Young Sheldon: The Complete Fifth Season

“It’s a new semester for child prodigy Sheldon Cooper, and a year of upheaval for the entire Cooper family. Sheldon attends his first comic convention, gets his first set of nerdy friends and fails to impress his first engineering professor. George Sr. and Mary face conflicts at work and struggles in their marriage. Missy questions her religious beliefs and asks some uncomfortable questions about sex. Meemaw buys a laundromat with a secret gambling room and hires Georgie as her new manager. And Georgie’s relationship with an older woman leads to a life-changing decision. Join the Coopers for 22 hilarious episodes, including the landmark 100^th.”

The Big Bang Theory was a good concept. Geek and comic book culture is more popular than ever, and for those who identified with those sorts of things growing up, it sometimes felt like a validation that all the things you enjoyed that weren’t always reflected in the mainstream culture were in fact cool. As someone who eagerly watched the show in the beginning, then felt it fall hard as the seasons progressed, jokes became stale, much like all of Chuck Lorre’s productions. While I’m sure I’m in the minority who can tell when they do the absolute bare minimum research into some of the geek culture they write about, it didn’t stop the show from lasting 12 seasons, with a spin-off mid-way that explored the childhood of the show’s most popular character: Sheldon Cooper. The character’s success and popularity is undoubtedly 100% because of Jim Parsons. He entirely embodies that character and it was unlike anything we’d seen in a sitcom. Translating that to another actor would be a challenge in itself, let alone a child actor, but they went ahead with it anyway, and now it’s lasted half as long as the main show.

Spin-offs are usually horrid ideas that rarely work. Ones that come to mind instantly: Joey, The Ropers, and I’m sure countless others. For Young Sheldon, the draw is the character that people loved, and maybe the fact they were too lazy to change the channel after The Big Bang Theory ended. Despite this, as successful as the show could be, the fact that it’s a younger version of a character we’ve spent twelve years with already, it gives the series a definite expiration date that is fast approaching. As Iain Armitage ages, there is going to be a point where the audience has to realize he’s not going to magically turn into Jim Parsons and keep continuing the show. Even though my personal reasons for disbelief that Young Sheldon was a good idea, the fact that it’s lasted five seasons, now into it’s sixth, demonstrate several things, but the most inspiring of those simply being they just like the character of Sheldon Cooper, and who is to say that’s a bad thing?

Season Five comes courtesy of Warner Bros. on Blu-ray and DVD. The success of a show usually translates over to whether or not it receives a Blu-ray release, and in this case that answer is yes, which is good news for fans of the show who want to own it to be able to watch whenever they please. Here’s an episode breakdown of the 2-disc set, whose episode titles sound like Cards Against Humanity entries:

1. One Bad Night and Chaos of Selfish Desires
2. Snoopin’ Around and the Wonder Twins of Atheism
3. Potential Energy and Hooch on a Park Bench
4. Pish Posh and a Secret Back Room
5. Stuffed Animals and a Sweet Southern Syzygy
6. Money Laundering and a Cascade of Hormones
7. An Introduction to Engineering and a Glob of Hair Gel
8. The Grand Chancellor and a Den of Sin
9. The Yips and an Oddly Hypnotic Bohemian
10. An Expensive Glitch and a Goof-Off Room
11. A Lock-In, a Weather Girl and a Disgusting Habit
12. A Pink Cadillac and a Glorious Tribal Dance
13. A Lot of Band-Aids and the Cooper Surrender
14. A Free Scratches and Feminine Wiles
15. A Lobster, an Armadillo and a Way Bigger Number
16. A Suitcase Full of Cash and a Yellow Clown Car
17. A Solo Peanut, a Social Butterfly and the Truth
18. Babies, Lies and a Resplendent Cannoli
19. A God-Fearin’ Baptist and a Hot Trophy Husband
20. Uncle Sheldon and a Hormonal Firecracker
21. White Trash, Holy Rollers and Punching People
22. A Clogged Pore, a Little Spanish and the Future

Video

Young Sheldon is presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.78:1. A great HD transfer for this series, and great to have it on Blu-ray rather than strictly DVD for physical copies. Colors are bright and vibrant, with the show having a wide range during the 22 episodes. The picture is clear and detailed, with no problems of note.

Audio

The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The show doesn’t really go over-the-top in the sound department, you’ll mostly be hearing dialogue from the center channel, but the atmospheric effects, score, and other uses sound nice through the surrounds.

Special Features

One extra on this set:

• Time Flies When You’re Having Fun: Young Sheldon at 100

Fans of Young Sheldon have undoubtedly seen the season already, or waiting to pick this up. Regardless, you know what the show is about, and if it’s your cup of tea. If so, it can’t get much better than having it be released on Blu-ray, so if you’re a fan, pick this one up to ensure you’ll get the rest of the series on HD as well. This one is out now to purchase on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.