This week’s home entertainment releases include the biggest box office hit of 2017, the first season of the best Marvel-based network or cable series yet, the third season of Mr. Robot, plus the hilarious Robot Chicken ‘Walking Dead parody,’ and a beautiful re-mastered edition of the first season the classic 1960s science fiction series The Outer Limits.

Theatrical Releases

There is only one major theatrical release this week, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney, “PG-13,” price ?).  The Last Jedi was, as expected, the biggest box office hit of 2017, but Rian Johnson’s film did upset some hardcore Star Wars fans.  Many more are going to be irritated by the plethora of different editions of The Last Jedi that Disney is producing for different retailers, each with different “collectible” items included, as well as by the premium prices that the studio is asking for these Last Jedi discs in an era where streaming has overtaken hard copies in post-theatrical sales.  All justified carping aside The Last Jedi movie delivers the colorful, fast-moving entertainment that the franchise is known for, and does a great job of setting up the final film in the new trilogy in the process, but it looks like Disney is about to start exploiting Star Wars fandom with all the Martin Shkreli-like avariciousness that Paramount has so cruelly practiced on Star Trek fans.

TV on DVD

After a dry spell for TV releases there is a bevy of great shows due out this week led by Legion: The Complete Season 1 (Fox, 409 min., $39.98, BD $49.99).  Legion, the saga of the schizophrenic superhero David Haller (aka Legion) is the best of the Marvel-based network or cable series.  Created by Noah Hawley (Fargo) and starring Dan Stevens, Legion is far more complex than the typical Marvel fare (the show’s protagonist is “an unreliable narrator,” a sophisticated device that makes the narrative more challenging to follow).   As one might expected when words like “complex” and “challenging” were used to describe a TV series, critics, who gave Legion a 90% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, ended up liking the show a lot more than mainstream audiences, which were less enthusiastic, giving the series only modest ratings.  Still the potential audience for Legion is considerable, encompassing not only comic book fans, who have to be excited at seeing superhero narrative handled in such an innovative way, but also the sophisticated viewers of our “Netflix and chill” era.  Neither group will be disappointed by Legion. As an extra bonus, the Season 1 sets contain an exclusive copy of The World’s Angriest Boy in the World.

Other releases of great interest include the cyberthriller Mr. Robot: Season 3.0 (Universal, 492 min., $39.98, BD $49.98); the penultimate season of the undercover Cold War spy drama The Americans: The Complete 5th Season (Fox, $39.98); and for those who enjoy rap music or just want to get some clues about one of the most intriguing recent mysteries there is the mini-series Who Killed Tupac? (A&E, 252 min., $14.98).

Special mention should be made of Robot Chicken: The Walking Dead Special: Look Who’s Walking (Warner Bros., 22 min., $14.98, BD $19.98), a hilarious animated zombie apocalypse parody full of inside humor that fans of TWD will totally get.

These days it is rare that a vintage TV release merits special attention, but there is one this week--a re-mastered edition of the classic 1960s science fiction series The Outer Limits: Season One (Kino, 1,632 min., $79.98, BD $99.98), which includes all 32 first season episodes of the groundbreaking science fiction series.  The Outer Limits employed some of the best science fiction/horror writers of the era including Joe Stefano (Psycho), Harlan Ellison, and Robert Towne (Chinatown).

Other vintage series include the sitcom One Day at a Time: Season 2 (Shout Factory, 560 min., $22.97); the first responders’ drama Emergency!: Season 2 (Universal, 1060 min., $34.98); and the 1960s prime time soap opera Peyton Place: Part 3 (Shout Factory, 625 min., $34.99).

This week’s lone overseas offering is The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 4 (Acorn Media, 378 min., $59.99), which collects four feature-length mysteries set in beautiful bucolic New Zealand, and filled with both droll humor and grisly crimes.

Anime

It’s a relatively light week for anime releases, but there are two anime movies of interest, The Life of Budori Gusuku (Sentai Filmworks, “TV-14,” 105 min., BD $29.98), a 2012 film directed by Gisaburo Sugii for Tezuka Productions based on the 1932 fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa (Night on the Galactic Railroad) with the characters depicted as anthropomorphized cats; and Blame! (Viz Media, “TV-14,” BD/DVD $24.98), a 2017 film directed by Hiroyuki Sushita that is based on the science fiction manga series by Tsutomo Nihei and was released as a Netflix original in 2017.

Also due on Tuesday is Gintama: Series 3, Part 1 (Funimation, 650 min., BD/DVD $54.98), which includes 26 episodes of the long running (353 episodes and counting) anime series from Sunrise based on the science fiction action/adventure/comedy/samurai manga by Hideaki Sorachi.