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The fans complaining that AMC’s Duck Dynasty has changed or stayed from its roots are disappointed because they are only just now realizing that this “reality” program is in fact a sitcom – which means it is fake as hell. It is formulaic, scripted, and plotted. It is also still very funny and worth a look for its fans.

Of course, there are still those who – not realizing that Duck Dynasty isn’t about backwoods religion and marrying underage girls - can’t get over some of the offensive comments patriarch Phil Robertson says outside of the show. Having mentioned all this, the ten episodes that make up Duck Dynasty: Season Five – if you accept its sitcom status (meaning the only thing missing is a studio audience) – dips only a little due to the lack of original ideas from the writers.

Maybe their 15-minutes is about to expire, but that doesn’t stop the Robertson clan from continuing to pull practical jokes on each other or Miss Kay from learning the art of the text. Whatever the multimillion dollar clan does in the show’s fifth season, they do so with bearded enterprise – meaning that, after Phil’s upsetting comments, everything here is very calculated.

The writers and producers attempt to introduce a couple of new characters (maybe to add some culture to the show) – Willie’s somewhat adopted foreign exchange student/daughter and his wife’s brother – but nothing new sticks so they go with the tried and true. The writers avoid addressing Phil’s ugly comments – which would have made for an interesting episode – and continue soldiering on with situational comedy.

The Robertson’s don’t need the money from this show. Every episode adds to their wealth. They aren’t attempting to take over the world either. This is straight up hillbilly wackiness. There’s no hidden agenda; no secret backwoods religious message. It is – as suggested on this site – Seinfeld gone hillbilly.

Duck Dynasty: Season Five gets into a comfortable groove and rolls with what comes easy. The show; however, needs to reclaim some of its missing mojo if it is to continue…but with the sixth season already in an idea decline, I’d say the series has only two more 10-episode seasons of life remaining. Maybe that will offer some people comfort.

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Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - June 24, 2014
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region Encoding: A

Duck Dynasty: Season 5 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A&E with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. Nice colors, strong contrast, and deep blacks kiss each episode. The bulk of this presentation is sharp and well detailed, and the first person confessionals, which almost always feature the characters in close-up, offer great fine detail. As stated earlier, colors are natural looking and well saturated. A perfectly fine lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix is attached to each disc and handles the narration and dialogue well enough.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• We don’t need them, folks.

Special Features:

A couple deleted scenes and a number of mildly interesting EPK pieces are included.

• Featurettes (17 min)
• Deleted Scenes (7 min)

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