is also noted for its — well, just take a look at the second screenshot accompanying this review, and you’ll get the general idea. Once again, all sorts of pyrotechnics erupt throughout this set of episodes, and from the look of some of the Declassified featurettes, at least some of it was done practically, rather than courtesy of CGI.

As with previous seasons of the show, little stabs at character development are attempted. There’s a kind of fun interplay between Novin and Sarkova that kind of reminded me in a way of the love-hate relationship between the two main antagonists (and lovers) in Killing Eve. Various revelations are offered about some of the other characters as well, in a perhaps over obvious attempt to humanize things, when my hunch is many who come to this series won’t care one whit what someone’s backstory is, as long as he or she is kicking some serious butt and making lots of things go "boom!" on screen.

Strike Back: Season Six Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Strike Back: Season Six is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO Home Entertainment and Cinemax with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This year follows in the same excellent tradition of the previous Blu-ray releases of this show I've covered, with typically very sharp and well detailed imagery, especially in some of the really nicely realized outdoor location shots. Some of the urban cityscapes in some episodes are vertiginous but breathtaking, and the subtle palette highlights in pinks and violets can be very evocative. This season (and/or series) tends to feature almost jaundiced looking yellows and even yellow-greens a lot of the time, something that can inherently make things look unnatural (especially in terms of some of the fleshtones), but which perhaps subliminally suggests a fetid jungle atmosphere. There are a few passing deficits in shadow detail in some nighttime or dimly lit interior scenes.

Strike Back: Season Six Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Strike Back: Season Six has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that, like the video element mentioned above, follows a tradition of excellence fostered by its Blu-ray predecessors. This is a consistently energetic and effects filled track courtesy of the show's frequent set pieces. I'd argue that some of the hand to hand combat effects are at least as expressive as the showier explosions that also dot many (most? all?) episodes, and there's both great directionality as well as sufficient low end when, for example, one of our heroes (or heroines) is thrown headlong into various objects, resulting in the destruction of said object (I reference Alin Sumarata's memorable quote about such aspects, above). With everything from careening seaplanes to zooming military vehicles, there is plenty of surround activity in this very enjoyable track. Dialogue, effects and score are all presented without any problems whatsoever.

Strike Back: Season Six Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Both discs offer Declassified featurettes on each episode on that disc (see below), many of which, while brief, are very entertaining.

Disc One

• Strike Back Season 6: Declassified (1080p; 15:19) offers brief featurettes on what the disc top itself labels as Episodes 1 through 5, though the Episode Menu and the Menu for these extras list them as 51 through 55 (evidently because nothing can ever be easy with this show and numbering systems). The timing is for a Play All option, but each individual featurette is accessible by itself.

Disc Two

• Strike Back Season 6: Declassified (1080p; 16:14) offers brief featurettes on what the disc top itself labels as Episodes 6 through 10, though the Episode Menu and the Menu for these extras list them as 56 through 60 (evidently because nothing can ever be easy with this show and numbering systems). The timing is for a Play All option, but each individual featurette is accessible by itself.

Strike Back: Season Six Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Strike Back by any other name (or number) doesn't really pretend to be anything other than an adrenaline soaked adventure tale that manages to work in a few putative narrative elements until the next big explosion, gunfight or hand to hand combat situation occurs, and that's just fine. I actually really enjoyed this year, which offered an unusual subplot involving triads, along with some really cool location work. The focal trio are fun and often funny, and the show delivers a lot of energy in regular bursts. Technical merits are solid, and Strike Back: Season Six comes Recommended.