The final seasons of two excellent TV series, House and The Closer, hit the stores on Tuesday along with the first reasonably-priced Mighty Morphin Power Rangers collection, the final 13 Tintin adventures from the 1991-1992 TV series, and the Blu-ray debut of the last Disney film that was substantially created by the studio’s original animation team.

 

 

There are plenty of big releases in this category starting with House Season 8: The Final Season (Uinversal, $59.98, BD $64.98), which collects the last season of one of the most interesting medical dramas in TV history. Hugh Laurie’s pill-popping medico with decided misanthropic leanings was rarely less than brilliant with his diagnoses, just as this series itself represents a sort of high point when in comes to drama series on the Fox network.

 

But there are plenty of other releases worth taking a look at including the final season of another quality series, The Closer, which stars Kyra Sedgwick as a top-notch police investigator who is not afraid to get her hands dirty if it means putting a bad guy away. The Closer: The Complete 7th Season (Warner Bros., 860 min., $59.98) collects all 21 final season episodes that appeared on TNT.  

 

Other popular series with their latest collections due out this week include NCIS: The Complete 9th Season (Paramount, $64.99), NCIS: Los Angeles—The Third Season (Paramount, $62.99), Revenge: The Complete First Season (Disney, 880 min., $45.99) the debut season of the prime time crime/soap opera set in the Hamptons, and the hit sitcom Mike & Molly: The Complete 2nd Season (Warner Bros., 440 min., $44.98).

 

Those who were kids in 1993 when the American version of the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger debuted as The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers will certainly be interested in The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers—Season 1, Part 1(Shout Factory, 600 min., $19.93). The price of this 3-disc set is so reasonable, and the Super Sentai action still provides plenty of fun for nostalgia buffs and kids alike.

 

Other kid-targeted releases include The Adventures of Tintin: Season 3 (Shout Factory, 300 min., $19.93), which includes the final 13 episodes of the well-produced French/Canadian production from 1991-1992. This series is very faithful, in both character design and narrative to the original Herge graphic novels and is highly recommended for those with young children.

 

The Marvel Super Hero Squad cartoon series is targeted at young viewers, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t tangle with some of the major story arcs in the Marvel universe. Case in point is The Super Hero Squad Show: The Infinity Gauntlet Vol.4 (Shout Factory, 120 min., $14.93). Another favorite of the little ones is the Cartoon Network’s Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation (Warner Bros., 79 min., $19.93)

 

Kids will also like this week’s only offering from the U.K., Planet Dinosaur (BBC, 180 min., $19.98), which transports viewers across the globe and back through the eons to bring a panoply of the latest dinosaur discoveries to life along with the biggest, baddest “thunder lizards” this world has ever seen.

 

Fans of vintage American TV only have one new release this week, but it’s one of the best, Perry Mason: The Seventh Season, Vol.1 (Paramount, 759 min., $49.99), which collects 15 great mystery sagas featuring Raymond Burr as the most incisive lawyer in the history of televison.

 

 

It is a very light week in this category with only No.6 (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 275 min. $59.98), an 11-episode anime series produced by Bones in 2011 and based on the post-apocalyptic series of science fiction novels written by Atsuko Asano. The only other release this week is Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie (Eastern Star, 99 min., $19.95), a new DVD edition of the vintage 1982 anime film produced by TMS and based on Buichi Terasawa’s shonen manga space opera—a release that virtually defines what is meant by “old school anime.”.

 

 

Disney has released a new Blu-ray double-feature of The Rescuers/The Rescuers Down Under (Disney, “G,” $29.99, BD $39.99). Produced in 1977 The Rescuers was the final Disney film that was primarily created by the studio’s original animators (including the famous “Nine Old Men”), though it also featured the talents of a younger generation of animators like Don Bluth. Based on a children’s book by Margery Sharp, The Rescuers marked a return to drama (and “heart” as Disney like to say). It was the lone successful Disney animated production between The Jungle Book in1967 and The Little Mermaid in 1989, and it is a movie that Disney collectors will want to own, especially in this new Blu-ray incarnation that preserves the film’s original understated palette and thankfully resists the temptation to brighten everything up to Hawaiian shirt level intensity. Both films are housed on one disc, but there is no lack of quality in the detail in the backgrounds of either. While neither of The Rescuers films would crack the Disney all-time Top 10, each of the film’s has its own charms, and this new Blu-ray release is a must for the Disney collector and a solid value for parents looking for quality children’s entertainment.

 

 

Sacha Baron Cohen’s schtick is wearing a little thin these days, but The Dictator (Paramount, “R,” $30.99, BD/Combo $40.99) does allow him to get a little more mileage out of satirizing the supposed backwardness of various third world functionaries with this tale of a once powerful North African strongman, who is overthrown while on a visit to New York City.

 

Those who prefer a more nuanced, rigorous, and universal look at life in a developing country should check out A Separation (Sony, “PG-13,” $30.99, BD $35.99), a serious art house film about a middle class Iranian couple torn apart by the demands and opportunities of modern day life that won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film” in 2012.

 

Folks in search of an interesting American art house movie won’t go wrong with Bernie (Millennium, “PG-13,” $28.98, BD $29.99), a morbidly funny movie based on a true story about a gay funeral director (Jack Black) who is charged with killing a nasty old woman (Shirley McClaine), who is about as good an argument for justifiable homicide as one could ever imagine.

 

 Tom Flinn

The opinions in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.