Heroes: Season 4

This superhero adventure hit came to an abrupt end after its 2009–10 fourth and final season, which brought in a dark carnival and a vengeful ringmaster named Samuel (Robert Knepper), who recruited and collected super-powered folks for his own ends. Various other narrative threads—the invulnerable Claire (Hayden Panettiere) goes to college (where she finds a girlfriend), space-time manipulator Hiro (Masi Oka) tries to fix past mistakes (at a detriment to his own health), and villainous Sylar (Zachary Quinto) takes on a whole new identity with the help of mental surgery—offer up a bunch of twists without adhering to any cohesive plot. All in all, Heroes: Season 4 is a serviceable conclusion to a cult show that failed to find stories as interesting as its core concepts and visual style, but fans will want to follow the journey to its end, even if that finale is a “to be continued” cliffhanger. Creator Tim Kring (in a bonus introduction) promises that the effort will continue in some form, perhaps through the comic books and graphic novels that inspired the show in the first place. Compiling all 18 episodes, Blu-ray/DVD extras include episode cast and crew commentaries, interviews, deleted scenes, and a “Genetics of a Scene” collection of behind-the-scenes featurettes on key scenes. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a picture-in-picture “Behind the Big Top Tour” mode. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)