Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The 100: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie Review

"We'll Figure Something Out. We Always Do."

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 23, 2016

Like its tragic heroine, Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), The 100 wandered into the wilderness after the genocidal conclusion of Season Two, and when it returned, something had changed. Showrunner Jason Rothenberg, having long since parted ways with the plot lines in writer Kass Morgan's original novels, decided to restore the sci-fi elements that dominated Season One. The result was an overly busy narrative filled with shifting locales and breathless exposition, leaving no time for the deeper explorations of thorny social and geopolitical issues that made The 100's second season so memorable. There are no shades of gray in the conflicts of Season Three. The adversaries opposing Clarke and her fellow survivors are neither subtle nor ambivalent, just vicious and evil (and, in one important instance, not even human). Where Season Two offered a drama of moral complexity ("Am I doing the right thing?"), Season Three remains preoccupied with logistics ("I know what the right thing is, but how do I do it?"). The 100 continues to entertain with its array of colorful characters and detailed realization of a post-apocalyptic world, but Season Three's narrative feels thin and insubstantial.

The Warner Archive Collection, which picked up The 100 after its first season, has released Season Three on a four-disc Blu-ray set that continues the high standards set by its previous release of Season Two.

Spoiler warning: The discussion below assumes familiarity with prior seasons. If you have not seen Seasons One and Two of The 100, proceed at your own risk.

Three months have passed since Clarke made the fateful decision to irradiate the population of Mount Weather in order to save her fellow survivors from being murdered for their bone marrow. Clarke's actions resulted in the extermination of an entire society, many of whose members had risked their lives to shield her and her companions from their leaders' predatory intentions. The sole survivor of the Mountain Men is Emerson (Toby Levins), an early bone marrow recipient who is now capable of surviving outside Mount Weather's protective shielding. Emerson will pop up repeatedly throughout Season Three, seeking revenge and demonstrating the truth of the adage that "no good deed goes unpunished".

Overwhelmed by guilt, Clarke has disappeared into the forest, where she has acquired the nickname "Wanheda" (or "Commander of Death"). During her absence, the survivors of the Ark space station have rechristened their encampment "Arkadia", replacing the original name of "Camp Jaha", which honored former chancellor Thelonius Jaha (Isaiah Washington), who rejoined the group after his miraculous escape from the dying orbital platform. Under the leadership of current chancellor Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) and Clarke's mother, Dr. Abby Griffin (Paige Turco), Arkadia has become a semblance of a functioning city, with infrastructure engineered by technical wizard Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), despite the constant pain she suffers from leg and hip fractures. Arkadia continues to be heavily guarded against the threat of attack from the warrior tribe known as Grounders, but it is also home to the Grounder loner, Lincoln (Ricky Whittle), who originally befriended the "Sky Crew" and, as a result, has been declared an outcast by his tribe. Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos), one of the original "100" sent down to explore the surface along with her older brother, Bellamy (Bob Morley), also retains a loyalty to the Grounders, having been trained in fighting and survival by the Grounder warrior Indra (Adina Porter).

When word arrives that Clarke is being hunted by a fierce tribe known as Ice Nation, Bellamy organizes a patrol to find her. Instead, he encounters a new group of Ark survivors led by Charles Pike (Michael Beach), whose section of the Ark crash-landed in Ice Nation territory, where they have been fighting for their lives ever since, sustaining heavy casualties. Pike's group joins the main camp at Arkadia, which leads to some happy reunions, including that of Monty Green (Christopher Larkin) with the mother he thought was dead, Hannah (Donna Yamamoto). But the new arrivals inject a dissident strain into Arkadian society, as Pike and his supporters urge more aggressive action against the Grounders. Eventually, Pike will challenge Kane for the position of Chancellor, with far-reaching consequences.

In the Grounder capital of Polis, warrior queen Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) presides over a fractious court, where her leadership is challenged by Nia, Queen of the Ice Nation (Brenda Strong). Season Three continues The 100's exploration of Grounder society, with its elaborate rituals and mythology and its court intrigues and power struggles worthy of the Tudors or the Medicis. A key figure is Titus (Neil Sandilands), Lexa's high priest, who is the guardian of secret traditions and who opposes his queen's efforts to forge an alliance with "Sky Crew". Later in the season, Clarke and her cohorts will encounter Luna (Nadia Hilker), a Grounder who has rejected the prevailing warrior culture and has led a group of followers in establishing an alternative society in a secluded location.

The chief villain of Season Three is the artificial intelligence discovered by Jaha and John Murphy (Richard Harmon) on a remote island in the finale of Season Two. The A.I., which calls itself "ALIE", appears in the form of a beautiful brunette (Erica Cerra) wearing a red dress reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica's duplicitous Number Six, and it presides over a Matrix-like artificial reality dubbed "the City of Light". The latest in a long line of sinister computer programs of which the best known and most durable is Skynet of The Terminator series, ALIE shares with Skynet the same algorithm-driven will to power and utter indifference to human life. She also wields the ability to seize control of individual humans and incorporate them into a hive mind reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Anyone who accepts ALIE's invitation to enter the City of Light by swallowing one of her special computer chips is immediately freed from pain and suffering but also becomes ALIE's puppet. With Jaha as her apostle, ALIE sets about enslaving Sky Crew and Grounders alike, and the battle against her becomes a war of attrition, as friends and family are gradually and quietly stolen away.

On paper, ALIE may have seemed like a worthy successor to the Mountain Men as The 100's latest Big Bad, but in practice she is a banal adversary. Aside from being so derivative as to be a collection of sci-fi cliches, ALIE isn't the kind of enemy that makes for effective drama, because her motivations and goals are (literally) non-human. The Mountain Men may have been cruel, but they could be understood in human terms, because their actions were driven by basic needs of survival; ALIE is just a flawed program that her own creator (also played by Erica Cerra in flashbacks) discarded in favor of an improved version, ALIE 2.0. In defeating ALIE, Clarke and her team are never faced with any hard choices (although Rothenberg and his writers' room labor mightily to create the appearance of one in the season finale). Their only challenge is to find a way around the rampaging program's defenses so that they can shut it down before it destroys them. No one will shed a tear for ALIE's demise, and Clarke is unlikely to feel the kind of guilt that, after the destruction of the Mountain Men, drove her into self-imposed exile.

The 100: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 100 continues to be shot digitally, with cinematographer Michael C. Blundell returning from Season Two. The Warner Archive Collection has distributed the sixteen episodes evenly over four 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray discs that feature an image much like that of Seasons One and Two, with superior detail, vivid color, strong contrast and an absence of noise, banding or other artifacts. Substantial portions of Season Three play out in dark interiors, not only in the Grounder capital of Polis but also in the newly erected structures of Arkadia. While the lack of illumination in such scenes may prompt misguided complaints of "crush", a careful examination reveals that the absence of detail in certain parts of the frame is intentional. Blundell's lighting reveals the essential elements of a scene's visual design, using blackness and shadow both to direct the eye and to create atmosphere (and probably also to conserve costs by allowing the production company to skip building out every aspect of the set). Outdoor sequences in forests and fields feature ample light and rich earth tones. And, of course, scenes in the City of Light are as bright as the name suggests.

As with Season Two, WAC has encoded each episode with an average bitrate of around 30 Mbps.

The 100: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Season Three's 5.1 audio mix, once again encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, continues to take full advantage of the surround array, placing both environment and specific effects into the rear channels for full immersion into The 100's distinctive mixture of the futuristic and the feudal. Season Three does not contain battle scenes comparable to the previous season's, but it does introduce several new locales with distinctive sonic signatures that cannot be further described without spoilers. As in the previous season, a return to the space station in an extended flashback provides a reminder of Season One's pervasive sound of space travel. Dynamic range is broad, bass extension is deep, and the dialogue is clearly rendered. Scoring duties have been assumed by Tree Adams (Californication).

The 100: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Arkadia: From Wreckage to Salvation (disc 1) (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:40): Rothenberg and production designer James Philpott discuss the design concepts behind the new home of "Sky Crew", with comments from cast members.



• Ice Nation: Brutal and Fierce (disc 1) (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:21): A look at the newly introduced tribe of Grounders, with comments from Rothenberg, Taylor ("Clarke"), Adina Porter ("Indra"), costume designer Allisa Swanson and makeup designer Tanya Howard.



• Wanheda: Clarke's Journey (disc 2) (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:30): Taylor and Rothenberg discuss the evolution of Taylor's character over three seasons; Porter provides the Grounder perspective.



• The 100: 2015 Comic-Con Panel (disc 3) (1080i; 1.78:1; 29:51): The panel consists of: Rothenberg, Tyler, Bob Morley ("Bellamy"), Marie Avgeropoulos ("Octavia"), Isaiah Washington ("Jaha"), Lindsey Morgan ("Raven") and Ricky Whittle ("Lincoln"). The bulk of the session is devoted to audience questions.



• Polis: Grounder Capital (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:30): Rothenberg, Philpott and cast members discuss the ruined city that is the capital of the Grounder "nation".



• Pre-Viz Stunts: Season 3 (1080p; 1.78:1; 8:12): Rehearsals and practice sessions, including comparisons to the final footage.



• A Short-Lived Victory: Unlocking the Season 3 Finale (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:25): Rothenberg, director Dean White and members of the cast (including Erica Cerra, who plays ALIE) describe filming the season finale, much of which occurs in a landscape unlike any previously seen on The 100. For obvious reasons, this extra should not be watched before viewing the episode.



• The 100 Season 3 Blooper Reel (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:39): The cast of The 100 knows how to have a good time.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1)
• Disc 1
• Wanheda: Part One (0:45)
• Watch the Thrones (1:39)
• Disc 2
• Hakeldama (0:54)
• Disc 3
• Stealing Fire (1:27)
• Nevermore (0:53)
• Disc 4: None

The 100: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The 100 returns in 2017, when Rothenberg and his creative team will have an opportunity to re-orient the series toward the kind of purely human conflicts that made for such compelling drama in Season Two. The conclusion of Season Three offers a tantalizing prospect, as a new threat appears that will require the various factions contending for resources and territory to put aside their differences for the sake of mutual survival. Meanwhile, the Blu-ray release of Season Three is technically capable and, with due allowance for the season's shortcomings, recommended.