After a particularly dour third season, fans were promised that the fourth season of The Flash would lighten things up, which was most welcome. On the other hand, the pacing and plotting of the major character and story arcs was uneven and dissatisfying, with lots of highs but too many lows.

The Flash: The Complete Fourth Season is out on Blu-ray and Digital HD combo pack today and across its four discs offers up not only all 23 episodes but the compete “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover event. No doubt, this was necessary considering that Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Iris West (Candace Patton) finally tie in the knot in the crossover’s Legends of the Tomorrow installment.

While he is taking a moment to appreciate his happiness, his season-long antagonist has determined Barry needs to be taught humility and sets about to beat that into him episode after episode.

We start the season six months after Flash sacrificed himself to remain within the Speed Force to maintain its stability. Iris has gone from fledgling reporter to the brains behind Team Flash, more fully integrating her into the stories but defying logic. At best, she is the team’s heart and soul; at worst, it’s a pale imitation of Felicity on Arrow.

Once they free Barry, we learn this and everything that follows has been carefully orchestrated by Clifford DeVoe (Neil Sandilands), a man in search of knowledge (wisdom not so much) who winds up mutated by the same forces that turned Barry into the Fastest Man Alive. Aided by his devoted wife and partner Marlize (Kim Engelbrecht), the Thinker is racing against time, attempting to acquire massive powers before his body fails. These powers are to be derived from the dozen passengers aboard the same bus that also gave Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) his stretchable powers.

Along the way, the large supporting cast needs to be serviced, so we watch Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) accept her Killer Frost alter ego, lose it, and work to regain it; Cisco (Carlos Valdes) pine for Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) while helping her father, Breacher (Danny Trejo) cope with losing his powers; Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) feel like a fifth wheel and head off to be a Legend; and Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) prepare to become a father all over again with his new wife Cecile (Danielle Nicolet). Then there’s the flipside to DeVoe, Harrison Wells of Earth-2 (Tom Cavanaugh), who amps up his brain in an effort to match wits with their foe, only to find the price was his intelligence (but also giving us the godawful Council of Wells).

Thankfully, we also have a new foe in Blacksmith (a scenery-chewing Katee Sackhoff) and other distractions. The most wasteful and illogical thread has to be the trumped up charges against Barry, getting him convicted of killing DeVoe and letting his stew in Iron Heights while the Thinker’s plans progress. The Enlightenment, Thinker’s big scheme to ruin mankind’s intelligence so he can reteach them, is too easily dealt with and the conclusion feels rushed and unsatisfying.

Don’t get me wrong, there are strong episodes and terrific moments throughout the series, but too many times I watched and cringed at bad plotting and overly prolonged threads. Even the addition of Sterling Gates to the writing staff couldn’t stop the badly conceived stories. It was gratifying to watch the Elongated Man become a hero, working to save the other bus metas and become fully integrated into the team.

Sprinkled throughout, we see a pretty, young woman (Jessica Parker Kennedy) working at Jitters and encountering various members of the cast until she arrives for the season ending cliffhanger: her revelation as Barry and Iris’ daughter from the future and in need of their help.

The four discs come in a clean high definition transfer at 16×9 1:78:1 with a good DTS-HD 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track.

In addition to a handful of deleted scenes, there are bonuses scattered throughout beginning with a Gag Reel (8:58) on disc one. Disc two brings us the four show runners responsible for the “Crisis” crossover (41:30) which was too self-congratulatory and not revealing enough. Elongated Man (9:44), on disc three, has the producers gush about the fun of bringing the stretchable sleuth to the screen and what the actor brought the cast. Also on the disc is Flash Time on Amunet Black with Katee, Eric, and Sterling (12:52), the most enjoyable as the star chats with Executive Producer Eric Wallace and writer Sterling Gates, looking at her fourth season appearances. Disc four offers up The Fastest Mind Alive: The Thinker (15:20), a look at the comic book origins and adaptation of the villain. Here, the producers talk a good game making me wish more of this was found in the episodes themselves. Finally, there’s The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2017.

The CW Seed has been the ancillary stomping grounds for animated versions of DC Comics’ Arrowverse characters, a chance to extend the brand with lesser-known heroes. For their third outing (after Vixen and Constantine), they smartly offered up Freedom Fighters: The Ray for two six-episode seasons, which have been edited together into a feature, on disc today from Warner Home Entertainment.

Although the two seasons arrived in December and July, they act as a prequel story to last fall’s “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover extravaganza. Here, we have the birth of the Freedom Fighters with appearances by not only the Ray but also Black Condor (Jason Mitchell), Phantom Lady (Dilshad Vadsaria), Dollman (Matthew Mercer) and Red Tornado (Iddo Goldberg). According to some behind the scenes shenanigans, the animated story was written first and when the four-parter was written for live-action, things weren’t lining up right, so the keen viewer will notice there are inconsistencies between the two.

The biggest headscratcher may be the Ray fighting alongside Green Arrow (Matthew Mercer), the Flash (Scott Whyte) if they didn’t meet until the crossover.

That said, this is a very entertaining short film with pleasant limited animation aided by strong vocal talent. It’s interesting to note that this version of The Ray, originally created by Will Eisner for quality Comics back in the Golden Age, was a 1990s revival from Jack C. Harris, Christopher Priest, and Joe Quesada. As voiced by Russell Torey (a veteran BBC genre star), he is a likeable kid, coming to grips with his powers at a time when things look fairly dark for Earth-X’s population.

Interestingly, Ray Terrill being gay wasn’t overt in the comics but became a main selling point for the transition to mass media. The third episode focuses on Ray as a closeted adult, living with his conservative parents. Seeing him struggle is good, since it establishes his personality and gives people in similar situations a role model. Things go wibbly-wobbly when we realize this has been Earth-1 and the Earth-X Ray, a hero, arrives mortally wounded and passes on his powers to his doppelganger, sending him to a world where the Nazis won World War II and people like him are sent to the camps.

When the Ray fully comes into his powers and responsibilities as a hero, we can thrill to his battle with the New Reichsmen’s Overgirl (Melissa Benoist). She’s aided by Black Arrow and Black Flash so there are a lot of costumes and duplicates in this event. He gets plenty of support from Arrow and Flash in addition to Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Mr. Terrific (Echo Kellum)

I have no idea why it took Emilio Ortega Aldrich, Lauren Certo, Marc Guggenheim, Sarah Hernandez, Elizabeth Kim, and Sarah Tarkoff to write this, but it also may explain the slightly shifting tone from episode to episode, which is less obvious when spliced together. What IU can’t figure out is why the various uniforms worn by the heroes come from differing seasons of the Arrowverse so you can’t quite tell how far ahead of the crossover was this set.

The edited feature looks terrific on Blu-ray and sounds just fine, letting you appreciate Blake Neely’s score. The movie has been released as a combo pack so you can have Blu-ray, DVD, and a Digital HD code. The sole special feature is a way too short interview with Tovey.

Nothing is as it seems on Fox’s Lucifer. The charming police procedural series is also a horror story and maybe even an allegory for human existence. Loosely based on Vertigo’s Lucifer Morningstar (from Sandman), the show has underperformed on the network despite a strong lead performance from Tom Ellis. As a result, fans never know if the show will be around or not.

With season three’s pickup iffy, Fox held back four episodes — “Mr. And Mrs. Mazikeen Smith,” “City Of Angels,” “Off the Record,” and “Vegas with Some Radish.”– running them as part of the 2017-18 season. Then, when things looked dire for a fourth outing, they decided to hold back on two more. And finally, once the show was officially canceled, they burned off the final two episodes – “Boo Normal” and “Once Upon a Time” — as a block on May 28,

Thankfully, you can have all 26 of them on four discs in the just-released Lucifer the Complete Third Season from Warner Home Entertainment.

We open with the mystery of where Lucifer was and how he got his wings back. That propels things, especially his consternation at the fact no one noticed his two-day absence. There are, though, bigger issues including a new killer in town, dubbed Sinnerman along with a brand new commander at police headquarters: Lieutenant Marcus Pierce (Tom Welling). You can almost being to suspect there’s some connection between the two and it is revealed across the run of the season.

Each week there’s a crime to solve and character arcs to advance, but really, this season is all about the characters coming to grips with their true natures. Lucifer won’t tell Chloe (Lauren German) who he is, something he’s tried to do since the beginning, usually with his fussy brother Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) stopping him. This time, it’s Pierce who gets in the way, romancing her, bringing her along for his own reasons that make for a nice reveal in the post-hiatus “All about Her”. He’s Cain, the first murderer, and was cursed with immortality and like so many immortals in fiction, is weary of it and wants to die. His plans are all about bringing him death and peace in Heaven.

LUCIFER: L-R: Tom Ellis and Kevin Alejandro in”All Hands on Decker”

But first, others must die, which brings out fine work from Tricia Helfer, as Charlotte, and Woodside. Welling’s Pierce was a wonderful addition, and his work has been quite effective, coming a long way from Smallville.

Lucifer has other ideas as seen in the rather effective finale, “A Devil of my Word”, with terrific visuals and a nicely choreographed fight. Finally, he stands revealed as the devil and Chloe is left to process the news. And as things wrap up, we’re left with a final meditation on free will vs God’s plan.

The series has, fortunately, been picked up by Netflix so we can see what happens next.

The five DVD discs are fine to watch and come with a handful of deleted scenes for 11 of the episodes. Additionally, disc 2 offers up Off Script with Tom & Tom, Part 1 as Ellis and Welling chat in Lucifer’s penthouse. You can find the entertaining part 2 on disc 3 and part 3 on disc 4. On the final disc, you have the cast and crew chat about moving the production to California in Lucifer Returns! Bringing the Hit Show to LA and the obligatory Lucifer: 2017 Comic-Con Panel, and finally a short Gag Reel.

As I made clear with Deadpool, while I love the creators, I have always been lukewarm towards the Merc with a Mouth. I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining the film adaptation was and that Ryan Reynolds was right to stick with the plan to make the character work on film.

Now we have Deadpool 2, out this week on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment and it cleaned up at the box office, making in excess of $770 million worldwide. I think there’s a place for the character and the cheeky sendup of the oh-so-serious superhero fare. Frankly, better skewer yourself than let someone else do the honors. It’s certainly a proven success for Marvel the last decade.

The super-thin plot basically has a despondent Deadpool, in the wake of his sweet Vanessa’s (Morena Baccarin) death come to the aid of a young mutant, Russell Collins (Julian Dennison), hounded by an orphanage and its nasty headmaster (Eddie Marsan), that has been abusing mutants. This could have been subtitled How Deadpool got his Mojo Back.

Along the way, he gets a wakeup call from Colossus (voice by Stefan Kapicic), forms X-Force, and fights against or with Cable (Josh Brolin) as the prey becomes the prowler as the kid, pushed to the limit, fights back. Cable’s back from the future to kill the kid to protect his own family, creating the usual temporal headaches. X-Force features many familiar mutants including Domino (Zazie Beets), and you either love or hate how they’re used (abused?) in this film.

That’s pretty much it. Along the way, we get the overstuffed meta jokes and Easter Eggs, some of which are utterly brilliant and others are just so much filler. Brolin and Beets sell their new characters well although her Domino looks better in comics, here she looks generic.

Director David Leitch keeps things moving at a fine clip and makes certain the fun supporting players from the first outing, including Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) and Weasel (J.T. Miller) are there for good bits. Less useful was the superfluous use of Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who is now playing kissy face with newcomer Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), who smiles and waves a lot.

Really, it’s amusing but not the thrill a minute freshness the first film was. The action set pieces are prolonged, notably the X-Force chase/battle sequence. The climactic battle between everyone at Juggernaut (a CGI amalgam of multiple performers, voiced by Reynolds) was just so much destruction without humor. Better are the post-credits sequences that offer up some of the best meta humor in the entire film and well worth sticking around for.

The film most clearly sets the film and character in the Fox corner of the Marvel universe thanks to a brilliant blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. The question becomes, where do you go from here? The answer may reside more with Kevin Feige than anyone else and it’s still too early to tell.

The Blu-ray comes with two discs, one with the theatrical release and special features while the second disc has the fifteen minute longer Super Duper Cut. The best that can be said of the new cut is that it provides a fascinating study in editing considering line reads and sequences are edited differently as are the musical cues. Basically, the fifteen minutes is merely more. The 4K Ultra HD comes with the theatrical release as both 4K and Blu-ray plus the bonus Blu-ray disc. All versions come with a Digital HD code.

The AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1 is just fine, with good color and detail (pointing out how cheap some of the CGI looks in comparison with other moments). The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is excellent.

There are plenty of special features, some fun, some interesting, some utterly superfluous. We start with the Deleted/Extended Scenes (2:36) and Gag Reel (3:11) before we get to the film’s theme explored in Deadpool Family Values: Cast of Characters (15:09). Then we have David Leitch Not Lynch: Directing DP2 (11:39); Deadpool’s Lips Are Sealed: Secrets and Easter Eggs (12:52); Until Your Face Hurts: Alt Takes (9:25); Roll With the Punches: Action and Stunts (6:57); The Deadpool Prison Experiment (11:28); The Most Important X-Force Member (12:21);  Chess With Omega Red (1:16); Swole and Sexy (2:12), which focuses on the red necks (Matt Damon and Alan Tudyck); and, “3 Minute Monologue” (2:14), Brolin riffs during makeup.

There’s an Audio Commentary by Ryan Reynolds, David Leitch, Rhett Reese and Paul Warnick that is occasionally interesting and revealing.

Deadpool’s Fun Sack 2: Videos (35:22) has an amalgam of bits filmed for the film including the hilarious first teaser and Stills (2:23).