Some shows I just can’t stop watching, even long after I suspect they’ve jumped the ol’ shark. Sometimes this turns out to be a waste of time, and other times my persistence pays off with an unexpected creative resurgence. Two shows with season premieres in the past couple of weeks illustrate both extremes with their most recent seasons, both now out on DVD.

The continual disappointment for me has been Battlestar Galactica, which was once a strong enough show to go up against even giants like The Sopranos and The Wire for the title of Best Show on TV. But after the first season, the show seemed to have the wind sucked out of its sails, and it spent most of the third season floundering. Season “4.0,” now out on DVD, was an attempt to re-inject the series with some excitement, but even the revelation of five new Cylons seemed forced, desperate, pulled out of a hat. The pre-show scroll used to claim that the Cylons “have a plan,” but it became increasingly clear that the writers were improvising as they went along, and the show has none of the urgency that once defined it. Even a shocking ending to the last episode of 4.0 could barely rouse me from my apathetic half-interest.

On the other hand, Lost felt completely reinvigorated by its fourth season, with the ingenious creative decision to structure episodes around flash-forwards instead of flashbacks, and a real sense that the plot was moving forward—that there was something to actually reveal behind the show’s sometimes infuriating mess of hints and plot twists. While Battlestar lost its momentum, Lost picked it up again, and seems back in the game.

With Benjamin Button picking up a whopping 13 Oscar noms this week, it’s a good time to look back at director David Fincher’s last, sorely slept-on Zodiac, which comes out in a gorgeous Blu-Ray transfer this week that does the movie’s spectacular cinematography justice.