Blu-Ray Review: ‘DEXTER: THE FIFTH SEASON’

After last season, everyone wasn’t sure what would happen with America’s favorite serial killer, Dexter. If you have not seen previous season or, more importantly, Season Four, you might want to tread carefully in this review of the Blu-Ray. It is impossible to talk about Season Five without mentioning some of the things that happened in the fourth season. Check out our review on the Blu-Ray edition of Season Five of Dexter.

The Season

I’m assuming if you are reading this, you read the previous warning about not going any further in this review to keep this season and the series, for that matter, spoiler free. Scroll to the bottom if you just want to know what the rating is. This is your last chance.

The past four seasons have all been about the balance between Dexter, his dark passenger and trying maintain a facade of normalcy. Every season, Dexter has revealed his secret or has had it exposed. Rita started out as Dexter’s girlfriend in the first season and has developed into Dexter’s spouse to mother of Dexter’s child, Harrison. While Dexter’s sister is the closest to Dexter as she has known him the longest, Rita has been the equivalent of the viewer as a character. She grew with Dexter as we did as an audience. So, when Season Four introduced The Trinity Killer (brilliantly played by John Lithgow), you knew that this character would really test Dexter’s dual personality and rock the stability of his balance – which is what every season has been about, balance.

The previous season ended with not one of the most shocking moments in the show’s history, but maybe in modern television as Dexter comes home to find his wife, Rita, in a tub full of her own blood. She was murdered by Trinity out of revenge towards Dexter. Obviously, the previous season was an emotional rollercoaster that was executed by excellent writing and performances. After the season finale, many wondered where Dexter would go from there.

Season Five begins exploring how Dexter deals with Rita’s death as well as how he deals with being recently widowed father. Don’t worry though, by the second episode Dexter is already on his first target of a suspected killer Boyd Fowler. While investigating his new prey, Dexter discovers a would be victim of Fowler’s in Lumen (Julia Stiles).  The connection between Lumen and Fowler starts to surface in a motivational speaker by the name of Jordan Chase (Jonny Lee Miller).  Dexter finds out that Jordan and Lumen are connected to each other by one incident and that Lumen needs help in trying to exact her revenge.  Dexter tries to take her under his wing, but has mixed results.

Lumen becomes the dynamic of this season while quickly becoming a sidekick/companion – much like Jimmy Smits’ character in the third season.  This season is kind of a rough season for fans. It’s obvious that the season that would follow last season would have a lot to live up to however, there are a lot of problems in this season. A lot of the events that happen in this season seem like recycled “bits” from previous seasons. Michael C. Hall still delivers another good performance with his character of Dexter as he is faced with new human and moral challenges.  New actors Julia Stiles and Jonny Lee Miller bring their A-game as well.  Miller is charming and menacing in later episodes while Stiles’ fragility is well handled throughout the season.  Developing this season is obviously the kids, Cody and Astor, relationship to their stepfather, Dexter.  Astor is now entering in teenage years and we some of that angst come out of her while Cody grows closer to Dexter.  Also, Laguerta and Batista’s new marriage hits some complications and Quinn starts to follow Doakes’ previous path from season two and question some of Dexter’s actions with the help of Peter Weller (ROBOCOP!).

Overall, this season tends to feel lackluster and almost uneventful. Dexter’s sister Deb still is clueless and given the final episode this season, it seems like it may be time to just kill her character off. The finale is a disappointing episode as it could have been a very pinnacle episode but it unfortunately doesn’t want to take the risk, which is what people loved about the previous season and why it is regarded as possibly the best season of the show.

The Presentation

Dexter: The Fifth Season on Blu-Ray is presented on 3 Blu-Ray discs. The show is shot digitally for the most part so the all the colors and the image are pretty crisp. All the episodes are presented in 5.1 lossless Dolby Digital True HD. Also available are a lossy French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 2.0 Surround audio tracks. From what I can tell, the season is Region locked for Region A.  There are English Subtitles that are also provided.

Special Features on this disc include:

• Episodes 1 & 2 of The Borgias
• Episodes 1 & 2 of Episodes
• Interviews with Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, C.S. Lee, Lauren Velez, Julia Stiles, James Remar, Desmond Harrington, Chip Johannessen and David Zayas.
• Reflecting On Season Five: Julia Stiles

However, all the supplemental material has to be accessed through BD-Live. This where the package falters. Some of you may not have the ability to watch these extras because of a lack of internet connection, which is what BD-Live is – internet content.  When I first received the discs, I had multiple problems connecting. Considering I received the discs prior to the public, I assumed that the content wasn’t ready as I popped in another Blu-Ray with BD-Live capability and had no problems. As I am typing this review, I popped in the disc and successfully connected to BD-Live. Now, I can go over the supplemental material of the disc.

MovieIQ is a feature that isn’t listed on the back of the case and maybe for good reason.  It’s an odd feature that I can see possibly blossom into something pretty cool, but it is really in it’s infancy.  MovieIQ is a BD-Live feature that, when activated, generates a lightbulb icon in the top right hand corner. When clicked on – either through your Blu-Ray remote or if you activate/link/go to a website on your smartphone – you can access additional information like the music track playing and other facts of useless information like: “Merchandising around the Dexter series includes a bobble-head figure of the Trinity Killer, as well as a 7-inch bust of Dexter, among other collectibles.” Yep, it’s pretty useless.  Then again, it really isn’t a feature that Showtime/Paramount isn’t trying to sell to you as it isn’t listed on the list of Special Features on the back of the disc.  What is listed are the items you see earlier in this post. As of the time of posting, only the episodes of The Borgias and Episodes were available.  All the interviews (the true supplemental material) were not available, due to technical difficulties. The message states that this material will be available on Monday, August 29. Therefore, I tried accessing The Borgias and while it played, there is an option to play in full screen. When I clicked on it, it had problems filling my screen. This is the problem with supplemental material only existing out on the internet on Blu-Ray content. It is something that I personally think shouldn’t be done – unless we are talking about trivial material like MovieIQ or additional content that wasn’t available at the time of the release. Due to the technical problems of the supplementary material, I doubt I will go through the hassle of connecting my Blu-Ray player to the internet to access these features.

Overall

With the supplemental material aside, Dexter: Season Five is recommended for fans and followers of the series. The presentation that Paramount brings with the series is excellent and will, more than likely, be the best we see this season presented. The only time the presentation of this product faulters is in the supplemental material. However, if you aren’t too worried about checking out the extras behind this season, it really isn’t a huge deal breaker.