When My Name is Earl premiered in September 2005, it was immediately (and rightly) hailed as one of the funniest shows on television. It was also one of the slyest and most quietly innovative, a single-camera, laugh-track-free series that often didn't get credit for its sideways wit and subtle social commentary--a smart show, in other words, about dumb people. In its style and form, it was less like a TV sitcom and more like a series version of Raising Arizona.

Kevin Smith favorite Jason Lee plays Earl Hickey, a two-bit thief and petty criminal stuck in a nowhere life: his cheating wife Joy (Jaime Pressly) is about to leave him for Darnell (Eddie Steeples), aka "crabman." His slow-witted brother Randy (Ethan Suplee) still lives with him. And just when he has a stroke of luck and wins big on a scratch ticket, he gets hit by a car and the ticket blows away. While in traction, he sees Carson Daly on television talking about karma, and decides that bad things keep happening to him because of all the bad things he's done to others. So Earl makes a list of all those bad things and starts taking care of them, one by one--an operation financed by that scratch ticket, which reappears after his first good deed.

During that first season, the series really was "must see TV"--series creator Greg Garcia (previously known only for the far inferior Yes, Dear) and his writing staff were able to get plenty of comic mileage out of their central cast (further augmented by the lovely Nadine Velazquez as good-hearted motel housekeeper Catalina). Those key players are surrounded by a truly inspired group of semi-regulars and bit players--the residents of Camden County, where the show takes place: Patty the Daytime Hooker, Kenny, Ralph Mariano,TV's Tim Stack, one-legged Didi, Chubby, Little Chubby, and Earl and Randy's parents (well-played by the beleaguered Beau Bridges and Nancy Lenehan). Earl's adventures were good-natured and often laugh-out-loud funny, and while (like Scrubs) the wrap-up narrations were occasionally heavy-handed, the show's underlying message of tolerance and doing unto others was rather wonderful.

However, the show started to go astray in season two, going too far afield of its original concept with extended story arcs about Joy's criminal activities and Earl's attempts to grow up; the fear of getting stuck in a rut is understandable, but as a general rule, this is show where the quality of the episode has a near-direct correlation to how much time Earl spends with his list in his hand. That was bad news for the show in season three, then, which found Earl in prison for part of the season and, most unfortunately, in a coma for much of the remainder (his comatose fantasy life, in the style of a 1950s family sitcom, marked the show's creative ebb).

The good news about My Name is Earl's fourth (and ultimately final) season is that Garcia and his writers seemed to see how they'd gone off the tracks, and did an admirable job of returning the show to its roots. Season four is the series' most consistently entertaining and funny since season one, and while not every episode is a home run, it remains goofy, enjoyable fun.

Highlight episodes include "Monkeys Take a Bath," a Garcia-penned episode in which the Hickey brothers accidently stir up some bad blood between their parents; "Joy in a Bubble," which finds Earl filling in for Joy after his failed attempt to give her a hot tub results in her being stuck in a bubble, waiting out a flesh-eating infection; the flashback episode "Earl and Joy's Anniversary" (particularly its ridiculous killer bees subplot); the surprisingly sweet tale of childhood romance, "Pinky"; and "Chaz Dalton's Space Academy," especially the scenes concerning Joy's attempts to make friends on the social networking site "BuddyBook."

As before, Lee is a sturdy, solid anchor for the show, sympathetic and likable while still landing enough laughs to keep from purely playing straight man to the far-out supporting cast. Suplee's dopey Randy remains a valuable player (his clueless "romance" with a guy named Jim in the episode "Friends with Benefits" is written and played just right), though I still haven't forgiven them for phasing out the Earl/Randy bedtime chats that played under the closing credits in season one. But Pressly's Joy is the comic gift that keeps on giving; she's slowly but steadily become the show's MVP, imbuing her trailer trash mom with such a full and funny personality that even her throwaway lines get laughs (personally, I fell out each and every time she barked "Dummy!" at Randy).

The force of her comic persona helps sustain a fairly weak mini-arc, in which her on-again, off-again audition for Erik Estrada's reality competition show show ("Estrada or Nada") leads to her accidently outing Darnell, who has been hiding in federal witness protection. Their aborted attempts to blend into their new, relocated environments sound like a funnier concept than they end up being, and Danny Glover's guest shot as Darnell's dad doesn't quite land like it should.

Another misfire is the two-part "Inside Probe" episode, in which a years-old TV news investigation of the death of Crab Shack owner Ernie (hosted by a game Geraldo Rivera) is finally aired; there are some good gags in it, to be sure, but the entire enterprise is far too reminiscent of the similar "Our Other Cops Is On!" episodes from season three, themselves a rehash of the "Our Cops Is On!" episode of season two. I'm sad to see My Name is Earl gone, but when they start reworking old ideas this frequently, it might be for the best. The show's final episode, "Dodge's Dad," is funny but tremendously unsatisfying--the show's writers were clearly unaware that they were on NBC's chopping block, and ended the season with a "To Be Continued" cliffhanger. One wishes the network would have given the good folks at Earl a heads-up, so the series could have come to a more fitting conclusion.

Season four is Earl's first on Blu-ray; the season's 26 episodes are spread over four 50GB discs. Discs one and two each contain six episodes and the deleted scenes from that batch of shows, while discs three and four contain seven episodes and corresponding deleted scenes. The remaining bonus features are included on the fourth disc as well.

Fox has also brought back that inexplicable packaging faux pas from the Dollhouse set last summer: the cover card glued to the exterior plastic wrapping. Again: Huh?

Earl arrives on Blu sporting a credible MPEG-4 AVC transfer in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio of its HD airings. Backgrounds are a touch fuzzy in spots, but the image is fairly sharp overall--colors are bright and vivid, skin tones are natural (Joy has a bit of an orange-y hue to her, but I'm fairly certain this is specific to her character, who would presumably enjoy the occasional spray-tan), and details are sharp--in tight shots, you can make out every hair of Earl's grizzled mustache and bed head. Black levels are full and even throughout.

The English 5.1 DTS-HD MA is perhaps more than required for a network comedy series--as is the norm, the bulk of the action is front-and-center dialogue, though the show's rock-heavy soundtrack and occasional environmental effects provide some activity in the surround channels. Dialogue is consistently clear and audible.

English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are also available.

There's been something of a law of diminishing returns for Earl on DVD; seasons one and two both boasted extensive commentary tracks from cast and crew, webisodes, and other goodies, but season three gave us no commentaries and only a gag reel, a featurette, and some deleted scenes. Season four's bonus items are along the same lines.

We're treated to plenty of Deleted Scenes; as mentioned before, they're spread out among the four discs, matching up to the episodes therein. Disc one's deleted scenes run 4:41 total, and include a funny "production meeting" for the movie that Earl produces in the season's premiere. The highlight of disc two's deleted scenes (7:03 total) is a longer cut of "Joy & Earl's Anniversary Video." Disc three sports a shorter batch of chopped clips (3:11 total), though it does include one great line: "So for the first time in her life, Joy pulled the kind of all-nighter that required books." Disc four's clips (5:04 total) are mostly dominated by a slightly different version of Joy's shenanigans at the last episode's flashback Halloween party, though I was hard-pressed to tell the difference between that and the final version.

Next up is a very funny Gag Reel (8:02); as on the show's previous sets, the cast appears to have a fine time working together, and their laughter is truly infectious. We also get a short but amusing "2 The Max Movie Trailer" (1:19), dovetailing from the indie film of the season premiere. The set's longest and most substantial extra is "Earl's Fan Mail" (33:03); hosted by Lee, it features questions from fans, read and answered by cast and crew members. Frequently funny and genuinely informative, it ends up functioning as a slightly more clever way of doing a traditional making-of featurette. It's also the only time we really get to hear from the cast and crew; one wishes there would have at least been a commentary track or two, in order for them to provide some parting thoughts (and perhaps solve the mystery of Earl Jr.'s daddy).

Though it ends on an unfortunate, unanswered question, the fourth and final season of My Name is Earl provides an abundance of laughs and a long-overdue return to what the series does best. While it never tops the show's first (and still best) year, it is certainly the show's strongest season since then--a bittersweet victory, since the show may very well have been ended when it still had some life left in it.

Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.