There’s some great TV product coming out this week. Be sure to take a look.
First, the genre releases:
- Battlestar Galactica – Season 2.5: This starts with an extended edition of “Pegasus” and covers the rest of the season.
- The Boris Karloff Collection: Universal does a great job on these releases. This set includes “Tower of London,” “The Black Castle,” “The Climax,” “The Strange Door” and “Night Key.”
- Chucky: The Killer DVD Collection: This looks like it includes all five sequels to “Child’s Play,” but not the original. That could be misleading packaging, though. I’d wait for user comments to be sure.
- Comic Party – TV Series Collection
- Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Count Dracula’s Great Love / Frankenstein’s Castle Of Freaks: The first of three double features released this week. All six movies are also available individually.
- Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Legacy of Blood / The Devil’s Wedding Night
- Elvira’s Movie Macabre: The Doomsday Machine / The Werewolf of Washington
- Gunslinger Girl: Complete Box Set
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Season 2, Volume 2: It’s my understanding that this will finish the series. That’s pretty nifty packaging, too. Take a look in a store sometime if you haven’t seen how the four boxes line up next to each other.
- Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Complete Movie Collection: All movies feature Lon Chaney, Jr. The movies are “Calling Dr. Death,” “Dead Man’s Eyes,” “Weird Woman,” “Pillow of Death,” “Strange Confession” and “The Frozen Ghost.”
- Jigoku: An early Japanese horror movie, released through the Criterion Collection. You can’t go wrong with that.
- Roar – The Complete Series
- Who Wants to Be A Superhero?: Just in case watching it one (or fewer) times wasn’t enough for you.
Now, the non-genre releases:
- Bob Newhart – Complete Fourth Season: This was a good show, in its day.
- The Chris Rock Show – Seasons 1 and 2: All 17 episodes. Those are short seasons.
- Everybody Loves Raymond – The Complete Seventh Season
- Footballers Wives – The Complete Third Season
- Gilmore Girls – Complete Sixth Season
- Grease (Rockin’s Rydell Edition): A rerelease with new features. Let’s hope it has a new transfer, too. My sister has a copy of the first release, and it looks terrible.
- Hart to Hart: Complete Second Season: Get reaquainted with the boss and Mrs. H.
- Henry Fonda – The Signature Collection: Includes “Advise and Consent,” “Battle of the Bulge,” “Mister Roberts” and “The Wrong Man.” Don’t let the low Amazon.com scores fool you; they’re either complaining because all of these movie were already available, or because Warner Brothers didn’t include different movies, some of which Warner doesn’t even own the rights to. Yes, these are all available in other places. (I’ve got “The Wrong Man” in the Hitchcock signature collectin and “Advise and Consent” in the first controversial classics collection, for example.) That doesn’t make them bad movies. “Advise and Consent” is a very realistic feeling political film, “The Wrong Man” is a non-fiction crime movie directed by Hitchcock, “Mister Roberts” is a naval comedy that is quite funny, and “Battle of the Bulge” is a war drama and the only film in the set I haven’t seen. If you don’t already own the movies elsewhere, then this is a great price for them. (If your budget has more space, I’d even suggest getting the two box sets I mentioned above and the other two Fonda films on their own.)
- Hitchcock Favorites: It’s a St. Clair Vision three movie set, and at this price, it’s almost certainly unrestored British films Hitchcock made. They don’t reveal the movies it includes, though, which is unfortunate as I have most but not all of those, and would like to know if this would help me fill in my collection.
- King of Queens – Complete Sixth Seasons
- My Name Is Earl – The Complete First Season: This is an incredibly funny show, which just won the Emmy awards for best writing and best directing in a comedy. I don’t understand why it wasn’t even nominated for best comedy.
- Spirit of the Beehive: Another Criterion Collection release.
- The Unit – Season One
Finally, the pick of the week.
It’s a bit hard this week. Going by just the stuff I’ve seen, I’d have to go with My Name Is Earl, but based on the strength of the episodes I have seen, I suspect that Battlestar Galactica will win out once I watch the DVDs.
My Name Is Earl vs. Emmys
I suspect that this was a case of "spreading the wealth" in terms of nominees. Since Emmy nominees are determined by committee, said committee probably decided that they didn’t want to give three NBC comedies the nod. The nominees were The Office (NBC – won), Scrubs (NBC), Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), Arrested Development (Fox) and Two and a Half Men (CBS). Personally, I like the first four and find Two and a Half Men to be boring, but people do seem to like Charlie Sheen so there ya go. :)
BSG
Anybody know when they’ll be releasing Galactica season two in a not-stupid amount of boxes, i.e. one box?
Re: BSG
I suspect when it no longer becomes profitable to sell it in the stupid amount.
Re: BSG
I should therefore assassinate anyone who bought 2.0 before they buy 2.5.
This will require a whole lot of killbots…
On a disturbing note, the guys in the webisodes are smuggling the same guns for the resistance as the one that was used in the recent college shooting in Montreal. That’s an unfortunate coincidence.
Who Wants To Watch A SuperheroWannabe?
Who won that thing, anyway?
Roar
I really enjoyed Roar when it was on. How many episodes did it make it to? Any idea why it was cancelled? (Presumably just lack of audience, but I’m just wondering.)