Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Escape to New York.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III September 19, 2023

Some franchises just flat-out refuse to die, don't they? The festering corpse of original-recipe The Walking Dead has now spawned five mainline spin-offs, and two of them offered tantalizing glimmers of hope but still fell into hit-or-miss territory (Fear the Walking Dead, Tales of the Walking Dead). A third, the short-lived but mostly lukewarm The World Beyond, couldn't even clear that low bar and is best left dead and buried. So in more ways than one, each new variant of The Walking Dead is akin to Lucy holding the football, just waiting for fans to fall flat on their backs.

2023 might be the year Charlie Brown finally kicks that damn thing, because Eli Jorné's Dead City has actually gotten off to a promising start. (TWD's fifth and most recent spin-off, Daryl Dixon, debuted last week and has likewise been well-received this far.) But Dead City managed to get the ball rolling as an enjoyable trip through well-traveled territory, as this short six-episode season follows Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) on the road to and through perilous, post-apocalyptic Manhattan as they track down her now-teenage son Hershel (Logan Kim). This is a simple but sufficient narrative start and the back-to-basics approach of actually setting the show in a walker-infested city certainly works in its favor, as does the heightened drama created by pairing up two characters who, for obvious reasons, would otherwise have absolutely no reason to breathe the same air, let alone work together.

Season 1's story is filled out further by way of several new main characters: "The Croat" (Željko Ivanek) is a hostile ruler of Manhattan who's responsible for Hershel's kidnapping, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) is a selectively mute survivor under Negan's care who finds a new home thanks to Maggie, and Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles) belongs to a rival community of survivors and is partially tasked with hunting down Negan, who stands accused of five brutal murders. More often than not these new characters feel like a natural fit, and carefully balancing all the interpersonal dynamics with a healthy dose of man (and woman)-versus-walker action gives Dead City a definite edge over the competition. Performances are passable to excellent from top to bottom, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan's portrayal of Negen carrying most of the weight from start to finish -- his is a much more interesting and magnetic character, with Lauren Cohan's Maggie running a fairly distant second. Yet the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, with their new relationship being the main draw during a season that's otherwise fairly light on meaty one-on-one emotional drama.

This isn't a perfect run of episodes despite its streamlined slate of six; the even-numbered ones were overall the best (much like the original Star Trek movies) and even those are guilty of minor sins, like a finale that sets up the greenlit Season 2 which won't begin production anytime soon. But I daresay there's not a bad episode in the bunch, which is almost unheard of by TWD spin-off standards and enough to earn Dead City a hearty recommendation.

Speaking of "almost unheard of", AMC recently added Dead City's full first episode "Old Acquaintances" to The Walking Dead's official YouTube channel if you'd like a free sample. (Watch it here.) If that's enough to sell you, or of course if you've already seen and enjoyed all of Season 1 via streaming already, RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray edition makes for a nice keepsake; this one's a little light on bonus features, but the A/V merits and price make up for it.

The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The digitally-shot Dead City, like most productions, lives and dies by its handling of the darkest moments; they're expectedly numerous and, in the wrong hands, would be a mushy mess even on Blu-ray. Luckily RLJ Entertainment's 1080p transfer is encoded well and stands up to scrutiny, showing only trace levels of banding and ghosting during the series' most dimly-lit sequences. Shadow detail and contrast levels hold up, even when we wish they'd turn on a couple more lights. Likewise, colors are represented well, mostly skewing muted but with occasional bold hues and a decidedly blue/turquoise push during some night scenes as intended, which contrasts well with the unsurprisingly razor-sharp and usually much warmer daytime and early evening scenes. Dead City isn't a consistently arresting series from a visual standpoint, but this Blu-ray clearly falls into "gets the job done" territory with three episodes apiece held on two dual-layered discs, allowing its source material to breathe properly while running at a supportively high bit rate. Long story short: it looks good with only minor nitpicks, much like previous iterations of the franchise on Blu-ray.

The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix follows suit with a clean, crisp sonic presentation that likewise fully surpasses its compressed streaming counterpart. Despite the more frequent flirts with action and suspense, though, Dead City is still largely a dialogue-driven production and, with few exceptions, it's anchored right up front while occasionally making use of the left, right, and surround channels depending on the location and number of participants. Fidelity is excellent and most everything is balanced well, from squishy sound effects to other background elements and, of course, the original score by Ian Hultquist, who's no stranger to TV work but new to the franchise. LFE also kicks in when needed; while there's not a lot of rock-bottom deep end, there's good use of mid-range frequencies. It's a solid presentation indeed and, short of a full-fledged Atmos mix, there's really not all that much room for improvement here.

The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc set ships in a standard keepcase with attractive cover artwork, a matching slipcover, and a promotional insert. Extras are unfortunately slim, but it's at least more than we got for the original show's final season.

• WonderCon 2023 Panel (35:17) - Recorded during the March 25 event at the Anaheim Convention Center, this session was moderated by host Chris Hardwick and features executive producer and showrunner Eli Jorné flanked by cast members Lauren Cohan and Gaius Charles. (Jeffrey Dean Morgan sadly couldn't attend due to scheduling conflicts, but sent a video greeting.) Since this took place several months before the series premiere, it's light on details and analysis but at least covers the series' concept as well as reflections about its new and returning characters. Although these types of extras aren't my thing in general, this is good enough for a run-through even if you don't learn anything new -- it's more of an interesting snapshot than anything else.

The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Eli Jorné's Dead City leads The Walking Dead's spin-off universe into uncharted territory: a decent first season, thanks to its unconventional character pairing and a back-to-basics setting that features walkers in a decaying urban hellscape. Although this short six-episode run doesn't play all of its cards right and the greenlit second season -- which the finale clearly sets up rather than fully resolving its narrative -- probably won't be filmed for quite some time, it's off to a solid start and well worth watching for hungry TWD fans frustrated by those other spin-offs. RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray offers solid A/V merits but few extras, yet the currently low price tag makes this an easy recommendation.