Heroes: Season 2

Rejoin the cast of extraordinary people trying to live normal lives in Heroes: Season 2. This season Sylar (Quinto) is not the only sinister force stalking the Heroes, there is a new threat to the mutants. H.R.G. (Coleman) prepares to take his family on the run when he realizes The Company is close to discovering their whereabouts. Hiro (Oka) travels to 15th century Japan in a personal quest, where in falls in love with another man's partner. Meanwhile, Suresh (Ramamurthy) must choose between his friendship with H.R.G. and his loyalty to The Company, when he is asked to administer the Shanti virus to his old ally. (Stacey Pendry)

Special features on Disc One of this Four-Disc set include an audio commentary track by cast and crew for each of the episodes, two deleted scenes, a 15-minute featurette Heroes Season 2: A New Beginning, a U-Control picture-in-picture option, and Hero Connections—bios and connections between the characters. On Disc Two: an audio commentary track for each episode, eight deleted scenes, two featurettes: Takezo Kensei: Sword Saint (24 minutes) and The Drucker Files (nine minutes), the picture-in-picture option and Hero Connections. On Disc Three: audio commentary by cast and crew for all three episodes, seven deleted scenes, a 23-minute featurette Genetics Of A Scene, and the picture-in-picture option and Hero Connections. On Disc Four: audio commentary tracks for both episodes, a nine-minute Season 3 Sneak Peek, an alternate ending scene (18 minutes), two featurettes: Inside The Alternate Ending Of Generations (11 minutes) and Untold Stories From Episode 212 (12 minutes), four teaser clips from NBC.com, an additional 11-minute featurette Inside the Alternate Ending of Generations, the 12-minute Untold Stories, where you get a peek of the set behind each episode, and previews.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 DVD generally looks harsh, with hard edges and a digitized appearance. Resolution is quite good, though, and black levels are deep and solid. Shadows are delineated well, and colors appear naturally saturated. Fleshtones can be plugged up and too red. And the picture can get distractingly noisy in dark scenes. Compression artifacts are recognizable, and while edge enhancement is used, it is hardly a problem. The VC-1-encoded Blu-ray Disc still looks overly noisy in the darker scenes. Black levels are deep, though, and shadow delineation is nicely rendered. Colors are saturated well. The picture looks less digitally harsh, but there is still an edginess to the picture. Still, resolution is very good, as fine details are captured well. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack favors the front three screen channels, with the surrounds used at levels significantly lower than the fronts, limiting their effectiveness. Fidelity is generally good, but there are times when dialogue sounds forward and harsh. LFE use is somewhat rare, but effective when needed, but bass rarely drops below 50 Hz. The front stage doesn't have much sense of depth, and while dynamic range is adequate, the subtleties sound smeared. Noise is audible throughout, and a shuffling, overly compressed sound can be heard. The Blu-ray Disc's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio encoding improves fidelity some, but the midrange is not as articulate as the best lossless encodings. There is still a level of smeared response in the dialogue, limiting its naturalness. Shuffling distortion can still be heard at times, and dialogue occasionally is too forward. The soundtrack can also sound bright at times. (Danny Richelieu)