‘Aquarius: Season 1’ Blu-Ray Review

The Aquarius: Season 1 blu-ray touts the show as a crime drama centered on L.A. homicide detective, Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny) investigating real life cult leader, Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony) in 1967 —before the killings that would make Manson famous.

To believe that the show Aquarius is a show only about Charles Manson, however, would be a mistake. Aquarius paints an honest picture of America in 1967 through the lens of Hollywood’s homicide detectives.

At first the show does focus on Detective Hodiak and Manson. We meet Manson through the eyes of Emma Karn (Emma Dumont), a vulnerable 16-year-old girl he seduces into his following that will become the Manson Family.

aquarius_manson

When Emma goes missing, her mother, Grace Karn (Michaela McManus), enlists the help of her old boyfriend, Detective Hodiak, to find her. After finding Emma in Manson’s commune, the clean-cut Hodiak asks undercover hippie detective Brian Shafe (Grey Damon) to infiltrate the commune. Thus begins the buddy cop portion of this show.

While the buddy cop trope may be predictable, Hodiak and Shafe’s goes further. These two characters bring the decade’s generational confrontation to a very small stage with humor and heartbreak.

aquarius_buddies

While these two investigate Emma’s disappearance, the Hollywood crime world keeps spinning, showing us 1960s America in all its gritty glory: heroin drug rings, Black Panthers demanding justice and freedom, the underground gay bar scene, and Latinos protesting the LAPD. And representing the women’s movement is Charmain Tully (Claire Holt), a female police officer in Hodiak’s department who desperately wants to do real police work.

In 14 episodes, season one of Aquarius covers a lot of ground, but it does so effortlessly. Issue-centric episodes could easily be isolated but they aren’t. All performances are spot on. Even the most fleeting characters are memorable. Dumont’s performance of Emma cultivates sympathy not for Manson, but for his followers.

As for our villain, Anthony’s portrayal of Manson is good, almost too good. Recent history in film and television has brought us a slew of humanized villains. That is not the case with Aquarius’ Manson. Anthony and McNamara show us a disturbed, charismatic cult leader, the embodiment of the summer of love gone wrong.

Hodiak is no knight in shining armor. A knight maybe, but his armor is dented and scuffed. Unlike his young idealistic colleagues, Hodiak does not try to rise above the broken system. He tries to set the rights he can within the confines of the world he’s living. Duchovny’s performance is nuanced. He breaks our hearts in one episode and makes us laugh in the next.

While the season finale wrapped up very few of the major plots from season one, there was a definitive ending for some and plenty of jumping off points for season two.

Presentation

For the most part, the video and sound of Aquarius season one is clean. Aquarius: Season 1 has a Dolby True HD 5.1 audio track. The music and dialogue are mixed well so that one never overpowers the other. Being a show set in the 1960s, the music plays its own part and deserves to have a place.

However, being a crime drama, scenes with whispers, mumbles, drugged and drunk characters could be difficult to hear. Subtitles came in handy, particularly during Manson’s scenes.

Aquarius: Season 1 arrives on Blu-ray in full 1080p thanks to a strong Mpeg-4 encode. I’ll tell you for sure, the 1080p is especially fun when characters are tripping acid. For the most part the images are clean and clear, however, dark scenes can be a bit too dark, and details can get lost in the shadows. Most of the time color stays true and the image remains impressive for a television series.

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Extra Features

While season one of Aquarius may be excellently written and performed, the Blu-ray’s extra features leave something to be desired. The First Look: Aquarius featurette is a quick three minute look behind the scenes that tells us little.

The real gem in the extras is the webisodes, The Summer of Love digital series that tells the stories of how Manson met three of the other women in his cult: Sadie (Ambyr Childers), Katie (Tara Lynne Barr) and Mary Brunner (Abby Miller).

The web series brings context to things referenced in the full-length episodes. However, these webisodes are still available online at NBC’s website, so they are not blu-ray exclusive.

Final Thoughts

Aquarius: Season 1 brings 1967 Los Angeles in all its gritty glory. The show is definitely worth a watch for all its suspense, heartbreak, and humor. The Blu-ray release offers extra minutes of sex and violence cut for prime time audiences. The extras features bring little to the viewing experience.

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