Bo’s place in the world of the Fae finds itself becoming a bit more… aligned.
What They Say:
In the latest season of the Lost Girl saga, fate casts a wide shadow over the Fae world. Bo’s sudden return from the beyond blurs the line between Light and Dark Fae, stunning her friends – and sending the Succubus on a harrowing journey of self-discovery.
Amidst a whirlwind of shocking developments and new enemies, Bo and her comrades must realize that their strength lies in numbers. No matter how stacked against them the odds may seem – or how devastating the loss may be – their only hope for survival is facing each new challenge together. The unaligned Succubus may rank among the strongest forces in the Fae world, but her true power emerges when fighting side by side with her friends.
Contains episodes 49-61.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release comes with the original English language track with a 5.1 mix using the lossless Dolby TrueHD codec. Like most broadcast shows that have an original 5.1 mix, it doesn’t utilize the rear channels all that much overall and is primarily focused on making an engaging forward soundstage experience. The series has a decent mix of action and dialogue material with a few scenes really delving into ambiance as that’s not really it’s thing. It either wants to be full of action or it wants to have a lot of fast paced talking going on. Both of these are rather well handled across the front channels with some good placement and decent depth where appropriate. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and we didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally airing in 2014 in the US, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The show has thirteen episodes spread across three discs with five on each and just one on the third one it has the final three as well as the extras. The show has a pretty good look about it and definitely is sharper and clearer than the first season that we saw on DVD, having better color definition and the darker scenes are stronger in general. The series has a pretty natural look to it for a TV series and there’s just a bit of grain here and there in some of the backgrounds that is mildly distracting once in awhile. The show deals with a number of dark sequences and shadows, but they’re generally well handled and without noteworthy problems. Detail is decent but what you’d expected for a standard definition release. This isn’t a show that’s radically different from the broadcast version in HD since it’s not a bright and colorful work, but it’s definitely better compressed and handled here with more room to work with and far better tools.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release comes in a standard size Blu-ray case with an O-Card slipcover to it that uses the same design for both. The front cover does a good black and white piece that’s certainly mood and atmospheric as it presents Bo, Lauren and Kenzi together with a dash of blue light filtering around them to give it that little extra oomph while tying to the logo itself. The logo is the standard one used for the series and it looks good here with its mix of black and white and the nod towards the lead characters curves. The back cover is an all black affair for the background where the left side has a good strip of colorful shots from the slow going from top to bottom and the rest of it is given over the general concept of the series. It covers the episode count, and that they’re uncut, as well as the extras that are on it in a very clean fashion. The technical grid is tiny and very hard to read unfortunately but it does list everything accurately. The keepcase is clear and has artwork on the reverse side, with the left showing a black and white shot of Hale alongside a breakdown of episodes by title and number for each disc. The right panel has a good shot of Kenzi in the same black, white and blue style from the front cover. No show related inserts are included with this release.
Menu:
The menu design for this release is a little unusual and it’s the same across all three discs as we get a couple of brief clips from the show that involves various characters drinking, but it’s done with a forward motion and then reversed briefly, which is just jarring. The navigation is kept to the lower left and it has some of the wisps from the logo there while blue smoke plays through it to give it some motion. With most of the discs the only real option is turning on the subtitles or choosing the episodes, so navigation is a breeze. The final disc has the extras and those are laid out cleanly and without problem.
Extras:
Similar to past releases, there’s some fun extras to be had here for the fans of the show. The four pieces brings us lots of interview and panel material for several of the main actors as we get a roundtable that runs about 15 minutes and a season four look that runs a bit longer than that. We also get two comic-con panels, one from NYCC and one from SDCC last year, which runs twenty-five minutes or so each. These provide some good panel time, though it’s weak on the actors side. There’s good Q&A material throughout all the pieces and the actors have plenty of fun things to say, but it’s glaring in that there is nothing from Anna Silk in any of them.
The seasons roll on for Lost Girl and it’s interesting to see what works and what doesn’t work. With a short first season and then a double length second season, I was glad to see it get back to the shorter thirteen episode season for the third. The same happens here as we get another thirteen episodes that picks up where we left off, albeit in a way that throws a lot of confusion at the viewers at the start. The second season for me was just too much of a decent thing at best, so the shorter seasons definitely works in its favor for me because there is, generally speaking, less fluff. The same is true here, though a whole lot of the show continues to feel like mostly fluff to me. It’s a mild enjoyment that has me finding the main problem being that it feels like the larger narrative, the mythology of the series, has been so on the fly from the start that it lacks a kind of cohesive nature about it.
There’s a lot of subplots that runs through this season, which is certainly familiar, and some work better than others. There’s a more connected feeling to it this time, but even that feels superficial. For Bo, the whole “lost” aspect has been there from the start but she’s been less and less lost as it’s gone on because she’s managed to surround herself with good friends and a new family. Unfortunately, events keep pushing her away from them and she runs the other way herself often enough to protect them – even as they yell at her that they want to support her and be there for her. We’ve gotten her to connect with her grandfather Trick, she has the essential sister in Kenzi and she’s built good if very, very complicated relationships with Lauren and Dyson where it looks like a bad Jerry Springer show with how they would come across in that format. She even managed to have a decent bit of closure with her mother after the events of the last season. But lurking in the background is the mystery of what and who her father is.
That really doesn’t change here.
She’s still trying to figure out what the deal is with him – as are the viewers – but his return to the world is what the whole season builds towards at the end as it will spell doom for a great many things. What the show wants to do before that is just screw with the fans a lot. When we last saw Bo, she was whisked away into the darkness by the mysterious Wanderer that we glimpsed before, but she’s naturally almost barely in the first episode. Instead, since she was whisked away, everyone has seemingly forgotten her and there are large gaps of memory going on among people. While that all gets fixed after a bit, what Bo’s been up to throws a huge spanner in the works. Her waking up in the dimension of darkness has her on an old school style train, elegant to be sure, where we eventually learn that she had hooked up with a man there named Rainer, who we at first think is the real darkness to things. He’s actually a rebel fae that had fought against the dynamic that the Blood King was setting up back in the day with the light, dark, the Origin Seed and the Una Mens council that’s split between six people that manages that particularly powerful item. A council that’s also in town to cause trouble because things have been going badly there the last few years after Bo showed up. What Bo does while stuck in this dimension has her understanding Rainer a good bit since they’re there for awhile, and she ends up falling for him, bedding him and…
Well, she becomes so intent on getting him out of there and breaking the curse that keeps him that she aligns with the Dark Fae in order to use the resources of that side to get him back. Of course, she believes that she can just break the contract later, but they make it a bit convoluted since when she does arrive back in reality, she doesn’t remember aligning Dark and fights against it. Which is part of the point since it forces her to get back to the train to bring Rainer back. And back he comes, into the changes that happened between Bo leaving and rescuing him, which includes her seemingly settling things with Dyson to some degree and getting back with Lauren completely after she ended up aligning with the Dark to save her own skin because, surprise surprise, she’s actually an eco terrorist from her youth in an incident that went horribly wrong and has been on the run ever since. Every time you think Lauren’s kind of evening out and getting easier to deal with, the character gets kicked five ways from Sunday.
So you can imagine that both Dyson and Lauren are displeased to see that she’s really, really bonded with Rainer and they’re both feeling a bit betrayed on the outside. Which helps them to ease the tension between each other, a welcome event since it’s done with a lot of alcohol, laughs and Vex moderating it. But Rainer feels like someone shoved into the show and reinforces the way Bo’s nature keeps her from really going the traditional commitment route. Which is more than fine, but there’s this thing where they all really need to just sit down and talk it out. Big time. But the whole thing in how it plays out, the way they interact and the forced nature of it all that makes it easier to wish that they’d all just go their own way. And they do to some degree here, but you can sense that the characters orbits will invariably bring them back together in some form for another season.
While there’s a lot of time spent with this silliness, and the whole end of the world piece with Bo’s father and all that’s involved there, the other parts of the show generally prove to be more enjoyable. Somewhat. Tamsin has been reduced to a child and goes through some growth spurts over the first few episodes and seems to not remember most things, but when she does remember some things, it’s awkward because it’s very inconsistent. She has a lot of issues going into this arc of the season but she also has some stronger bits as it goes on, including some fun time when her mother – played by Linda Hamilton – guests and she gets to really deal with some issues from her past. Tamsin’s story is connected to Rainer and it helps to smooth over some wrinkles that have plagued her for quite a few centuries.
Vex’s story this time around is very weak and there isn’t much to it as it largely deals with him and his hand that gets cut off because of reasons. He also spends a bit of time dealing with the Druid, Mossimo, who has his own stuff going on here that just adds a random and chaotic feeling but is connected to the bigger plot. Vex is certainly an acquired taste and Mossimo has his uses here, but neither rises enough to be engaging. What salvages part of their arcs is the involvement of Evony with it as she makes her return and goes through some hilarious bits towards the end as she’s turned human in a most amusing of ways and has to cope with all that that means. The verbal sparring between her and Trick is definitely nicely done and I like the little twists about her own lineage that comes into play.
The main arc in this season that I liked but also disliked involves Hale and Kenzi. They’ve had a very difficult relationship with each other since the start, even more so when Hale become the acting Ash and got all full of himself, but having the two of them finally come together here to become something more provides for some really good stuff between them that’s full of hope. So, unsurprisingly, it has one of the roughest stories here with where it goes and it largely left me displeased. When you start killing off the only semi-likable characters here, that makes it easier to grumble and write it off. I do suspect there will be some finagling to bring someone back at the least, but that’s partial cliffhanger kind of material in a way. The interactions between Kenzi and Hale is a lot of fun to watch during this season, especially the whole hilarious Krampus episode, but you also want to smack Hale because he does move so fast and so awkwardly with the relationship. While he could use the excuse that they have only so much time together because of her lifespan, he’s always been a bit more well paced in his life so seeing him rush both makes sense and feels wrong,
In Summary:
Lost Girl has a pretty decent season here overall, but it continues to do the things that frustrates me with it. Yes, we get plenty of mild mild naughty moments. Yes, we get lots of the positive things regarding how Bo interacts with people based on how she feels and is attracted to them rather than focusing on their gender. But we also get a lot of spanners thrown in the works that makes it hard to empathize with her because of the decisions made. Lauren and Dyson are just as bad and guilty of it as well. The whole thing in terms of relationships is just a mess. When it comes to the stories of the season beyond that, there are some decent things and I like some of the movements, but the show feels second tier to be sure compared to other genre shows out there and without a cohesive bit of world building. It fills that light, fun and devil may care style that it wants to hit and it does it well, but it also feels like it could have been so much more as well. That feeling persists this season once again. I’m hopeful for some real resolution stuff in a fifth and hopefully final season to bring these storylines and character relationships to some form of closure.
Features:
English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Cast Roundtable: Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes, Lost Girl: Inside Look at Season 4, Lost Girl Panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Lost Girl Panel and New York Comic-Con
Content Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B-
Released By: FUNimation
Release Date: June 24th, 2014
MSRP: $49.98
Running Time: 572 Minutes + 100 Extras
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
