The West Wing: Complete Series (Blu-ray)

My wife and I are big fans of this series. Smartly written, well-acted, and an all-star cast make this one of the best series we've ever watched. We've enjoyed this series many times over starting with the original broadcast on NBC, then again multiple times through our DVD sets. Yeah, I said "sets". plural, because we watched the first set so much, we wore out some of the disks and had to replace the whole seven season set.We were early HDTV adopters, having bought our first rear projection HDTV well before this series started in 1999. While the first season was broadcast in SD, the second and subsequent seasons were in HD. With this Blu-Ray set, the first season has a decent HD conversion with a 16:9 format instead of the original 4:3. The second through seventh seasons are all in 1080p HD as well though the image quality appears to be a tick better than on the first season. Overall, the visual quality is considerably better than it is on our entirely SD DVD set and at least as good as I remember it being when seasons 2-7 were originally broadcast on our first-generation HDTV.I can only surmise the reasons that some reviewers have commented that this HD set is only "slightly" better than SD and at times "grainy." One possibility is that they wrote their reviews based on the quality of season one only and before starting the second season. Another is that they don't have a DVD set to compare the quality of this Blu-Ray set to. Yet another is that they don't understand the limitations of the original grainy film stock on which the show was captured. Does it compare favorably to shows and movies captured more recently in digital 4K? No, but it does live up to the celluloid standards and the industry medium of choice at the time the show was made.With regard to the negative comments about the packaging, again, I can only surmise the reasons. This set has 20 fewer disks than our DVD set, but it still has a total of 28 disks. That's a lot of disks. The packaging is as compact as it can be made with that many disks and is less than half the size of the packaging for our DVD set. Unlike some other reviewers, I like the fact that the disks are securely attached to their respective pockets. Far too often with sets like this, the disks come loose, rattle around inside the case and become damaged and unreadable. It's pretty clear that will never be an issue with this Blu-Ray set.Bottom line, the show is one of our all-time favorites and a real treat to see it again now in the HD format seasons 2-7 were originally broadcast. The visual quality is what you would expect from the original film stock and the 5.1 DTS surround sound fills our theatre room beautifully. If you are looking for nits to pick, I'm sure you'll find them in anything you buy. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a copy of this series in all the glory it was originally broadcast, this Blu-Ray set delivers in spades.Enjoy!

When the series was on television, I watched every riveting episode. I'm please that I bought the first-rate, seven-season series because I am enjoying each episode all over again. The plots are absolutely addictive, and each actor outdoes his or herself with each episode. Beside the regulars, many famous actors like Matthew Perry, Alan Alda, and Kristen Chenoweth have cameo performances. If you seriously follow politics, this series is beyond compare.

About time this appeared on BLU-Ray. The old double-sided DVD's are failing.Glad to see the entire series now appears in 1.78:1 format. Previously, the first season or two appeared in a 1.33:1 format - as originally broadcast.Still one of the best shows ever to air on American TV.(Now I wish someone would get off the stick and issue "I'll Fly Away" BLU-Rays.)

6/5 stars for the show - absolutely my favorite piece of television of all time, with very few titles even worthy of consideration for comparison.3 stars for the release as a whole.2 stars for the Blu-Ray composition and physical product.I have watched through all 156 episodes of three times in various formats and media, and am on my fourth by way of this Blu-Ray box set.If you have never seen the show before, then this is likely comparable to watching it on a streaming platform - both of which being the best renditions. As others have mentioned, it appears to be the same quality as earlier remasters, and there has long been speculation that the show - or at the very least the first season - was remastered by upscaling from the SD rendition rather than resampled. The quality issues are most prevalent in the first season, but do improve thereafter.I think for me and other longstanding fans, the greatest disappointment is simply that now that the show has finally been released on a high-bandwidth medium (and only finally now, literally at the end-of-life of the Blu-Ray medium as a whole, nonetheless), we were simply hoping for a higher quality remaster than was already available.Nonetheless, having never actually had owned a physical copy of the show before, the commentary tracks alone are well worth the purchase - especially for any fan of Sorkin's work. But there is not commentary for every episode, and there are no additional features or behind-the-scenes entries beyond the commentary. I sort of expected for more insightful inclusions, if not documentary-esque retrospectives and interviews.The actual physical and meta aspects of the release are all infuriating garbage.The plastic jewel case is absolutely horrendous:- The "pages" of discs are not affixed to the enclosure in any manner.- The bits of plastic which stick up through the center of each disc to secure them are near impossible to coerce to release - I'm halfway through the third season and I haven't discerned any technique for freeing discs without bending them and applying excessive force and trying to pinch with fingernails. Every time I swap discs a battle ensues in such a fashion that I am deeply worried about damaging the discs each time, because I have no idea how to actually free disc - eventually, each time I just eventually get lucky.- The arrangement of discs and cutouts and difficulty with manipulating them ensures that it's virtually impossible to work with the discs without smearing the media surfaces with fingerprints, if not risking scratching them.The paper inserts are nothing but lists of episode titles which are on which discs, and there is nothing to secure them to the jewel case. For what should be the definitive release of the series, I would have expected the booklets to pay homage to and provide insights into the work. Instead we merely get a thoughtless table of contents, without so much as synopses.The media menu system for navigating a disc's contents is also lacking. It also seems absurd to me that the series is available in various subs and some dubs on streaming platforms, but here only English. I've also never seen any media in my life which thought it necessary to specify that it's closed captions can be Off or "English (For the deaf and hard of hearing)." I am neither deaf nor hard of hearing but sometimes I like subtitles. Why do the digital features of this media feel like they were assembled at the turn of the century when it's being released at the very end of physical media's lifespan as a whole?All in all, you should watch this show - especially if you have a bit of a liberal skew or long for an idyllic functional U.S. government with caring participants. But if you're a longtime fan, all that's really here for you is physical ownership and commentary tracks - admittedly good enough reasons on their own for my purchase.If you purchase this set, definitely look into a better case for the discs, and consider ripping them to a harddrive - this show deserves better than a plastic jewel case which threatens it's longevity.On an aside, I can't wait to try my hand at applying AI functionality and frame generation to this video, because I am confident that even a hobbyist can improve upon the quality of the remasters here, even without any access to the masters... Maybe it would not have been so true to the original, but I wish the company handling this release would have put a little more love into it. Or at least just the jewel case and inserts, at the very least.

I bought it for my husband. He was so happy to get this gift for Christmas. Started to watch it the next day. We have already gone through the first CD. He just stated … he is learning a lot of the in and outs of how the White House works