DVD Tuesday: ‘Back Up Plan’ and ‘Lost Season 6’

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New this week on DVD and Blu-ray: Jennifer Lopez stars in the romantic comedy, The Back-Up Plan; the sixth and final season of Lost brings the epic series to a big, heartfelt finale; and a look at the third season of the sci-fi series Lexx, starring Brian Downey, Michael McManus, Xenia Seeberg, and Nigel Bennett.

The Back-Up Plan
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Alex O’Loughlin
Director: Alan Poul

Jennifer Lopez returns to the movies this week in a romantic comedy about one lonely woman looking for love.

After years of not being able to find the perfect guy, Zoe, played by Lopez, decides that she can’t wait any longer to have a baby and goes for artificial insemination. Not surprisingly, Zoe immediately meets what could be the perfect man, played by Alex O’Loughlin, and now she has to decide whether to tell him that she’s actually pregnant.

Falling into love, the two have nine months to see if they can make their relationship work, and whether Stan can actually live up to the challenge of being Zoe’s perfect husband.

Although the film has a bubbly, cute veneer, The Back-Up Plan is what Andrew O’Hehir from Salon.com called “skin-crawlingly uncomfortable,” while Dana Stevens of Slate wrote, “I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend this movie, but if you were tied down and forced to watch it, you wouldn’t necessarily have to chew off your own leg to get away.”

In other words, there are worse ways to spend your time, but based on the majority of reviews, The Back-Up Plan should really be reserved for weekends when you really have nothing else left to watch.

Lost Season 6: The Final Season & Lost The Complete Collection
Starring: Matthew Fox, Terry O’Quinn, Michael Emerson, Evangeline Lilly, Nestor Carbonell, Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim

After six strange, mind-blowing seasons, Lost finally came to an end earlier this year, and the amazing thing is that fans still walked away with more than a few questions.

For those fans, Lost: The Complete Collection and the final season of Lost, both on DVD and Blu-ray, may finally provide a little more closure, even as they raise a few more questions.

Wrapping up the hit series, which ultimately polarized fans, the sixth season of Lost followed the remaining survivors across two narratives. On one side, the survivors on the Island dealt with the Man In Black and Charles Widmore after the survivors detonated the nuclear warhead named Jughead in the hopes of resetting their timeline.

Meanwhile, the other storyline revealed the survivors meeting each other in Los Angeles, but they weren’t quite themselves. Going about their different lives, almost as if the plane had never crashed on the island, these characters don’t seem to really know each other, and it takes a real jolt for them to remember what happened on the Island.

This all happens as Jacob tries to guide Jack and Hurley, played by Matthew Fox and Jorge Garcia respectively, to uncover the secrets of the Island and bring their group of friends together for one common cause to save the Island.

While the season wrapped up a lot of threads, the good news is that these two releases wrap up a few more details as well. In particular, the collection includes the feature “The New Man In Charge” which provides a 12-minute epilogue to the series, which also potentially opens the door for a spin-off.

For dedicated fans, especially anyone who did not pick up previous seasons, the complete collection is an amazing package, and includes oodles of goodies. It’s not a cheap collection, but you can expect to get your money’s worth, especially once you find the disc of extras that’s hidden in the clever packaging.

Lexx: Season Three
Starring: Brian Downey, Michael McManus, Xenia Seeberg, Nigel Bennett, Jeffrey Hirschfield, Tom Gallant
Rated: 7.5/10

Since the show first debuted on television I’ve been something of a Lexx fan-boy. The series is easily one of the most creative, funny, and odd shows ever made, especially in Canada, and in season three the show really hit its stride.

After drifting through space in crysostasis for close to 4000 years, the Lexx and its crew, including Stanley, Xev, Kai and 790, arrive at the planets of Fire and Water. Waking up finally, they find themselves between an age-old feud between the apparently cruel people of Fire, who are ruled by the mischievous Prince, played by Nigel Bennett, and the seemingly simple-minded people of Water.

Unlike the previous seasons, which took place mostly within the Light universe, the third season is completely set in the Dark universe around the planets of Fire and Water. It’s an impressive season for sci-fi fans, and the writing for the episodes is well above the quality in the first or second seasons.

The cast is also great this time out, and while I enjoyed the main cast, special praise has to go to Nigel Bennett and his glorious performance as Prince, and Anna Kathrin Bleuler who played Stanley’s dream girl, May.

Although I’m a big fan of the third season, the DVD package does lose a few points in my books because it comes with no features. When the DVDs were originally released they came with a number of extras, but those have been ditched for some reason.

Watching the show on a Blu-ray player some of the credits and graphics also don’t enlarge very nicely on a big screen, but I can’t fault the show for that. Ultimately, if I ever got my wish and the series makes it to Blu-ray, we’ll see some updated features and maybe even a few enhanced graphics, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic, or just wishful thinking.