Revenge, Once Upon a Time good; 2nd seasons falter a bit

Two ABC series now have their sophomore seasons on DVD and Blu-ray. Both are full of twists and turns and feature strong female leads.

On the negative side, both had second seasons that didn’t quite live up to their firsts (which, really, you should watch before you try to dive into these). Regardless, both series begin their third seasons Sept. 29.

Revenge, Season 2, 22 episodes on five discs from ABC Studios, $45.99

After Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp) learned that her father was framed for a crime and then murdered, she got a little training from a revenge expert, changed her name to Emily Thorne and rented a house in the Hamptons so she could find the people responsible and, big surprise, exact her revenge on them.

Her plot brought her into the orbit of the powerful and corrupt Grayson family, ruled by matriarch Victoria (Madeleine Stowe).

It’s basically a series with pretty, wealthy people behaving very badly and alternately sleeping with and plotting to kill one another.

For Season 2, there are more romantic entanglements, twists and turns, some iffy acting, and Victoria may or may not be dead.

The second season falters a bit but keeps up the treachery, cheese and soap that make the show popular as Emily starts to see that her revenge plan may have severe, unintended consequences.

How about the extras? There are two very nice features that take close looks at the oft-neglected topics of costuming and musical scoring. There’s also a short blooper reel, commentaries, deleted scenes and a throwaway ad for a novel based on the series.

Once Upon a Time, Season 2, 22 episodes on five discs from ABC Studios, $79.99 (Blu-ray)

Now, we journey into fairy tale land. Sort of.

In Season 1, “Bailbonds Person” Emma Swann (Jennifer Morrison) discovered that she was actually the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming (Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas), sent out of the Enchanted Forest for her own safety to escape the curse of the Evil Queen Regina (Lana Parilla).

Thanks to the son she’d given up for adoption 10 years earlier (Jared Gilmore), she found herself in Storybrooke, Maine, a small town in which all the residents were actually fairy tale characters with amnesia and stuck in time — until the chosen one (Emma) could break the curse.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off. The curse has been broken, and townsfolk remember their true identities. But magic has come to Storybrooke, and baddies Regina and Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) are a little too happy about that for it to be good news.

The new season has new bad guys and a lot more knots in the Charming family tree. The series starts to lose some of the charm that made it compulsive viewing in its first year as it gets bogged down in some draggy plots, but it doesn’t go too far offcourse.

And extras? One of the best of the bunch is an episode of Good Morning, Storybrooke, the town’s morning show. It’s a 12-minute parody of small-town local news shows with some very fairy tale-specific gags. On the more helpful side, there’s Fractured Family Tree (available only on Blu-ray), a 7-minute tongue-in-cheek breakdown that explains the very complicated Charming family history.

Two featurettes offer character analysis on new villain Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and the show’s powerful women. There’s also a brief gag reel, multiple episode commentaries (one of which is Blu-ray only) and some deleted scenes.

New this week: Anger Management, Season 2; Army Wives, Season 7; The Big Bang Theory, Season 6; Blue Bloods, Season 3; Castle, Season 5; Chicago Fire, Season 1; It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 8; Luther, Season 3; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Season 1; Supernatural, Season 8.

Next week: Arrow, Season 1; Bates Motel, Season 1; C.S.I., Season 13; Grimm, Season 2; Heartland, Season 3; Leverage, Season 5; The Mentalist, Season 5; Nashville, Season 1; Waking the Dead, Season 8.