I'm not sure about your specific problem, but I can tell you that different titles can send some DVD players off the rails. Sometimes DVD production people just go a little too far with their custom menus, other special features or simply the way the content has been encoded. Some DVD players, like a Samsung I bought for someone a few years ago, were exceptionally bad. Generally I'd say this is a problem with disc content rather than the DVD player. Of course one would hope their player wouldn't just lock up.
I've never had a problem with Toshiba players other than older models not being able to read recordable media.
You should be able to cut power to the player and then once plugged back in, just eject the disc. Some current models are more like a small general purpose computer than you would think (going as far as using a DVD-ROM drive connected with standard ATA interface).
