Veep appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 on these Blu-ray Discs. This became an appealing batch of shows.
Sharpness looked strong, as virtually no softness ever marred the proceedings. This left the episodes with tight, concise visuals. Jagged edges and moiré effects remained absent, and I saw no signs of source flaws.
The series used a low-key palette with an emphasis on amber, and the hues worked fine within those constraints. Blacks were dark and deep, while shadows delivered nice clarity. As always, Veep boasted excellent visuals.
The series’ DTS-HD MA 5.1 also continued to subdued ways witnessed in seasons past, so don’t expect much from the low-key soundfields. Veep emphasizes dialogue above all else, and that left effects as a minor component. Those elements added some environmental material and little else.
Speech appeared natural and concise, while music and effects seemed clear and full. Nothing here stood out as memorable, but the audio suited the series.
While Season Four abandoned the usual array of audio commentaries, they come back for Season Five. We get six chats from the following array of participants:
“Morning After”: executive producer/actor Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, executive producers David Mandel, Lew Morton and Georgia Pritchett, and actor Timothy Simons.
“Mother”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Mandel, writers Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck and actor Tony Hale.
“C**tgate”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Somons, Mandel, Pritchett and director Brad Hall.
“Congressional Ball”: Simons, Mandel, Morton, writer Billy Kimball and actor Reid Scott.
“Kissing Your Sister”: Scott, Simons, Mandel, Morton and writer Erik Kenward.
“Inauguration”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Hale, Mandel, Huyck, Hall and co-executive producer Alex Gregory.
As noted, Season Four omitted audio commentaries, so I’m happy to see their return here – and better than ever! The chats that accompanied shows from Seasons One through Three tended to be pretty pedestrian, but the S5 tracks manage to become fairly informative.
Emphasis on “fairly”, as the commentaries never really excel. Still, they look at various production elements in a moderately engaging manner, especially when it comes to editing and cut/altered story material. As long as you don’t expect greatness from the commentaries, you should find some useful information here.
45 Deleted Scenes fill a total of 34 minutes. While that’s a lot of scenes for that running time, it’s actually longer per clip than usual – the prior Veep sets averaged less than 30 seconds per sequences.
One other difference comes from the content, as we get a lot more alternate lines than usual. Some new material arrives as well, but much of the footage shows multiple takes for the same scene.
Of the 10 shows, “Kissing Your Sister” offers by far the most cut footage. It throws out 19 of the 45 scenes and runs 13 minutes, 31 seconds. The faux documentary set-up allows for a lot of new material.
We don’t find much here that takes the series down new paths, though. The scenes offer amusement and occasional intrigue but they don’t give us fresh plot threads or much in the way of character development. Still, they’re fun and worth a look.
With Season Five of Veep, the series continues to chug along well. Biting and clever, we get a good collection of humor and acid-tipped satire. The Blu-rays offer excellent visuals as well as acceptable audio and a smattering of supplements. Bring on Season Six!