Robot
Chicken: Season 7 (2014/Adult Swim/Warner DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B- Episodes: B
After
Season 6 of the amazingly humorous Robot Chicken received
the Blu-ray treatment (and looked fairly good), it is surprising that
Season 7 is back to a standard DVD format. With that said,
though the technical features may be less than desirable, the content
is just as amusing as ever. The off-center, often times (borderline)
offensive series returns in its Seventh Season on DVD with all
the same action figure toting, pop culture debauchery as before, but
as fresh as ever.
For
those unfamiliar, Robot Chicken is the brain child of Seth
Green (Family Guy) and crew appearing on Cartoon Networks
Adult Swim. They customize action figures/models, bringing them to
life in order to put them into the most off the wall, gratuitous
situations. These situations often times poking fun at the series,
film, or real life situation they arose from or sometimes just pure
nonsense. Any way you spin it the series is inventive, fun, and
continues to embody the creativity and zaniness they hooked viewers
from the start.
This
set includes 19 episodes with many, many mini skits; my favorite of
which is a spin on the Alien Film series, which pits Ripley
against the (once) lovable, sarcastic, cat gobbler Alf. The series
is fast paced, placing your childhood and the last 100 years of pop
culture into a blender; rebuilding with clay, plastic, and God knows
what else?!
Simply
fantastic.
The
technical features are adequate, but (Again) here on DVD they are a
noticeable downgrade when compared to Blu-ray. The picture is an
anamorphic 1.78 X 1 widescreen that gets the job done, but clarity
could be improved; though colors do pop. The sound is a lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 track that comes heavily from the front, but remains
clean and clear throughout without distortion. It is a rather active
series that would benefit by engaging the surrounds more, but that
has yet to been heard.
The
extras contain audio commentary tracks on all episodes, which are
humorous and clearly display the love the crew has for what they are
creating. Extras also include the Robot Chicken crew partaking in
Comic Con.
For
fans of the series this is a must own and let's hope in the future we
get all Blu-ray releases.
-
Michael P. Dougherty II
