• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
• Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit), Portuguese & Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0
  
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latino)
  
• Subtitles Color: White
  
• Region: ABC  (Region-Free)
• Rating: Not Rated
  
• Run Time: 498 Mins.
• Discs/Digital Copies: 5 (2 x Blu-ray + 3 x DVD + UltraViolet)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
  
• Blu-ray Release Date: September 11, 2012
• List Price: $54.97

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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Series

[Rating:4/5]

The unlikely hit sitcom about nerdy geniuses and their not-so-smart beautiful neighbor hit the milestone of filming its 100^th episode in this Fifth Season of The Big Bang Theory. The comedy remains pretty much the same, so there’s nothing new or too unpredictable for longtime watchers, even as the series maintains its consistently high quality of intelligent humor.

Season Five sees Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) kickstart their on again/off again relationship once again in a “2.0” trial version, while Sheldon (Jim Parsons) finally concedes to making Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) his actual girlfriend. In the meantime, Howard (Simon Helberg) is scheduled to head into space to the International Space Station for NASA as his wedding to the diminutive but feisty Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) grows ever closer. Meanwhile, Raj’s (Kunal Nayyar) girl trouble has him so lonely and desperate that he’s ready to contemplate an arranged marriage.

Video Quality

[Rating:4/5]

The Big Bang Theory, filmed on 35mm, has always tended to look a little soft and slightly over-saturated. While this helps to give the candy-colored outfits of Wolowitz a lot of pop, it also tends to make some of the faces look a bit too reddish at times. Still, the overall 1080p transfer on Blu-ray is superior, as one might expect, to the 1080i broadcasts, which are heavily compressed. The problems with those broadcasts are all gone here, so there is no posterization, no clipping in the whites, or compression errors.

Audio Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

Audio is straightforward, coming in a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) mix that gives clean dialogue in the center channel, a boost of lows during the cut sequences, and basically a little bit of the laugh track in the surrounds.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:2.5/5]

There really isn’t much included here, but the featurettes do offer a little more time with the actors of you are a fan.

The supplements:

• The Big Bang Theory @ 100 (10:05) – Cast and Producers celebrate the 100^th episode.
• Professors of Production (15:01) – A behind the scenes look at the various at the various departments that bring the show together each week.
• Gag Reel (08:37)
• The Big Bang Theory‘s Laws of Reflection (11:37) – The cast reflects on their favorite memories of Season 5
• DVDs – Three standard DVDs of the series.
• UltraViolet

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:4/5]

I don’t know that Season 5 is the strongest season yet of The Big Bang Theory, but is still loaded with laughs and packs an hysterical comical punch. That the writers of the series have been able to maintain such a high level of quality this far into the series is both a testament to their skill and the skills of the cast who make the material shine.

Additional Screen Captures

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Purchase The Big Bang Theory: Season 5 on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

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[amazon-product]B005P4P966[/amazon-product]

[amazon-product]B0053O89XI[/amazon-product]

Purchase The Big Bang Theory: Season 5 on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]

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Related Articles:

• The Big Bang Theory: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review
• The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Review
• The Bang Theory: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Review