Close

DVD Review: GLEE – The Final Season

May 25, 2015 Posted by in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

After a couple lackluster seasons, Glee returns in full-force for a stellar final season that quickly reminds you of why you once loved this series.

As the final season opens, there have been some big changes at McKinley High since Sue Sylvester took over. She has made sports a focus of the school and has shut down all of the school’s arts programs. Sam is now assisting Coach Bieste with the football team, Will has left the school to coach Vocal Adrenaline, and Blaine is back at Dalton Academy coaching the Warblers. Kurt needs to do a practical project for his school and decides to try to resurrect the New Directions. He is joined by Rachel, who is trying to figure out what do to with her life after her complete failure of a sitcom.

Since most of the previous members of the New Directions have graduated, it’s going to be a tough job for Kurt and Rachel to get the 12 members needed. This leads to the introduction of some fun new characters, including gay quarterback Spencer Porter (Marshall Williams), Dalton student/Warbler wannabe Jane Hayward (Samantha Marie Ware), senior transfer student with a voice of gold Roderick Meeks (“Noah Guthrie”), twin cheerleaders Mason (Billy Lewis Jr.) and Madison McCarthy (Laura Dreyfuss), and the superintendent’s precocious nephew Myron Muskovitz (J.J. Totah).

Throughout the season, the series finds many excuses to bring the old cast members back to help with the glee club—and the show takes every opportunity to admit how ridiculously-convenient it all is. This is one aspect of the series that makes this season so completely enjoyable. In the final season, the creators of the series have embraced all of the things viewers have complained about over the years, own up to them and poke fun of these shortcomings. The show reaches a whole new level of meta enjoyment.

This season Sue Sylvester becomes a super-villain with her antics brought on by her hatred of Will and obsession with Klaine. It is so ridiculously over-the-top and campy that it is thoroughly enjoyable to watch. I especially enjoyed the nods to Saw as Sue tries to force Kurt and Blaine to rediscover their love for one another.

There’s a lot of really fun and interesting storylines this season. Besides our central characters dealing with their futures and relationships, we also get a “Take on Me” music video parody, a wedding (or two), Coach Bieste’s transformation into a man, Becky’s too-good-to-be-true boyfriend, and a whole lot of great musical performances.

This season, the music concentrates heavily on selections from the 80s and 90s, but also adds in some modern tunes as well as themed episodes for Burt Bacharach and Alanis Morissette/Carole King. The finale also includes the show’s first and only original song, “The Time”, written by Darren Criss.

The season builds to a thoroughly-satisfying series finale. The first half, “2009”, revisits the events of the pilot, but this time we get to see them through the eyes of some of the other members of the glee club. This episode alone could have been a satisfying and perfect book-end conclusion to the series. However, the second half of the finale, “Dreams Come True”, gives us a wonderful and satisfying look into what the future holds for all of these characters in the next five years.

I find it a shame that Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment did not release this season (and the penultimate one) on Blu-ray. While the DVD picture looks quite nice, it lacks some of the clarity and sharpness of the show’s original HD airings. However, the audio soundtrack is more than sufficient—all of the dialogue is clear, and the musical performances sound excellent.

There are not a lot of bonus materials on the DVDs, but what is included is well done. Like the previous seasons, this set contains the Music Jukebox feature for quick access to each episode’s musical performances. There are also two cast/crew retrospective featurettes that total around 35 minutes.

This sixth/final season is also available as part of the Complete Series box set, which is just a re-packaging of the existing individual season DVD releases in a new outer box, with no additional exclusive bonus material.



What’s Included:


Episodes: (9:30:28)

  • All 13 episodes of the sixth season:
    “Loser Like Me”, “Homecoming”, “Jagged Little Tapestry”, “The Hurt Locker”, “The Hurt Locker, Part 2”, “What the World Needs Now”, “Transitioning”, “A Wedding”, “Child Star”, “The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester”, “We Built This Glee Club”, “2009”, “Dreams Come True”
  • 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
  • Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
  • Closed Captioned

Extras:

  • Glee Music Jukebox (2:22:01)
    This feature is provided on each disc, offering quick access to all of the musical performances from the episodes contained on that disc. There are Play All and Shuffle options as well as a list of songs for each episode.

    • Loser Like Me – “Uninvited”, “Suddenly Seymour”, “Sing”, “Dance the Night Away”, “Let It Go”
    • Homecoming – “Take On Me”, “Tightrope”, “Problem”, “Mustang Sally”, “Home”
    • Jagged Little Tapestry – “It’s Too Late”, “Hand in My Pocket”/”I Feel the Earth Move”, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”/”Head Over Feet”, “So Far Away”, “You Learn”/”You’ve Got a Friend”
    • The Hurt Locker – “Bitch”, “Thousand Miles”, “Rock Lobster”, “Whip It”
    • The Hurt Locker, Part 2 – “My Sharona”, “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)”, “It Must Have Been Love”, “Father Figure”, “All Out of Love”
    • What the World Needs Now – “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”, “Baby It’s You”, “Wishin’ and Hoping”, “Arthur’s Theme”, “(They Long to Be) Close to You”, “Promises, Promises”, “Alfie”, “What the World Needs Now”
    • Tranistioning – “Same Love”, “All About That Bass”, “Somebody Loves You”, “Time After Time”, “I Know Where I’ve Been”
    • A Wedding – “Beautiful”, “At Last”, “Hey Ya!”, “I’m So Excited”, “Our Day Will Come”
    • Child Star – “Lose My Breath”, “Friday I’m In Love”, “I Want to Break Free”, “Uptown Funk”, “Break Free”, “Cool Kids”
    • The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester – “Rather Be”, “The Trolley Song”, “Far From Over”, “The Final Countdown”, “Rise”
    • We Built This Glee Club – “Listen to Your Heart”, “Broken Wings”, “We Built This City”, “Mickey”, “Take Me to Church”, “Chandelier”, “Come Sail Away”
    • 2009 / Dreams Come True – “Popular”, “Mr. Cellophane”, “I’m His Child”, “I Kissed a Girl”, “Pony”, “Teach Your Children”, “Someday We’ll Be Together”, “The Winner Takes It All”, “Daydream Believer”, “This Time”, “I Lived”
  • Glee: The Final Curtain (11:22)
    The cast and creators discuss the finale’s jump into the future and where all of the characters end up. They also talk about what it was like getting the entire cast together for the show’s big closing number, and we see footage of some of the stars getting their series wrap. Includes footage from the set and interviews with executive producers/writers/directors Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk, director/co-executive producer Bradley Buecker, and cast members Matthew Morrison (“Will Schuester”), Lea Michele (“Rachel Berry”), Kevin McHale (“Artie Abrams”), Jenna Ushkowitz (“Tina Cohen-Chang”), Amber Riley (“Mercedes Jones”), Jane Lynch (“Sue Sylvester”), Darren Criss (“Blaine Anderson”), Billy Lewis Jr. (“Mason McCarthy”), Laura Dreyfuss (“Madison McCarthy”), Vanessa Lengies (“Sugar Motta”), Noah Guthrie (“Roderick Meeks”), Heather Morris (“Brittany S. Pierce”) and Chord Overstreet (“Sam Evans”).
  • Looking Back Video Yearbook (23:33)
    The cast and creators reflect back on the series and what it was like working on the show, how things have changed, the surprise mega hit the show was early on, remembering Cory, the music and favorite songs, the guest stars, representing the underdogs and marginalized, what Glee means to them, and their final thoughts as they sign a yearbook. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with executive producers/writers/ directors Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk, co-choreographer Brooke Lipton, executive music producer Adam Anders, and cast members Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch, Amber Riley, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Harry Shum Jr. (“Mike Chang”), Mark Salling (Noah ‘Puck’ Puckerman”), Max Adler (“Dave Karofsky”), Lea Michele, Lauren Potter (“Becky Johnson”), Vanessa Lengies, Alex Newell (“Wade ‘Unique’ Adams”), Mike O’Malley (“Burt Hummel”), Jonathan Groff (“Jesse St. James”), Darren Criss, Dot-Marie Jones (“Shannon/ Sheldon Bieste”), Heather Morris, Chord Overstreet, Chris Colfer (“Kurt Hummel”), Samantha Marie Ware (“Jane Hayward”), Billy Lewis Jr., Laura Dreyfuss, Jacob Artist (“Jake Puckerman”) and Becca Tobin (“Kitty Wilde”).

 


Final Thoughts:

My Rating
Episodes:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Highly Recommended

Glee definitely goes out on a high note with this delightful, highly-entertaining final season of the series. The series finale provides excellent closure to the series that longtime fans of the show will surely appreciate. For folks who prematurely abandoned the show, I highly recommend checking out this final season as it is a true return-to-form for the show. The DVD looks and sounds good, and provides two entertaining cast/creator retrospective featurettes.