Batwoman Season 1 Blu-ray Review

The following Blu-ray was provided to me by Warner Brothers to review. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it again, and again. DC knows how to make television shows and animated films. Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Doom Patrol, Titans, all amazing shows. The Arrowverse, as it’s known ushered in an entire universe for DC branded television shows not only on the CW, but thanks to the amazing Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover all of their other shows as well. Last year fans got a great treat as during the annual crossover event between shows (Last years was Elseworlds) we were introduced to Katie Kane, aka Batwoman. Instantly loved by fans a spinoff show was immediately ordered.

Batwoman of course takes place in Gotham City. It begins three years after Batman has vanished. Also Bruce Wayne has vanished as well, but still no one can put two and two together. To help battle the criminal element Jacob Kane has created a security group called The Crows to protect the city. When we start The Crows, along with Gotham’s Mayor are holding a party and plan on turning off the Batsignal to user in a new era in Gotham. Things go south when the Alice and Wonderland Gang crash the party and kidnap one of the crows. That particular Crow is named Sophie Moore, who was once the lover of Jacob Kane’s daughter Kate who has been living abroad. She has always hated Batman, as she blames him for allowing her sister, and mother to die in a car accident he was unable to save them from. Kate returns to Gotham after being called by her stepsister . She starts digging around (She was training to be a Crow years earlier) she figures out Alice, the leader of the Wonderland gang is targeting her father Jacob. She sets out to stop the gang and begins to search for her cousin Bruce Wayne.

She gets into Wayne Tower easy enough and when looking through Bruce’s office discovers the entrance to the Batcave. During this she meets Luke Fox, the son of Lucius Fox who is employed by Bruce to keep things safe in his absence. Luke modifies the costume and weapons, and Kate becomes the new symbol of hope to Gotham in the form of Batwoman and begins her quest to stop Alice and the Wonderland Gang. Of course we are introduced to many Batman settings and characters. Arkham Asylum, Magpie, Julia Pennyworth, Nocturna, Duela Dent, and more. Like most of these shows there is a villain of the week (for the most part) and the wrap around is Batwoman vs Alice. Unfortunately this show suffered from one major issue. Alice is actually Kate’s long lost thought dead sister. Now that would have made a great cliffhanger, great reveal with 3 episodes left, anything but the way it was done. See we learn of this curve ball in episode 5 (although it was already eluded to in episode 2). Now throw in the fact that Batwoman manages to connect with Alice multiple times during the show knowing she’s her sister and you have a flat season story. The beauty of these other shows is a simple formula. For instance The Flash doesn’t meet, say Zoom until mid-way through the season when he does he takes a beating and now for the remaining half has to find a way to beat him, which he won’t find until the second to last episode. No Batwoman could have ended this mess in episode 6, but instead it just keeps getting dragged out, and doesn’t even end after 20 episodes. Now to be fair the last part is not the shows fault. Covid brought everything to a halt and all shows wrapped early.

To be honest aside from the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover I was not a fan of this series. In fact if it was not for all the Batman references I probably would not have watched it at all after episode 5. Ruby Rose who played Kate actually left the show after this season so she will be written out and new character will be introduced to play Batwoman in season 2. So I will give that a chance. Rose was great in her part, and I don’t put any blame on her for the series being weak, but perhaps a fresh change can bring new life into the show. I mean my personal favorite is Legends of Tomorrow that went from being a Superhero team up to a situation comedy with superheroes.

Now one of the great highlights, for not only Arrowverse fans, but superhero fans around the world was this years crossover, Crisis on Infinite earths. All of the heroes from all the shows, this year join together to Stop the Anti Monitor from destroying all the earths. This was the most well done crossover event ever, and that’s saying a lot. I would rank this higher than any superhero film in terms of depth and story. Following a set up from the very first episode of the Flash (We see the newspaper saying he will die in Crisis) and culminating from the end of last year’s Elseworlds crossover we are witness to an event that will never happen again. In fact the creators themselves even said they would have to scale back the yearly crossovers as they could not see how to top this. We witness our earths heroes team with the Monitor to try and defeat the Anti Monitor who is going through all the multiverse’s destroying everything in his path in his goal to destroy all of humanity. Arrow, Team Flash, Batwoman, The Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lighting, and Supergirl all come together to travel through the different earths to stop him. Brandon Routh plays the iconic Superman from the movies (Earth 96)we see Burt Ward aka Robin, Kevin Conroy as Earth 99 Batman, and countless others. We even get the DC Streaming shows acknowledged like Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing. This was an action packed monumental crossover the likes of which have never been done before. And it all works. And if you purchase the Blu-Ray set of Batwoman you get all 5 episodes of this crossover on a bonus disc.

The audio and video are perfect. Batwoman is a very dark show and it looks amazing on this transfer. The visuals for Gotham were done perfectly, doesn’t matter if its day or night. The picture is crisp and vibrant. Never to dark, or to light. The audio is great, and I must say this show does have a great score. Warner did a tremendous job with the transfer on this set. It looks better than the original airings.

For the most part this show was not my cup of tea. I liked all the little nods it had to the comics, and I enjoyed the character, it was just the pacing and the reveal in episode 5 that slowed it down to a crawl for me. If you’re a collector of the shows you will want to pick this up. If your on the fence about it, its worth watching. It just was not my thing.

Overall 2.5 out of 5 Stars!