The Shannara Chronicles - Season 2 - Blu-Ray

Content: A year has passed since the victory over the demons. Wil (Austen Butler) is still mourning the loss of the love of his life, Amberle, so he has retired to train as a healer. He doesn't really want to know about the fight against evil anymore. But the Four Lands are not yet safe. For Bandon (Marcus Vanco), who has turned to the dark forces, wants to bring the Warlock Lord back to life. And that must be stopped at all costs. Will learns of the impending doom from the mysterious Mareth (Malese Jow), who claims to be Allanon's (Manu Bennett) daughter. Only he can prevent the impending return. But it's not just Bandon and his henchmen who want to throw a wrench in his plans. Suddenly the mysterious organization Crimson appears, which wants to destroy everything that has to do with magic and sorcery. With unexpected harshness and violence, they plunge the land into chaos. Do Wil and his friends stand any chance against these enemies?

After the first season of The Shannara Chronicles aired on the erstwhile music channel MTV, season 2 migrated to the smaller channel Spike. Whether that also came with budget cuts is impossible to judge at this point. What is quite clear is that at least there was no skimping on the visuals of the series based on the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. The scenery captured in New Zealand once again looks absolutely magical in the second season and the set, costumes and visual effects can also convince for the most part.

It's a different story when it comes to the scripts and the actors. The plot is filled with predictable clichés and extremely flat dialogues, which especially the younger actors unfortunately can't make up for. What you can get out of a rather weak script is once again proven by Manu Bennett, who even gets to play a double role in some episodes. He manages to make his acting somehow always seem believable and extremely entertaining despite some truly atrocious dialogue.

The start of the second season turns out to be a bit tough and can't compete with the exciting finale of the first season. In the course of the further episodes, the quality then increases steadily and it all comes down to a gripping ending, which is then unfortunately not delivered. After some really good episodes, in which gripping conflicts are built up, the season finale should have been a big spectacle. Instead, the last episode is rather a lukewarm breeze, which in view of the poor ratings in the U.S. hopefully was not also the last breath of the entire series. Because again and again it shows in season 2, how much potential is in the world created by Brooks, but so far only marginally used.

Although the level of the first episodes is rarely reached and many good opportunities remain unused, also the new Shannara Chronicles still offer short-series fantasy entertainment, which arf gladly continued - but then please with a little better scripts. Because an appealing look is still not everything. And therefore there is then under the line with a few restrictions still a deserved: Worth seeing!!!

Picture + Sound: As with the first season, the technical implementation of the Blu-ray is on a good to very good level - as may be expected from a current fantasy TV series. The image is clean, has powerful colours and reveals good overall sharpness. Only in some dark scenes does the image appear very grainy, which also results in significant drops in overall sharpness as well as detail. The sound comes in the form of a pleasingly vibrant DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix in places, though it's generally the dialogue that dominates the proceedings. It's not overwhelming for a recent fantasy series, but on balance it's still good enough for a more than satisfactory Good.

Extras: Unfortunately, the second season has nothing to offer except for trailers.

Conclusion: Season 2 of The Shannara Chronicles has to contend with significantly more problems than the first episodes. But overall, the ten new episodes once again provide exciting entertainment, decent effects, and a good foundation for further adventures. The Blu-ray presents the series in decent picture and sound quality. Unfortunately, fans have to do without bonus material. Nevertheless, there is as a conclusion also in round 2 still a: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp