This week’s home entertainment offerings include the final Hunger Games film, one of 2015’s most popular comedies, plus the first season of Fear the Walking Dead, and a glorious Blu-ray Collector’s Edition of the groundbreaking TV series Freaks & Geeks.

Theatrical Releases

The top offering this week, at least in terms of box office performance, is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 (Lionsgate, “PG-13,” 111 min., $29.95, BD $39.99).  The final Hunger Games movie earned 30% less than the first film in the series, but still brought in $281.7 million in North America alone.  Jennifer Lawrence’s strong performances tend to obscure this series’ absurd plot and blatant appeal to the typical teenager’s sense of persecution, but this Battle Royale-like saga does have its campy delights, especially Stanley Tucci’s slimy celebrity MC, Caesar Flickerman.  For fans of the series, the Blu-ray edition includes over 5 hours of extra features.

Another big moneymaker at the box office that ultimately disappoints is Daddy’s Home (Paramount, “PG-13,” 95 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), a too-predictable male-rivalry comedy that pits the hapless and Walter Mitty-like step dad Will Ferrell against the sculpted and irresponsible biological father Mark Wahlberg.  There are some laughs here, but also plenty of raunch, which gives the movie some definite tonal problems that are especially evident in a scene in which Wahlberg sounds like a Republican Presidential candidate making jibes about the size of the “sword” of his rival (“The Step-King”), while recounting a “Fairy Tale” to his kids.
 

The Letters (Fox, “PG,” 119 min., $22.98) is a biopic of Mother Teresa, which is told through her letters that detail a real struggle to maintain her faith in the face of all the misery that remains in our modern world.
 

Horror movie fans will have to make do with Paranormal Dimension: Ghost Protocol (Paramount, “R,” $29.98, BD/3D $54.95), the latest Blumhouse production, which could manage only a 14% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, which is low even for a horror movie.  There are some jump cut scares here that will please some fans of the series, but the franchise does appear to be losing steam.

TV on DVD

This week’s slate of TV releases includes two very hot offerings.  Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete First Season Special Edition (Anchor Bay, 291 min., $49.98, BD $59.98) collects the six-episode first season of the spin-off series from Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.  Fear the Walking Dead is set in Los Angeles and follows the efforts of a dysfunctional family to survive the same zombie apocalypse that was the catalyst for the original Walking Dead series.  Extras include an “Inside Fear the Walking Dead” mini-documentary, deleted scenes, commentaries, and more.

Equally interesting for some is Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series—Collector’s Edition (Shout Factory, BD $119.00), which contains all 18 episodes of the groundbreaking 1999 series created by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) and Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) that featured James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal and John Francis Daley.

Also interesting is Lost Girl, Seasons 5&6: The Final Chapter (Funimation, 704 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), which collects the 16 episodes of the Canadian-produced supernatural series that ran from 2010-2015 and follows the adventures of a succubus, who is well-played by Anna Silk.

Other contemporary series of interest include The Royals: Season 2 (Lionsgate, 430 min., $29.98), which includes the latest 10-episode season of the E Network soap opera that is loosely based on Michelle Ray’s novel Falling for Hamlet, and the gritty Revolutionary War spy drama TURN: Washington’s Spies—The Complete 2nd Season (Anchor Bay, 438 min., $49.98).

Vintage TV releases include the 2001 Cartoon Network animated horror comedy Courage the Cowardly Dog: Season 3 (Warner Bros., 286 min., $24.98), Little House on the Prairie: Season 8 (Lionsgate, 1,260 min., BD $29.99), and the 1970s sitcom Maude: The Complete 4th Season (Shout Factory, 600 min., $26.99).

The lone U.K. release this week is Midwinter of the Spirit (Acorn Media, 144 min., $34.99), a 3-episode miniseries about a country vicar who trains to become an exorcist (or “deliverance minister”) in the Church of England, only to be confronted with a grisly murder that shakes her faith to its foundations.

Anime
This week’s top release is the Date A Live II: Complete Collection (Funimation, 280 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98) collects the 10 episodes (and OVA) from the second anime series based on the harem comedy/science fantasy light novel series by Koshi Tachibana about a future world that has been devastated by “spatial quakes” that have killed as many as 150 million people.  Turns out the quakes are caused by girls from another dimension, who need to be “sealed” by falling in love in order to avoid creating the quakes.  Enter Shido Itsuka, an apparently normal high schooler who discovers that he is a whiz at “sealing.”

Also of great interest is Fairy Tale, Part 19 (Funimation, 350 min., BD/DVD Combo $54.98) does contain “filler” episodes (anime stories that are not based on Hiro Mashima’s original manga), but these “fillers” are for the most part very good, and much in keeping with the tone and spirit of Mashima’s D&D-influenced fantasy manga.

The episodes in One Piece: Collection 15 (Funimation, 600 min., $34.98) have been released before, but they are available here at reduced cost.  This collection includes episodes 349-365, which contains the Thriller Bark arc, one of the darker, but more entertaining narrative arcs in the long-running rollicking pirate saga that remains one of the most popular anime and manga properties in Japan.

New this week is the 2014 fantasy anime series Celestial Method (Sentai Filmworks, 325 min., Subtitles, $49.98, BD $59.98), which was created and written by Naoki Hisaya and produced by Studio 3Hz. In this fantasy a teen girl returns to her small lakeside city, where she reunites with a blue-haired girl, who has a mysterious relationship with a flying saucer.