‘Tis the season to get into Christmas shopping. There
are some ideas below.
First, the genre releases:
- Andromeda
Vol. 5 Collection 2: More episodes of
Andromeda. - Angel:
Seasons
1-5: The Buffy mega-set will be out
shortly, so they’re
rereleasing this. This, however, is not new packaging
with a new
bonus disk, like the Buffy set, but it rather the
existing releases
shrink-wrapped together. If you already have all five
seasons, this
will offer nothing new. - Charmed
– The
Complete Third Season: More of the sexiest witches
on television. - Fantasy
Island
– The Complete First Season: Ricardo Montalban
hosts a bizarre
resort. - Flintstones
–
The Complete Fourth Season: The show only lasted
six years in its
original run, but it’s gone way past that mark in
syndication. - Heavenly
Kid: I really enjoyed this when I was young. I’m
almost afraid to
watch it again, just in case it doesn’t hold up under
time. - Hello
Kitty’s
Animation Theater: Complete Collection: Hello
Kitty isn’t really
my thing, but she’s popular enough to mention this
close to
Christmas. - The
Huckleberry Hound Show – Vol. 1: Hanna-Barbera
goodness. - King Kong: The Animated Series has two
releases this
week. Volume
1 and Volume
2 contain an unknown number of episodes from the
52 episode
series. - Madagascar:
The
official release for this is November 15, but I saw it
on store
shelves yesterday. - The
Monty
Python Box Set: This includes Monty Python and
the Holy
Grail (which has enough fantasy elements for me
to claim it as
genre), And Now For Something Completely
Different, and
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. - The
Skeleton
Key: Because Halloween doesn’t end in
October. - Stargate
Atlantis – The Complete First Season: The spinoff
series hits
DVD. - Stealth:
If any vehicle you own gets struck by lightning, get
rid of it right away. - Tru
Calling –
The Complete Second Season: It was a short season,
but now it’s
available in places other than Best Buy. - The
Ultimate
Star Trek Collection: All live action Star
Trek released
in one package. The latest rumours place the animated
series on the
release schedule for some time next year. - Yogi
Bear Show
– The Complete First Season: Hang on to your
picnic baskets.
Now, the non-genre releases:
- Cheers
– The
Complete Seventh Season: Many shows die at or
before season
seven. Cheers was just hitting its
stride. - Def
Leppard –
Rock of Ages: Definitive Collection: A video
collection for a
decent group. - Ed
Sullivan’s
Rock N Roll Classics: For those who prefer music
older than Def
Leppard. - Frasier
– The
Complete Seventh Season: Unlike Cheers,
this was fading
by the time season seven rolled around. - Friends
– The
Complete Tenth Season: In my opinion, season ten
was about nine
years past the prime of this series. Also due this
week is a limited
edition
complete series boxed set. - The
Harold
Lloyd Comedy Collection Vol. 1-3: One of the
original slapstick
comedians. - Murder
One –
The Complete Second Season: This was a highly
reviewed, but not
highly watched series. - Oklahoma!
(50th Anniversary Edition): A decent musical,
whose previous
release wasn’t even anamorphic widescreen. Most fans
will find it
well worth the upgrade. - Old
Yeller
Collection: Includes Old Yeller and
Savage Sam. - Oprah
Winfrey
Show – 20th Anniversary Collection: This is a six
DVD set, which
makes it an excellent price. Do you still need to do
Christmas
shopping for Mom? - Scrubs
– The
Complete Second Season: I have yet to see an
episode of this very
well reviewed comedy. - The
Sound of
Music (40th Anniversary Edition): While this is
probably the best
known Robert Wise film, I don’t think it was the best
quality. (It’s
good, but not as good as The Day The Earth Stood
Still.) - State
Fair
(60th Anniversary Edition): This includes both the
1945 version
and the 1962 version. - That
’70s Show
– Season Three: This is one of the better
sitcoms. - Three’s
Company – Season Five: How many misunderstandings
can these people
have? - There are two releases about Wal-Mart this week,
which is unusual
timing. Wal-Mart
– The High Cost of a Low Price is being released
by the Brave New
Films studio. Why
Wal*Mart Works and why that makes some people
C-R-A-Z-Y! is being
released by Hannover House. The odds of these two
being released at
the same time by accident are fairly low. I wonder if
Wal-Mart saw
the first on the release schedule, and made sure the
second was going
to be out at the same time to manage the fallout. - Yakuza
In
Love: I’ve never heard of this before, but the
title does get my
attention.
Finally, the pick of the week. I’ll have to go with
the Ultimate
Star Trek Collection as the most interesting
item. It’s a
massive collection, with the greatest appeal to people
who likely
already own a significant portion of the set, and yet
which doesn’t
really bring the individual unit price down enough to
appeal to those
of us who have been holding off due to cost. How many
of these can
they really sell?
UPDATED: It turns out that this is the week that
the Buffy The Vampire Slayer limited edition
complete series set is released. Amazon.com has stopped
listing it, possibly because it sold out, but Amazon.ca
will ship it to the U.S. without a problem.
Wow
Wow. None of this is even tempting! I guess that’s a good thing…
Re: Wow
I find The Monty Python Box Set quite tempting. I haven’t bought the Holy Grail ’cause I hate then ending, but the Baron is quite amusing, and I love cheap combo packs : )
Re: Wow
Well, it’s not tempting because I already have it (;
Re: Wow
I’m with you. Nothing much to consider.
How many seasons were there of Andromeda? I mean, I tried to watch regularly in recent times, and there were some really good ideas, but overall, I felt it was all a squandered effort.
As a side comment, I hope that Lexia Doig will stay on Stargate: SG1.
Two thoughts
Madagascar was better than I thought it would be, along with some cute scifi references in the middle, and Stealth ends up ok enough, once they get past the T-n-A parts.
Damien