On DVD and Blu-ray Disc

Flooding the market just in time for the holiday shopping season are a slew of new DVD and Blu-ray releases, a few titles of which are worth noting. Among them is “The 4400: Complete Series,” which will remind plenty of “Heroes” (only it’s better) as it follows humans with superhuman powers--and all the high and lows that go along with those powers.

Anarchy is everywhere in that series, as it is in "Little Rascals: The Complete Collection,” which at last finds Darla on DVD, along with the rest of the Our Gang cast, in their first appearance in a complete boxed set. The collection is a boon of Depression-era outrageousness, with each of the 80 shorts fully remastered.

Two television shows from Paramount are recommended, the best of which is the fifth season of “Girlfriends,” a fine option for those seeking an alternative to “Sex and the City.” The show isn’t as daring or as baring (it didn’t, after all, appear on HBO), but its humor is cheeky and it does tackle similar issues, with its four female leads fighting to make it in Los Angeles. Joining them there are the women in the groundbreaking Showtime series “The L Word,” the fifth season of which continues to follow the lives of several Los Angeles lesbians, all of whom nicely resist stereotyping.

The summer blockbuster “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is just out on DVD and Blu-ray disc. It comes with four pairs of 3-D glasses, which are helpful in viewing Brendan Fraser and company as they face all sorts of unwanted oddities and adventures at Earth’s core. The movie is better than expected, as is Disney’s straight-to-DVD and Blu-ray title “Tinker Bell,” whose swift storyline and excellent animation likely will leave its target audience of tots happy to clap for fairies.

Rounding out the week are the slight first season of the urban comedy “Sister, Sister” (skip it), the third season of “How I Met Your Mother” (don’t miss it), and “The Alice Faye Collection, Vol. 2,” a mixed set of five Faye films from Fox.

First up in that set is 1939's "Rose of Washington Square," with Faye cast opposite a smoldering Tyrone Power (did he ever not smolder?); 1939’s “Hollywood Cavalcade," with Don Ameche and Faye appearing in the duo’s weakest film; 1941's "The Great American Broadcast," in which Faye sings a terrific version of Harry Warren’s “Where You Are”; and 1943's "Hello, Frisco, Hello," which is the best film of the set.

Here, Faye sings her classic “You Never Know,” as well as “Pick on Me” and “The Grizzly Bear.” The set concludes on a bum note with “Four Jills in a Jeep,” which feels so slapped together, it brings this collection to a screeching halt.