The Americans Season 3

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

This series has been one of my favorites each season since it began. The writing is top notch. The cars, costumes, hair styles and clothing are historically accurate. There are interesting little details which add to the authentic feel like the introduction of digital encrypted radios in the cars of the FBI agents in season 3 that becomes a plot point for the main characters during a mission.

I worked in law enforcement starting in Communications in 1982, so the authenticity of so many details with regard to the FBI and encounters with other law enforcement helps to draw me into the story lines more deeply. The fleshing out of the characters continues this season as well with Paige being shown more and becoming more involved on the stories as the season progresses. I won’t throw any spoilers, I will say that some questions were answered for me about her perspective on her parents and about the attitude and relationship between the family and The Center which controls their assignments.

This show is not for young kids and parents will need to decide if it’s appropriate even for older teens. There is a lot of violence, body disposal, nudity and sex used as a tool for manipulating people. As in the previous seasons the main “married” couple is living a deep cover assignment with the innocent biological children they produced in the United States after being assigned to a marriage as part of their cover by their government in the former Soviet Union. Some may find their “sham” marriage, frequent sex with others for assignments and attitudes about religion problematic, but if those parts of the stories were deal breakers you probably wouldn’t have made it past the first episode of season one.

The look and feel of the show is more like a film than television. Instead of the heavily saturated high definition digital color of a modern show, the cinematographer uses vintage lens according to one of their behind the scenes clips to change the look. I had already noticed that the show looked like it was filmed decades ago. In addition to the muted colors and lighting in general, during flashbacks to earlier times the scenes gets even more soft in focus as they are shooting those scenes using 16mm film according to their information clips.

In total, this is a show that is a somewhat hidden gem airing new episodes on FX and available for purchase through Amazon. One of my few inconveniences in cutting my cable last summer was that I would have to wait to purchase the next season of this series. I hope that Amazon gets it as soon as possible.

– P.D. Collins

How many viewers have to mention the subtitle issue on Season 3 before Amazon does anything? Have been through all the subtitle “help” options on the site without success. Major fail, Amazon. Horrible experience ruining an otherwise interesting series.

– In Texas

I love this show and thus far it has me fully interested. This was up til I got to Season 3 and couldn’t watch the first episode. They managed to add episode 1 back but then another problem reared it’s head. There are no subtitles for the Russian spoken parts of the show. Usually I would maybe write this off and continue, however, just in the first episode alone you see a moment where Elizabeth is listening to something in Russian and you know it’s important because there is a dramatic shift in the tone as she’s listening. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea what she is hearing as I do not speak Russian and I don’t own a translation app. I contacted Amazon about this and I received a reply on 02/22/17. This is the segment pertaining to the issue, the rest was very courteous and apologetic.

“Earlier we were facing issue with the subtitles of this season and in order to resolve this issue, we have requested new content from content provider. This being the reason the season has been temporarily taken out of Prime catalog. We have been informed by the content owner that the new content would be available in a couple of days and we’ll immediately add the content back to Prime catalog.”

I was really hoping this would have been taken care of by now so I could continue to binge over the weekend but it seems it’s still a problem. The other downside is that you can’t even go to FX’s website to watch this season anymore. It directs you to Amazon Prime. >.<

-Aviate

DVD Wholesale Main Features :  

Actors: Matthew Rhys, Lev Gorn
Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 4
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Release Date: March 1, 2016
Run Time: 586 minutes