Heroes Season Two Blu-ray Review

Heroes Season Two

DVD Review
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Released: August 26, 2008

NBC released season two of Heroes after a wildly successful first season, and a great deal of hype that went along with it. With that, Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released Heroes Season Two on the Blu-ray format.

The first season of Heroes kicked off, combining superhero powers with all of the drama of any other show. The story proved to be an amazing success, showing ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Whenever a series starts out so hot in the first season, the anticipation and bar are set so high for the second season that it is almost impossible to achieve what is expected. This is the case with the second season of Heroes. There is nothing wrong with it, as it is still extremely solid. The problem though was that the bar was set so high, it was almost impossible to for the show to get there.

The second season of Heroes follows a very strict plot that is carried out beautifully. You see many characters take center-stage, such as Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), as well as Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis), Hiro, and others.

The second season does not feature a bad story by any means, it just does more to set things up for season three than it does to actually establish itself. A great addition to the cast in season two that has to be mentioned is Kristin Bell (Veronica Mars), as she adds a great new character to the equation.

The heroes will surely have their difficulties with many villains, such as Sylar making a return, as well as two new villains. All-in-all, season two of Heroes does not quite meet expectations, but could easily be made up for in season three.

The second season of Heroes had to be cut down to 11 episodes due to the writers strike, which has to be taken into account as well.

The video quality for the Blu-ray release of Heroes Season Two is quite impressive. The video is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio in 1080p.

The video transfer looks great throughout, as this is one great-looking TV to Blu-ray transfer. There are a few minor hiccups with grain in a few scenes, but nothing all that noticeable.

The colors, on the other hand, are far more vibrant compared to what was shown on TV, as well as in the DVD release. A definite improvement over what was presented on TV and DVD, but nothing ground-breaking.

The audio mix for the Blu-ray release is presented in DTS-HD audio and is well-done throughout. The background music and sound effects do a good job of really setting the atmosphere, while the dialogue still takes center-stage. The only downfall is that the mix feels a bit too front-heavy for my liking on Blu-ray. The audio mix is put together well, but could be better.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment did a nice job with the extras in this Blu-ray release. This is a good thing as well considering that the season itself was only 11 episodes long.

The first nice bonus is the fact that you get some great commentary tracks to go along with the episodes, presented as part of the U-Control feature from Universal, which also gives access to other featurettes.

Heroes fans are going to find plenty of other additions here, such as a nice set of deleted scenes, as well as an alternate ending to the season.

On top of that, you also get a well-done preview of the third season of Heroes, and how the premiere episode of the new season was made.

A 15-minute feature called Heroes: Season 2 A New Beginning, and showcases how the second season of the show was made, with cast interviews and more.

There are several other featurettes spread throughout the discs as well. There is a 23-minute featurette showing how some scenes were made, called Genetics of a Scene. There is also a 25-minute documentary called Takezo Kensei: Sword Saint, which looks at the history of Hiro.

Untold Stories features a 12-minute set of clips which look more closely into certain scenes, while an alternate ending is also included.

One other great Blu-ray exclusive feature, and my favorite of the set, is the Hero Connections feature. This allows you to track how the characters are connected in the universe of Heroes, and it evolves as you go along. Very fun stuff.

To top it all off if you haven’t already had enough, the release is BD-Live enabled, meaning you can expect some updates things along the way after its release.

Heroes Season Two is not perfect by any means, but does still manage to build upon the terrific first season. For Heroes fans, it is worth picking up on Blu-ray for the immense amount of extras, and of course, to check things out again before season 3 premieres!

Episodes: 8.0 Not quite as good as the first season, but overall it turns out intriguing and does a great job of introducing new characters.

Video: 9.0 A definite improvement over the DVD and TV presentations, but still could have been better.

Audio: 8.5 The audio mix does a good job of allowing the dialogue to shine, a little too front-heavy though.

Extras: 9.2 Plenty of great Blu-ray exclusive stuff here for fans!

Final Score: 8.5

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