The DVD debut of a newly rediscovered Doctor Who serial, the final seasons of Warehouse 13 and Nikita, plus a trio of interesting genre films including a Kevin Hart comedy, a Kevin Costner action thriller, and George Clooney’s historical drama, The Monuments Men highlight this week’s home entertainment releases
 
TV on DVD
 
A couple of shows with some geek cred, which headed to their final round-up in the past couple of years, are providing us with their tear-stained last season’s output this week including Warehouse 13: Season 5 (Universal, $39.98), which includes all six episodes of the final season of the Syfy series that debuted in 2009.  Heavily influenced by the X-Files and Moonlighting, Warehouse 13 manage to blend science fantasy, science fiction, and good old fashioned governmental conspiracies into a series that began by setting a network record with 3.5 million viewers for its initial episode and maintained a cult following throughout five tumultuous years on the air.  All 62 episodes are now available in the Warehouse 13: The Complete Series (Universal, $199.99), which comes packaged in a box that looks like some the sort strange alien artefact used in the series.
 
Also of interest is Nikita: The Complete 4th and Final Season (Warner Bros., $19.98, BD $24.98), which collects the final six-episode season of the CW series starring Maggie Q.  This psychological thriller was the second TV series based on the film Nikita, directed in 1990 by French action film specialist Luc Besson.
 
Fans of the classic Doctor Who series will be interested in Doctor Who: Story #040: The Enemy of the World (BBC, 150 min., $19.98), the fourth serial from the fifth season of the long-running science fiction series, which had previously thought to have been lost, but which was re-discovered last year (see “A Trove of Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found”).  Now this six-episode saga, which stars Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor) in a dual role, is available on DVD for the very first time, which makes it a “must-have” for the Doctor Who collector.
 
The only TV animation of note this week is Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros., 572 min., $28.99), which contains all 26 episodes of the first season of Batman “team-up” series that aired on the Cartoon Network from 2008-2011.  All 26 episodes of this series were previously released in two 13-episodes sets, so this material is not new, though it now comes at a much more reasonable cost.
 
There are plenty of vintage releases this week including The Abbott and Costello Show: The Complete Second Season (eOne, 734 min., $39.98),  and all five seasons of the classic sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, which are now available on Blu-ray in individual season sets.  Each season includes either 30 (Season 1) or 32 episodes and carries an MSRP of $24.98.
 
Other vintage releases include the sitcom The Facts of Life: Season 2 (Mill Creek, 400 min., $9.98), the Sally Field-starring Gidget: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, $9.98), Good Times: Seasons 3 & 4 (Mill Creek, 899 min., $14.98), Happy Days: The 5th Season (Paramount, $39.98), The Jeffersons: Season 1 (Mill Creek, 300 min., $9.98), the superb legal ensemble drama L.A. Law: Season 2 (Shout Factory, 880 min., $29.98).
 
Top U.K. dramas due in the U.S. this week include the gritty police procedural Waking the Dead: The Complete 9th Season (BBC, 579 min., $39.98), and the odd couple police drama Dalziel and Pascoe: Season 9 (BBC, 400 min., $39.98).
 
Theatrical Movies
 
While there are no big blockbusters due this week, there are plenty of interesting genre films including the romantic comedy remake of About Last Night (Sony, “R,” 100 min., $30.99, BD $34.99) starring Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, and Joy Bryant.  Kevin Hart is the hottest new comedy star to emerge since Melissa McCarthy, and this film owes much of its popularity with audiences and critics to the banter between Hart and Regina Hall.  Like the 1986 film, which in contrast featured an all-white cast, the 2014 remake is based on David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and if anything the raunchier tone of the 2014 film is closer in tone to Mamet’s play.
 
The critics didn’t much like 3 Days to Kill (Fox, “PG-13,” 117 min., $28.98, BD $39.99), which stars Kevin Costner in a European-set thriller than reminded reviewers way too much of the Liam Neeson vehicle Taken.  But action film devotees will find much to like in this fast-moving entertainment, which doesn’t pretend to be either plausible or anything more than skin deep. 
 
Another film that got short shrift from the movie press was George Clooney’s The Monuments Men (Sony, “PG-13,” 118 min., $30.99, BD $40.99), an earnest, but somewhat plodding and disjointed attempt to detail the workings of a special unit charged with rescuing works of art that had been looted by the Nazis.  Lots of folks will enjoy this example of the once potent historical military film genre, which features an impressive cast in a tale that is for the most part a pretty solid reflection of a little known aspect of WWII.
 
Another genre that hasn’t received much attention lately is the historical disaster film.  Pompeii (Sony, “PG-13,” 105 min., $30.99, BD $45.99) features a pedestrian plot and director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil) is hardly known for his subtlety, but for those who enjoy sword and sandal-era films, this film, which could muster just a 28% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, is actually worth checking out.  For anyone else, not so much.
 
This week’s real bust is Vampire Academy (Anchor Bay, “PG-13,” 104 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), one of the more recent failed attempts to create a movie franchise based on a popular YA novel series, in this case, Richelle Mead’s bestseller about two 17-year-old girls attending a school for “mortal, peaceful vampires.”   The novels establish an elaborate vampire cosmology that the movie is unable to muster convincingly.
 
Anime
 
Just a few releases this week led by Fairy Tail Part 10 (Funimation, “14+,” 300 min., BD/DVD Combo $54.98), the latest North American release from the long-running anime based on Hiro Mashima’s action-packed fantasy adventure/comedy manga.  Produced by Satelight, the ongoing anime series has reached 182 episodes in Japan.  Funimation’s excellent presentation, which look spectacular in Blu-ray, includes both an English language dub as well as the original Japanese soundtrack (with subtitles).
 
Re-priced reissues include a new BD/DVD combo version of the excellent avant-garde cyberpunk anime Serial Experiments Lain: The Complete Collection (Funimation, 325 min., BD/DVD Combo $39.98), which was produced by Triangle Staff in 1998.  All 13 episodes of the series, which took on such abstruse philosophical matters as the nature of “reality,” and “human identity.”  Those who like cutting edge anime can hardly do better than this.
 
Also due on Tuesday is the horror anime Shiki (Funimation, “17+,” 600 min., BD/DVD Combo $34.98), which is based on the horror novels of Fuyumi Ono.  The 24-episode anime was produced by Daume and aired in Japan in 2010.  This series was previously released in 2012 in two parts, each of which had an MSRP of $64.98, so this edition represents a real saving.
 
--Tom Flinn
 
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.