Fringe: The Complete Fourth Season

Although this clever science fiction series featuring parallel universes and dimension-hopping villains has never been a big network hit for Fox, passionate fans have kept it on the air. The fourth season throws another twist in the mind-bending storyline, sending it into a whole new alternate reality, where absent-minded professor Walter Bishop (John Noble) is a little less stable and his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson), never existed … until Peter pushes his way back into reality and the life of partner, lover, and FBI agent Olivia (Anna Torv). The war between the dimensions rages as the team works to stop bad-guy David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) from opening the cracks between the worlds and destroying them both (the show also has fun with the alter-universe versions of the characters meeting up and learning a little bit about themselves through the distorted looking glass). In a hint of things to come, there is a flash-forward episode to a totalitarian future ruled by the “Observers,” overlords who command the Earth like a supernatural mafia. While one of the best sci-fi shows on TV, the producers have already announced that the upcoming fifth season will be the last. Compiling all 22 episodes from the 2011–12 fourth season, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes, a gag reel, and a digital comic (the Blu-ray release adds exclusive bonus featurettes). Recommended. (S. Axmaker)