The 100: The Complete Season 1 [Blu-ray Review]
After seven seasons of survival, sacrifice, and more plot twists than a DNA helix, The 100 finally gets the complete series treatment it deserves from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. This isn’t just another TV-on-disc cash grab – this comprehensive collection brings together all 100 episodes (yes, they planned that number from the beginning) of what became one of the most ambitious sci-fi series of the 2010s. As someone who’s covered genre television extensively here at AndersonVision, I can say that The 100 represents something special: a series that started as teen dystopian fare and evolved into genuine science fiction storytelling.
When The 100 premiered in 2014, I’ll admit I was skeptical. The CW had a reputation for prioritizing relationship drama over narrative substance, and the initial marketing suggested another Hunger Games knockoff designed to capture the young adult audience. What actually aired was something far more interesting – a series willing to tackle complex moral questions, genuine consequences for character actions, and science fiction concepts that most network television wouldn’t touch.
The premise begins simply enough: ninety-seven years after nuclear war devastated Earth, the last surviving humans live aboard a space station called the Ark. When life support systems begin failing, 100 juvenile delinquents are sent to Earth to determine if the planet is habitable. What they discover changes everything they thought they knew about survival, civilization, and human nature.
Table of Contents
The Evolution of Excellence – From Teen Drama to Sci-Fi Masterpiece
For the sake of brevity, I merged what little I found in Season 1 with a look at the entire run of the show. If interest continues, I’ll spread out my focus on The 100. This release allows you to experience The 100’s remarkable evolution in the way it was meant to be seen – as a continuous narrative that builds complexity and emotional weight over time. The early episodes might feel familiar to anyone who’s seen teenage survival stories, but the series quickly reveals its ambitions to be something more substantial.
Season one establishes the basic survival scenario while introducing the core characters who will carry the series through its seven-season run. Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) emerges as the group’s leader, struggling to make impossible decisions that will save lives while compromising her own moral certainties. Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley) provides the muscle and the passion, often clashing with Clarke’s measured approach to crisis management. These early episodes work as entertainment, but they also function as character foundation that becomes essential for understanding later seasons.
What sets The 100 apart from other young adult adaptations is its willingness to follow the logical consequences of its scenarios. When characters make difficult decisions, those choices reverberate throughout subsequent episodes and seasons. The series doesn’t reset its moral landscape every week – instead, it builds a complex web of cause and effect that rewards long-term viewing.
The technical presentation of these early episodes benefits from the Blu-ray format’s ability to preserve the series’ visual design. The 100 was shot digitally, and these transfers maintain the clean, sharp look that the series achieved from its first season. The contrast between the sterile environment of the Ark and the overgrown wilderness of post-apocalyptic Earth comes through clearly, helping viewers understand the visual language that the series uses to distinguish between different communities and time periods.
Mid-Series Momentum – When Stakes Started Mattering
Seasons two through four represent The 100 hitting its creative stride, expanding its world and deepening its themes in ways that justify the complete series format. The introduction of the Grounders – Earth’s other survivors – transforms the series from a survival story into a complex examination of cultural conflict and political necessity.
These seasons showcase the series’ greatest strength: its willingness to treat all of its communities as morally complex rather than simply good or evil. The Sky People (the original 100 and later arrivals from the Ark) aren’t inherently superior to the Grounders, and the Grounders aren’t just noble savages or violent obstacles. Each group has developed survival strategies based on their experiences, and the series explores how these different approaches create both conflict and opportunity for cooperation.
The Blu-ray presentation really shines during these seasons’ action sequences. The 100 never had the budget of a premium cable series, but it used its resources intelligently, focusing on practical effects and real locations whenever possible. The transfers preserve the gritty texture of the ground-level scenes while maintaining the clean lines of the more technologically advanced environments.
What impressed me most about revisiting these seasons in high definition is how much visual storytelling the series accomplished through costume design and production design. Each community in The 100 has its own visual identity that reflects its values and survival strategies. The Blu-ray format allows you to appreciate these details that might be lost in standard definition viewing or streaming compression.
The series’ approach to violence deserves special mention. The 100 doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of its post-apocalyptic setting, but it uses violence purposefully rather than gratuitously. Characters who kill people suffer psychological consequences, and the series explores how necessary violence changes people over time. This thematic consistency becomes more apparent when you can watch multiple seasons in sequence.
Late Season Complexity – Science Fiction Gets Serious
Seasons five through seven represent The 100 fully embracing its science fiction potential, introducing concepts like cryogenic sleep, multiple planets, and consciousness transfer that push the series well beyond its original survival scenario. This is where the complete series format really pays off – these later concepts build on character relationships and moral frameworks established in earlier seasons.
The time jump between seasons four and five initially seemed like a risky creative choice, but watching it as part of the complete series reveals how carefully the writers planned this transition. The six-year gap allows characters to grow and change in ways that feel organic rather than forced, and it provides an opportunity to explore how different communities develop when they’re separated from each other.
These later seasons benefit enormously from high definition presentation. The production design becomes increasingly ambitious as the series introduces new environments and technologies, and the Blu-ray transfers preserve the visual complexity that helps viewers navigate the increasingly intricate world-building.
The series’ final seasons tackle questions about identity, consciousness, and what it means to be human that put it in conversation with the best science fiction literature. The 100 doesn’t always provide easy answers to these questions, but it earns the right to ask them through careful character development and consistent world-building.
Technical Excellence – When Digital Meets Disc
The 100: Season 1 collection represents The 100 at its technical best. These 1080p transfers were clearly created with care, preserving the series’ digital photography while avoiding the over-processing that sometimes plagues television releases. The color timing remains consistent across all seven seasons, which matters for a series that uses color palettes to distinguish between different communities and time periods.
The audio presentation deserves special recognition. The 100 featured an excellent score by Tree Adams and Jason Derlatka that combined orchestral elements with electronic textures to create a sound that felt both futuristic and primal. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks preserve the dynamic range of this music while providing clear dialogue reproduction and effective use of surround channels during action sequences.
What impressed me most about the audio design is how it uses silence and ambient sound to create tension. The 100 understood that post-apocalyptic environments would sound different from contemporary settings, and the series used that difference to create unease and atmosphere. The Blu-ray audio tracks preserve these subtle choices that contribute to the series’ overall effectiveness.
The compression artifacts that sometimes plague streaming presentations are completely absent here. The 100 was always visually ambitious, using practical locations and digital effects to create believable future environments, and these transfers allow viewers to appreciate the full scope of that achievement.
Special Features – Behind the Apocalypse
The Complete Series collection includes substantial special features that provide insight into both the creative process and the series’ evolution over seven seasons. These extras are distributed across the season sets rather than collected in one place, which means you’ll find relevant behind-the-scenes material accompanying each season’s episodes.
The showrunner commentaries are particularly valuable, providing context for creative decisions that might not be obvious from the episodes themselves. Jason Rothenberg’s discussions of how the series evolved from its original concept reveal how much planning went into the long-term story arc, even when individual seasons were addressing immediate creative challenges.
Cast interviews from across the series’ run create a time-capsule effect that’s fascinating for long-term fans. You can watch Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley grow into their roles over multiple seasons, and their discussions of character development provide insight into how performers collaborate with writers to create consistent character arcs.
The production featurettes focus on practical aspects of creating the series’ post-apocalyptic environments. The 100 filmed primarily in British Columbia, using natural locations to create alien landscapes that felt both familiar and strange. These features show how location scouting, costume design, and practical effects combined to create believable future communities.
Several seasons include deleted scenes that provide additional character moments without disrupting the main narrative flow. These scenes are useful for understanding character relationships, but they also demonstrate how tightly plotted the series became – most of the deleted material feels genuinely extraneous rather than essential content that was cut for time.
The disc also includes gag reels and behind-the-scenes footage that shows the camaraderie among cast members. While these extras are primarily entertainment, they also provide insight into how a long-running series maintains creative energy and cast chemistry across multiple seasons.
Character Development – Growth Through Catastrophe
The Complete Series format allows viewers to appreciate The 100’s greatest achievement: character development that feels earned rather than imposed. Clarke Griffin’s evolution from reluctant leader to hardened survivor to someone seeking redemption represents seven seasons of consistent character work that builds organically from episode to episode.
Clarke’s relationship with her mother, Abby Kane (Paige Turco), provides emotional continuity across the series’ various crisis scenarios. Their conflicts aren’t just personal drama – they reflect genuine philosophical differences about leadership, sacrifice, and the price of survival. Watching their relationship develop across seven seasons reveals how carefully the writers balanced individual character growth with larger thematic concerns.
Bellamy Blake’s character arc represents equally impressive long-term planning. His evolution from protective brother to military leader to someone questioning the costs of violence demonstrates how the series used its survival scenarios to explore deeper questions about masculinity, leadership, and moral responsibility.
The supporting characters receive similar attention to development and growth. Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) transforms from protected younger sister to fierce warrior to someone grappling with the consequences of her own violence. Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan) evolves from mechanic to technical genius to someone whose disabilities don’t define her capabilities.
What makes these character arcs work is how they’re integrated with the series’ larger themes rather than existing separately from them. The 100 doesn’t just tell a survival story – it uses survival scenarios to explore how extreme circumstances reveal and shape character.
World-Building Excellence – Creating Believable Futures
The 100’s world-building represents some of the most ambitious work attempted by network television science fiction. The series creates multiple distinct communities, each with its own culture, technology level, and survival strategies, without making any of them feel like simple plot devices.
The Grounders represent the series’ most successful creation – a post-apocalyptic society that feels genuinely different from contemporary culture without becoming a collection of fantasy tropes. Their language, social structures, and survival strategies all feel like logical responses to post-nuclear environmental challenges.
The various technological communities introduced throughout the series demonstrate different approaches to preserving pre-war knowledge and capabilities. From the Ark’s recycling-based survival to Mount Weather’s sealed environment to later seasons’ more advanced technologies, each community represents a different solution to post-apocalyptic survival.
The series’ approach to religion and mythology deserves special recognition. The 100 shows how spiritual beliefs evolve in response to catastrophic change, and it treats different religious approaches with respect rather than using them as sources of easy conflict or comic relief.
The complete series format allows viewers to appreciate how consistently the writers developed these various communities across multiple seasons. Details introduced in early episodes pay off in later seasons, and communities that seem minor initially often become crucial to later plot developments.
Thematic Consistency – Questions Worth Asking
The 100 succeeds as science fiction because it uses its futuristic scenarios to explore timeless questions about human nature, moral responsibility, and the price of survival. The series doesn’t provide easy answers to these questions, but it earns the right to ask them through careful character development and consistent world-building.
The central question of how far people should go to ensure survival runs throughout all seven seasons, but the series approaches it from different angles as circumstances change. Early seasons focus on immediate survival decisions, while later seasons explore longer-term questions about what kind of society is worth preserving.
The series’ treatment of violence represents particularly sophisticated moral thinking. The 100 doesn’t condemn or celebrate violence – instead, it explores how necessary violence changes people and communities over time. Characters who kill to protect others suffer psychological consequences, and the series shows how those consequences affect both individuals and their relationships.
The question of leadership receives similar attention throughout the series. The 100 shows different leadership styles responding to different challenges, and it explores how extreme circumstances both reveal and develop leadership capabilities.
Environmental themes run throughout the series without becoming preachy or heavy-handed. The 100 shows how environmental destruction affects human communities, but it also explores how human communities adapt to environmental challenges.
Production Values – Making Magic on a TV Budget
The 100 represents an excellent example of how intelligent creative choices can overcome budget limitations. The series never had the resources of a premium cable production, but it used its available budget efficiently, focusing on practical effects and real locations whenever possible.
The costume design deserves special recognition for creating distinct visual identities for each community without relying on obvious fantasy tropes. The Grounders’ clothing feels both primitive and sophisticated, reflecting their relationship with their environment. The Sky People’s clothing evolves throughout the series as they adapt to ground-based living.
The production design creates believable future environments using combinations of practical construction and digital enhancement. The various communities feel like real places where people live and work rather than just sets designed for dramatic effect.
The series’ action sequences demonstrate how choreography and editing can create exciting sequences without requiring enormous special effects budgets. The 100’s fight scenes feel visceral and dangerous because they focus on character consequences rather than spectacle.
The visual effects work improves throughout the series as budgets increased and technology advanced, but even the early seasons’ effects serve the story effectively. The 100 uses digital effects to enhance practical environments rather than replacing them entirely.
Cultural Impact – Beyond the Teen Demographics
The 100 proved that network television could successfully present complex science fiction narratives that appealed to adult audiences while maintaining the younger demographics that advertisers preferred. The series’ success opened doors for other ambitious genre programming on broadcast networks.
The series’ treatment of LGBTQ+ characters and relationships represented significant progress for network television representation. These relationships feel organic to the characters and stories rather than tokenistic, and they contribute to the series’ overall themes about different ways of building community.
The 100’s approach to diverse casting creates a post-apocalyptic world that feels genuinely international rather than defaulting to white American assumptions about who survives global catastrophe. This diversity serves the story by reflecting how global catastrophe would affect people from different backgrounds and cultures.
The series’ willingness to kill major characters and maintain consequences for character actions influenced other television series to take similar narrative risks. The 100 proved that audiences would accept challenging storytelling if it was executed with sufficient skill and commitment.
The Complete Package – Why Physical Media Matters
Season 1 has had a recent budget release, but I would steer people over to the complete series release. It represents everything that physical media can accomplish when studios treat television series with respect. The visual and audio quality surpasses streaming presentations, the special features provide valuable context, and the complete package allows viewers to experience the series’ full narrative arc without interruption.
For fans who discovered The 100 through streaming services, this collection provides the definitive viewing experience. The improved picture and sound quality reveal details that compression artifacts often obscure, and the special features provide context that enhances understanding and appreciation of the series.
The complete series format encourages the kind of long-term viewing that The 100 was designed for. The series rewards viewers who pay attention to details and character development across multiple seasons, and having all 100 episodes in one collection makes that kind of viewing convenient and enjoyable.
Bottom Line – Essential Science Fiction Television
The 100: The Complete Series represents one of the most ambitious and successful science fiction series of the 2010s, and this Blu-ray collection provides the best possible way to experience it. The series proved that network television could tackle complex themes and character development while delivering the action and excitement that genre fans expect.
For AndersonVision readers who appreciate intelligent science fiction and character-driven storytelling, The 100 offers seven seasons of consistently engaging television that rewards careful viewing and long-term investment in character development. The series tackles big questions about human nature and survival without losing sight of the individual characters whose choices drive the narrative.
This Complete Series collection preserves and enhances The 100’s achievements while providing the context and special features that help viewers understand how the series accomplished what it did. Whether you’re discovering The 100 for the first time or revisiting it after the series concluded, this collection provides the complete, definitive experience.
In an era when much television feels disposable, The 100 represents something more substantial – a series that trusts its audience to follow complex narratives and moral questions across multiple seasons. This Complete Series collection provides the best possible way to experience that trust and see how it pays off.
The seven-season journey from teenage survival drama to sophisticated science fiction represents one of the most successful creative evolutions in recent television history. The 100 never forgot its roots in character-driven storytelling, but it expanded its scope and ambition in ways that few series attempt and even fewer accomplish successfully.
For viewers who want their science fiction to matter – to explore real questions about human nature, survival, and the price of civilization – The 100 offers 100 episodes of consistently intelligent entertainment. This Blu-ray collection preserves that intelligence while providing the technical quality and special features that enhance rather than distract from the series’ achievements.
The 100 proved that audiences were ready for science fiction television that took its ideas seriously, and this Complete Series collection proves that physical media can still provide value that streaming services can’t match. Whether you’re a longtime fan or someone discovering the series for the first time, this collection represents essential viewing for anyone interested in what television science fiction can accomplish when it commits fully to its creative vision.
Series Breakdown by Season – The Complete Journey
Season One: Foundation Building The initial 13 episodes establish the basic survival scenario while introducing character dynamics that will drive the entire series. Clarke’s emergence as a leader, Bellamy’s protective instincts, and the discovery that Earth isn’t empty create the foundation for everything that follows. The Blu-ray presentation enhances the contrast between the sterile Ark environment and the wild beauty of post-apocalyptic Earth.
Season Two: Expansion and Conflict The introduction of Mount Weather and the full revelation of Grounder society transforms The 100 from survival story to complex political thriller. The season’s climax, where Clarke must choose between saving her people and maintaining her moral principles, establishes the series’ willingness to force characters into impossible situations with lasting consequences.
Season Three: Mythology and Technology The City of Light storyline introduces the series’ first major science fiction concept beyond basic survival, while the Ice Nation conflict expands the show’s political complexity. This season begins The 100’s evolution toward harder science fiction concepts while maintaining its focus on character-driven storytelling.
Season Four: Environmental Catastrophe The death wave provides a ticking clock that forces all communities to work together while maintaining their individual survival priorities. This season demonstrates The 100’s ability to use environmental threats as both plot devices and thematic material, exploring how different groups respond to existential challenges.
Season Five: Time Jump and Consequences The six-year time jump allows for significant character development while introducing the Eligius prisoners as a new community with different survival strategies. This season shows how separation changes people and communities, setting up conflicts that feel both personal and political.
Season Six: New Worlds The move to Sanctum represents The 100’s most ambitious expansion of scope, introducing new planets, new communities, and new technologies while maintaining focus on the core characters and relationships that drive the series. The Primes storyline explores questions about identity and consciousness that push the series into genuinely sophisticated science fiction territory.
Season Seven: Resolution and Transcendence The final season tackles questions about human evolution, consciousness, and what it means to be human while providing resolution for character arcs that have been developing across six previous seasons. The series finale remains controversial among fans, but it represents a conclusion that stays true to the series’ themes about choice, sacrifice, and the price of survival.
The Supporting Cast – Depth Beyond the Leads
While Clarke and Bellamy anchor The 100’s central narrative, the series’ success depends equally on its supporting characters, many of whom receive character development that would qualify as lead material on other series.
Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) transforms from hidden younger sister to fierce warrior to blood-soaked leader to someone seeking redemption. Her character arc represents one of television’s most successful explorations of how violence changes people, and Avgeropoulos brings both physicality and emotional depth to the role.
Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan) provides technical expertise and problem-solving capabilities while dealing with physical disabilities that the series treats as challenges rather than limitations. Her relationship with her own capabilities and limitations provides ongoing character material that never feels repetitive or forced.
John Murphy (Richard Harmon) evolves from apparent antagonist to complex anti-hero whose survival instincts and moral flexibility make him both valuable and dangerous. Harmon brings enough charm to make Murphy likeable while never letting viewers forget his capacity for self-interested behavior.
Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) represents authority figures struggling to adapt their leadership styles to changing circumstances. His character development explores how people in power respond when their traditional approaches no longer work.
Abby Griffin (Paige Turco) serves as both Clarke’s mother and a leader dealing with impossible medical and ethical decisions. Her relationship with Clarke provides emotional continuity while her professional responsibilities create ongoing moral conflicts.
The series’ ability to develop these supporting characters without shortchanging the leads demonstrates sophisticated writing that understands how ensemble storytelling can enhance rather than dilute central narratives.
Technical Innovation – Making Science Fiction Television Work
The 100 succeeded as science fiction television partly because it found creative solutions to the technical challenges of presenting futuristic concepts on a television budget. The series used practical effects, intelligent production design, and strategic use of digital enhancement to create believable future environments.
The makeup and prosthetics work deserves special recognition for creating distinct looks for different communities without relying on obvious fantasy tropes. The Grounders’ scarification and body modification feels like logical cultural adaptation rather than arbitrary exotic decoration.
The series’ approach to depicting technology focuses on functionality rather than flashy special effects. The various communities’ different technological capabilities feel like logical responses to their resources and circumstances rather than arbitrary plot devices.
The fight choreography throughout the series emphasizes brutality and consequence rather than stylized action movie aesthetics. Characters get hurt in fights, and those injuries affect their capabilities in subsequent episodes. This approach to violence serves the series’ themes about the cost of survival.
The location shooting in British Columbia provides natural environments that feel both familiar and alien, supporting the series’ post-apocalyptic setting without requiring extensive digital environment creation.
