The Sopranos: Season Six, Part I 4-Disc Blu-ray Disc And HD DVD Sets Combined Review

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Title: The Sopranos: Season Six, Part I: Blu-ray Disc & HD DVD 4-Disc Box Sets

Blu-ray Disc Region: A

Medias: Blu-ray Disc And HD DVD

Genre: Character Driven Crime Drama

Episodes Disc One: “Member’s Only”, “Join The Club”, “Mayham”

Episodes Disc Two: “The Fleshy Part Of The Thigh”, “Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request…”, Live Free Or Die”

Episodes Disc Three: “Luxury Lounge”, “Johnny Cakes”, “The Ride”

Episodes Disc Four: “ Moe N’ Joe”, “Cold Stones”, “Kaisha”

Stars: James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Lorraine Bracco, Steve Van Zandt, Toni Sirico, Robert Iller, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Aida Tuturro, Dominic Chianese, Joseph R. Gannascoli, Jerry Adler, Max Casella, Matt Servitto, Maureen Van Zandt, and Steve Schriripa

Season Six, Part I Guest Stars: Drea de Matteo, Steve Buscemi, Frank Vincent, Vincent Curatola, Karen Young, Julianna Margulies, Timothy Daly, John Costelloe, Ron Leibman, Frankie Valli, Wilmer Valderrama, Lauren Bacall, and Ben Kingsley

Writers: Terence Winter, David Chase, Matthew Weiner Dian Froloy, and Andrew Schneider

Created By David Chase

Director: Timothy Van Patten, David Nutter, Jack Bender, Alan Taylor, Steve Buscemi, Dani Leiner, and Steve Shill

Executive Producers: Brad Grey and David Chase

Feature length: 720 minutes

Extras: Four Episode Length Audio Commentaries

Blu-ray Disc Languages: English PCM 5.1 Uncompressed Surround Sound and Spanish Dolby Surround Sound

HD DVD Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound and Spanish Language Dolby Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and English, French, and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Digipack Gatefold Within A Hard Cardboard Slipcase

Chapter Stops: 6 Per Episode

Blu-ray Disc Sound: PCM 5.1 Uncompressed Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

HD DVD Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound and Spanish Language Dolby Surround Sound

Year of Television Broadcast: 2006/Blu-ray Disc & HD DVD Release: 2006

Home Video Distributor: HBO Home Video

TV Rating: TV-MA

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

If you are going to start releasing TV shows on brand new home video formats, you are best off using your top guns to see if there is any interest out there. HBO along with Twentieth Century Fox were the first two home video distributors to pioneer the idea of releasing complete seasons of a television show on DVD. Wisely Fox chose The X-Files and HBO chose The Sopranos and you can argue that both Fox and HBO were the TV on DVD leaders in the late 1990s because DVD was still new to most people and most television distributed on home video in America whether it was laserdisc, VHS, VCD, or DVD was in fact usually episode releases and sometimes only the pilot was ever released. Now the idea of selling complete TV sets is so ingrained into the public consumer conscious that some people just wait for the TV on DVD set to arrive or they’ll use a DVR and record the entire season and then watch the shows over a few days or weeks over the summer. Others wait for shows to be available via digital cable video on demand services too. With the introduction of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD as possible successors to the DVD format, there lies a brand new market to be explored and HBO Home Video is the first distributor to release a TV season set on Blu-ray Disc and the second distributor to release one on HD DVD, following Warner Home Video’s Smallville: The Complete Fifth Season Deluxe 5-Disc HD DVD Set.

The Sopranos sixth season was met with great anticipation by fans and casual viewers alike. In fact the build up was so great that in many ways I think fulfilling audience expectations universally was futile so instead of releasing an action packed set of episodes, David Chase and the Writers and Producers of The Sopranos chose to gradually develop storylines that kept in tone with what the show ultimately is and that’s character driven drama. It’s no surprise to me that Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas heavily influenced Chase and in fact I often felt the show could have been Goodfellas the TV series, but as Chase states in his audio commentary for the midseason finale “Kaisha” that if there were no character complexities where very often what they say and what they mean are two completely different things and we see the emotional effects the events have on the main characters who are only bad as George Lucas might say, “depending upon a certain point of view.” If Tony Soprano did not have experiences of empathy and guilt and if he did not try to help out certain characters regardless of the agenda, Chase says the series would be over already. I agree and I have to admit I enjoyed watching these episodes one after the other more than I did last spring when they aired on HBO.

Another important aspect to remember is that this is only the first half of a TV season. Whether or not the second half will resolve anything from the first half might not necessarily be as cut and dry as some might expect. A person’s actions might not necessarily bring about any consequences that we can immediately identify because while characters are determined largely through their actions, the real drama of The Sopranos lies more in what they do to themselves and to those within the family structure whether it is the immediate biological family or the extended organized crime family. So don’t look for clear cut resolutions to every storyline because their may be no resolution or at the very least, the resolution to the problem may already have been presented in a different form than we have expected This is a character driven show so look to the evolution of the various characters and try and put away any expectations you might have about the upcoming final 9 episodes that will begin to air on HBO in April of 2007 and I think not only will viewers not be disappointed, but in fact they might look back at both halves of season six as one of the best seasons of the entire series. Only time will tell.

The Sopranos: Season Six, Part 1 on either Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD are virtually indistinguishable in terms of picture quality. Both offer up to 1080p high definition resolution where available and present all 12 episodes in a widescreen 16 by 9, (1.78:1) aspect ratio. The picture quality is terrific at 1080i and even when scaled down to 720p. If there was a slight difference in terms of the overall high definition presentation of both the HD DVD and the Blu-ray Disc, I would say that the color red seemed slightly more vibrant on the Blu-ray Disc, but again this is very much a debatable topic because I looked at the Blu-ray Discs using high definition component video output while the HD DVD player was hooked up to the same TV via an HDMI to DVI cable. So I think the safest thing I can say is that in my opinion the picture quality is equal on both formats. Neither looks better or worse than the other.

I was kind of surprised to see that HBO Home Video chose to use PCM 5.1 Uncompressed Surround Sound on the Blu-ray Disc box set release because none of the Warner Home Video Blu-ray releases that I am aware of feature PCM Uncompressed Surround Sound. The HD DVD has an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Soundtrack which unless used with a receiver using HDMI or analogue 5.1 composite audio input, the track is read on my receiver using digital fiber optic audio output as DTS Neo 6 Theatrical Surround Sound. While the Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player has internal analogue decoders for Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound, I personally prefer DTS in any form to Dolby Digital. However when comparing DTS Neo 6 converted audio from HD DVD to PCM 5.1 Uncompressed Surround Soundtrack, I think PCM sounds better and am livelier. So under these conditions the Blu-ray Disc version beats out the HD DVD version, but regardless of which format you use, the respective English Audio Soundtracks on both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD blow away anything I’ve heard on standard definition DVD Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound for the most part. So either way, the music especially with the signature opening credits song was electrifying on both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. A Spanish Language Dolby Surround Soundtrack is included on both versions as well as English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and English, French, and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded onto each disc as options.

The packaging on the inside is nearly identical with four discs packaged within a glossy DVD Digipack Gatefold and then for the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD sets respectively, the gatefold is housed within a sturdy cardboard slipcase with a magnetic flap door opening and the boxes feature the format logos in the blue or red color coding for easy identification. The interactive menus and pull up menus that enable one to change chapters, soundtrack or subtitle options without interrupting the picture in progress are identical. They are not as smooth as menus on other HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc titles and it took a few extra seconds to figure out exactly how to edit choices in the top menus, but since these are HBO’s first releases on both formats, I’m inclined to accept that this is something that will be rectified with easier intuitive menu navigation on future releases.

The only extra value features are four audio commentaries that include Series Creator/Writer and Producer David Chase on the mid season finale “Kaisha,” which arguably is the best of the episode commentaries in the four disc set. There are two audio commentaries on disc three. Both are very good and informative. I personally enjoyed the commentary for “Luxury Lounge” with Series Writer Matthew Weiner because he points out little extra points in the characters as well as some humorous tidbits about the guest stars portraying themselves on the show that add to the overall entertainment listening experience. The commentary for “The Ride” with Series Writer Terence Winter and Series Cast Members Michael Imperiolli and Tony Sirico is also very good with both Actors adding insights into their characters motivations. Unfortunately if you are expecting any great revelations for the episode commentary for “Join The Club” on the first disc with Cast Members Edie Falco, Robert Iller, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, you will be disappointed. This is more of an informal chat between the Actors than a screen specific audio commentary. My guess is either this was a conscious choice based on safeguarding possible show content that is foreshadowed here, but will not become clear until all of the final nine episodes air on HBO this year or perhaps the Actors simply did not feel compelled to discuss the content of the episode in any concrete manner because they themselves may have been unsure at the time the commentary was recorded what everything was supposed to mean. So make of it what you will.

Overall this is a solid first HD DVD release and Blu-ray Disc release from HBO Home Video and the first TV set to be released on Blu-ray Disc ever. The Sopranos, Part I: 4-Disc Box Sets are available on Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD at retailers on and offline now courtesy of HBO Home Video.

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