The Last Man on Earth: The Complete First Season

A familiar premise of post-apocalyptic cinema—a disaster kills all but a handful of human beings on Earth—forms the basis of this TV comedy created by Saturday Night Live veteran Will Forte (who also stars) along with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie). Forte plays Phil Miller (a play on the co-creators names), a self-absorbed jerk with little ambition and less motivation to rebuild the world, but boredom, loneliness, and desperation finally drive him to his hometown of Tucson, AZ, and he leaves behind signs for other survivors to meet him there. Kristen Schaal is Carol, an eccentric and somewhat neurotic woman who finds Phil in Tucson and pressures him to marry her before she will sleep with him (and begin their duty of repopulating the Earth). Phil has little interest in fatherhood but he is desperate for sex. In fact, lust is his major motivation, pushing him to more extreme behavior once more women arrive, as he plots to get rid of rival men, who naturally prove to be more resourceful, ambitious, and generous than self-centered Phil. The humor is built on Phil's selfishness, which borders on sociopathic behavior at its worst, and his pathological lying, which inevitably backfires. Phil wants respect; he just doesn't want to earn it. Forte is very funny in the role, maintaining an odd man out quality in the solid ensemble that forms around him in this Fox network hit show. Compiling all 13 episodes from the 2015 first season, extras include audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and deleted scenes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)