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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: September 3, 2013.
Director: Various
Cast: Tom Riley, Laura Haddock, Elliot Cowan, Lara Pulver, Tom Bateman
Year: 2013
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The Series:
A British-American co-production created and written by David S. Goyer, Da Vinci's Demons debuted its eight episode first season run on the Starz channel earlier this year. Given that Starz is a network that seems to be gaining a pretty good reputation for series that deal in healthy doses of sex and violence, would it stand to reason, then, that another series rooted in history but dealing in fiction (like Spartacus) would follow suit? Pretty much, yep.
The series stars Tom Riley as Leonardo Da Vinci and we meet up with him at the age of twenty-five. As he sets about doing the things that Da Vinci set out to do, we learn the dangers of a state in which the church has too much power. Da Vinci is, it would stand to reason, a genius and he sees this as both a blessing and a curse. Obviously his remarkable intelligence allows him to create and to do things others could not conceive of but at the same time it lands him in trouble and sees him branded a heretic for exposing certain untruths put forward by the church.
Complicating matters further is the presence of Lorenzo de' Medici (Elliot Cowen), a powerful statesman and a man of much influence. He's married to Clarice Orsini (Lara Pulver), a beautiful woman with political aspirations of her own, but he's also playing around with the lovely Lucrezia (Laure Haddock). This would be all well and good except for the fact that Da Vinci and Lecrezia have also got a thing going on the side.
Disc One: The Hanged Man / The Serpent / The Prisoner
Disc Two: The Magician / The Tower / The Devil / The Hierophant / The Lovers
As the series progresses we learn of Leonardo's issues with his father (David Schofield) and of some of the work that he was hired to do as well as how Da Vinci goes about using his hyper-intelligence to open up his memories and access various aspects of history that come in handy at any given time. At this point the series goes from intriguing to fairly silly, but to its credit, not at the expense of amusing entertainment value. If it hasn't registered by now, despite calling itself historical fantasy, this is not a series that is in the least bit concerned with accuracy.
The show follows in the tracks of Spartacus in a lot of ways in that it isn't really afraid to push the envelope a bit. In the first episode we learn in no uncertain terms that the Pope is gay and that the Catholic Church is really behind all sorts of nasty plots and schemes. The series' running theme about all of religion being a myth is interesting albeit one that will no doubt court controversy - case in point? An episodes in which Da Vinci proves an emissary of the Vatican's successful exorcism a hoax or another episode where Da Vinci's is brought into court on sodomy charges by a corrupt official with ties to the church.
The series introduces all manner of interesting characters, some historical like Vlad The Impaler and some completely made up. This keeps each episode moderately interesting as you don't really know who will pop up in it. The performances are solid and costume work is pretty good. There's a lot of CGI here and much of it is painfully obvious - likely a necessity for a show with a limited budget that does take some pretty ambitious runs at things - but all in all it looks good. It's hard to take all of this as seriously as it would seem the cast and crew want us to but it's fun. Da Vinci makes for an unlikely action hero but somehow more often than not Riley manages to make it work. If it's not addictive viewing like say, Breaking Bad or even The Walking Dead, it's easy enough to get pulled in.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Da Vinci's Demons: The Complete First Season arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p 1.78.1 widescreen high definition presentation that looks great. The image is certainly a stylized one, but close up shots often times look reference quality with long distance and medium shots also generally impressing. As the series progresses, you'll start to pick up on just how much picture information there really is here. Detail is also appreciable in the texture that you'll notice in the costumes worn throughout the show is impressive as is the amount of detail that you'll pick up on seen in the various sets that are used. Black levels generally look nice and strong without sucking out the shadow detail while color reproduction is typically very good, though the series makes use of a fairly cool color palette more often than not.
The English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix that this set sports is pretty great stuff. Surround activity is strong while dialogue stays clean and consistently easy to understand. The score is punchy and powerful enough to really punctuate some of the more dramatic moments, as a good score should, without overpowering the performers.
Extras include a selection of audio commentary tracks as follows:
The Hanged Man: series creator David S. Goyer, actor Tom Riley, actor Laura Haddock and actor Blake Ritson
The Serpent: David S. Goyer, Tom Riley, Laura Haddock and Blake Ritson
The Tower: David S. Goyer, Tom Riley and David Schofield
The Lovers: David S. Goyer, Tom Riley and Tom Batemen
These commentary tracks are really where the meat of the supplemental material lies as they offer up interesting scene specific talks lead by Goyer for half of the season's episodes. They cover pretty much everything you'd want - story points, inspiration, locations, costumes, thematic elements, character development and more.
From there we move on to the featurettes starting with the three minute Mastering Da Vinci which is basically an interview with series Bear McCreary in which he discusses the music he created for the series. The three minute Constructing Da Vinci is a collection of cast and crew interviews that offer up some basic thoughts on the series while Dressing Da Vinci lets the costume designers spend another three minutes talking about their work on the series. The three minute Worldwide Fanfare: Road To The Premiere segment is a clip of the show debuting, at least partially, at the New York Comic Con and then in Florence, Italy.
Rounding out the extras are eleven minutes worth of Deleted Scenes, eight clips in total, and a few promotional pieces for other Starz properties. Menus and chapter selection are included on each of the two discs as well.
The Final Word:
Historical accuracy be damned, the first season of Da Vinci's Demons offers up enough cheap thrills to grab our attention and occasionally throws in a few interesting ideas and decent performances in an attempt to hold it. There's potential for things to improve with the second season but as it stands now, this is a fun watch, if not particularly deep. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray looks and sounds good, however, and the commentary tracks are interesting. If you're into the series, it's a nice release.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
