Yet another reason for me to love DVD's, especially the t.v to DVD revolution. I finally got a chance to see Wiseguy for the first time. I had heard about Kevin Spacey being on the show a few years ago (was crazy in love with him at the time) and had wanted to see it, but had no way of getting the episodes. It wasn't coming on t.v. or anything that I knew of. So I was thrilled when I heard that it was coming to DVD and I finally got a chance to rent the first part of seaon one with the Sonny Steelgrove story. I just started watching the DVD's yesterday and already I'm hooked. I was surprised at how much I like all the characters. The gorgeous Vinnie, charming Sonny, no-nonsense McPike, uber-efficient Lifeguard, even Mama Wiseguy. Sonny's surprisingly charming and charasmatic for a gangster, lol. I'm only halfway through the SS arc so far, so I'm sure I'm looking forward to seeing him go down, but I'm going to kind of hate to see that, lol. Also, I think I kind of love McPike. He kicks all kinds of ass for someone so bespectacled and serious, lol. And I love the way he banters with Vinnie. Oh, he says he doesn't like him, but he does. I can tell. ;)

Cannot wait to see the Mel Profitt story.

At 60 dollars canadian each, I have Angel S1, Dark Angel S1 and S2, whole show. Damn fox. -shakes fist-

The Dark Angel DVD's are completly commercial free, great quality, the blooper reel is really funny, and it has the Season Premieres, and Season Finales with great commentary, either directers, producers or actors, and it has a few other episodes with Commentary too. It has audition tapes and 3 really well done behind the scenes featurettes on each. Packaging is fairly standard, slide it out of the box thing, open it, each disk has its own little square and such. The menu's are well done, and I don't have any complaints apart from on the 2nd DVD set so far 1-3 disks have made a sound like the DVD player was going to explode. Dark Angel overload most likely. Watched the 1st season in 2 days...

Angel Season 1, I've only watched 3 episodes so far so can't really comment much, packaging the same as Dark Angel.

I'm a PBS freak and I'm currently trying to convince myself that it's worth paying over $200 to get all 5 seasons of the Upstairs, Downstairs series. I'm also eyeing some of the "life" series: Frontier Life, Manor Life, 1900 House....

Allow someone who owns all five seasons on DVD and LOVES THEM to convince you instead: IT'S SO WORTH IT!!!!

As someone who has not bought any let me say that the BBC is considering putting their ENTIRE archive of shows on the net to be accessed free of charge. This is just in the proposal stage AND may NEVER happen, but if you may want to keep this in mind.

Just wanted to add that the region 1 Upstairs, Downstairs sets are pretty horrible quality. Extreme graininess and fuzziness, and I believe most (if not all) have no special features. The region 2 ones are somewhat better, and I believe they're cheaper.
This site discusses this and has some screencaps, too.
The quality is watchable, though, and I did get used to it. So it might still be worth it.

Thanks for all the advice on the Upstairs, Downstairs DVDs. I knew that the picture quality would not be good (but at least matches VHS hopefully), but I missed alot of the series when it was playing and would be satisfied just being able to see all the episodes.

I don't know why they can't get good video transfers on BBC shows. I have 2 different sets of the Pride and Prejudice series, and the picture quality of both of them sucks.

Blake: Correct me if I'm wrong, but DVD players bought in the US can't play Region 2 disks, can they?

Does anyone here own the boxed set of "Brideshead Revisited" on DVD? That's something I'm currently trying to justify - I'm a big Jeremy Irons freak but every time they do a marathon of the miniseries, I always forget or miss out somehow, so I don't exactly know if it's a good buy.

Oh, and this year? I'm completely going bankrupt with all of my favorite shows making it to DVD - Freak & Geeks, Newsradio, Kids in the Hall..I know I'm missing so much more, lol. Anyone feel the same way?

lindakoy, I'm no expert, but there are multi-region players and I believe you can get someone to fix a one-region player so you can see all regions on it.

On "Brideshead Revisited" -- I'm probably in the minority, but I couldn't make it to the end. I could be wrong, but I looked at the book and it seemed like they pretty much adapted it as faithfully as possible. Too much, I thought. It seemed like they didn't leave a single thing out. It irritated me because film and literature are different forms, and I felt like I was watching a book. As a film, it seemed ponderous and slow, with lots of voice-overs that were clearly taken from the book. I started wondering what the point of a film version was, and why I shouldn't just go read the book. That's just my personal opinion, of course. Many people love it and can give you another view. I did happen to see it on DVD, and the quality is decent. I would rent it first, if you can find it.

i love that the TV-to-DVD trend is happening...
But i have been sorta disappointed by most of what i have ( All in the Family Seasons 1 & 2, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son). It would be nice to have some extras, though the Laugh In box is pretty good without many, and i agree with everyone who's praised Schoolhouse Rock.

Does anybody know any production details on the Little House on the Prairie boxes yet? It would be most excellent to have a commentary with Alison Arngrin & Melissa Gilbert & Matthew Laborateaux; alas, but a critter can still dream...

Also, i'd greatly welcome some wisdom about why TPTB seem so intent on making us wait so long for the later seasons of Oz.

Let me take a moment to rave about the wonderfullness that is Firefly on DVD. Like was mentioned above, the set has all eps in the correct order (ie, not the inane way they were aired) and it has kick ass extras. So many commentaries. So many funny commentaries. Behind the scenes featurette. Deleted scenes. Gag reel. Other extras I can't remember.

The picture is incredibly clean. The sound is awesome, both on a cheap hotel TV and on a friend's surround sound. The menus, wraps, etc are (unlike the ones on Buffy) well designed, user friendly, and non-annoying.

But besides all of that, do you know what my favorite part is? Each disc is enclosed in its own jewel case. I am so sick of those stupid cardboard foldout DVD holders. I have yet to open a Buffy set where at least one disc hasn't come loose in the stupid holder, and had to return my first set of season twos because they had gotten scratched from jumbling around in the packaging.

(The worst offender of this is the X Men collection of both movies. Three of the four discs always get loose in the package. Always.)

If your DVD player can't handle Region 2, your PC probably can. If you can find the DVDs on EBay, it might say in the description whether it will or not.

What really pisses me off about BBC and other British shows on DVD is that they don't include subtitles. Frequently the sound vascillates wildly and it's just impossible to hear what someone is saying, or there's some special sound effect (like Sapphire and Steel using telepathy), or a thick regional accent and I want the subtitles. Why am I forking out money to replace off air tapes when I'm not getting better picture quality or even the absolute minimum improvement of subtitles, which aren't even special enough to be considered an extra?

stinkylulu, welcome to TWoP. Please read the FAQ.

So far I've picked up the Cheers Season 1 set and tomorrow I'll be snapping up Season 2. Looks like pretty much the same in terms of extras aside from a gag reel. Hopefully Paramount will make the extras on future seasons better and not just some interviews and glorified highlight reels. Oh well, at least the best sitcom of the eighties is being released. Now Fox, they know how to do a dvd box set. They're way out of my current price range, but they're still the best.

I am currently in the process of purchasing Friends and Buffy DVDs. Buffy is nice, although as said elsewhere, they are not as generous as they might have been with the extras. Friends irritated me only because they realeased several 'best of' DVDs before the TV-to-DVD craze began and I had to buy some eps that I already had. No, really. I HAD to. They made me.

I also have Alias seasons 1 & 2, which are hands down the best I have seen. They have loads of episode commentary, most of which is excessively amusing. There are hilarious blooper reels (you haven't lived until you see Jennifer Garner turn around and smack into the chain link fence) and they are relatively affordable--somewhere in the $50 range. They are choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Excellent Ferris Bueller's Day Off reference. :)

I got the Smallville season one DVDs for Christmas. The packaging is attractive and the sound and image top-notch, but I wish that there were more special features. Cast auditions and a blooper reel would have been awesome.

A few others in this thread were wondering about Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared on DVD. If you haven't checked out the F&G thread in the Sitcom forum in a while and you're not subscribed to TV Shows on DVD for updates, you might've missed this. The DVDs are confirmed for an April release. Here's the link to the F&G site with Judd Apatow's message. Sweetness! I'm sure they'll be concentrating on getting Undeclared out next.

Am I the only one disappointed that the Firefly DVDs are not in 5.1 surround?

I couldn't have possibly understood all of Hilda Ogden's speech had This Is Coronation Street not had subtitles. But Coronation Street is made by Granada, which is an ITV production company, so there you are.

Alexandria Bay, I totally agree. The reason I haven't bought the rest of The Prisoner is because it's not subtitled. It pisses me off. And the weird thing is, when a local PBS station was showing it last year, there were captions. I really don't get it. I'm pretty sure Jeeves & Wooster isn't subtitled, either. Gr.

The Office has some great subtitles, so I don't think it's necessarily all BBC shows.

My brother made a similar complaint, but then decided the sound quality was fine.

After the talk about Homefront in the Religion topic, I'm reminded that I want it on DVD! Now! And I know MPI is releasing the classic Dark Shadows at a nice clip, but I want '91 DS on DVD. Now!

It's always a race for me to get the episode started or to get to the next menu before the music starts over again on the Angel S2 DVDs. The little menu music thing is only like ten seconds long, and if I get distracted before I get the thing going, it gets really annoying. I do wish they had done commentary on at least one other episode besides "Are You Now...", because I would have liked to have heard their thoughts on stuff out of the Darla arc.

eta- but the Angel DVDs refuse to stay put on their little plastic holders, they constantly come loose and slide away and onto the floor. The Buffy ones don't do that, so it's got me baffled.

I know the "previously ons" aren't included on the Buffy DVDs, but I think they should have included the one that begins "The Gift". Because it was awesome.

Maybe it's only the British stuff that was previously released on VHS that lacks subtitles? It seems like all they did was transfer to the new medium, without adding anything or even cleaning up the sound and picture in many cases (I dare you to listen to any of the Campion episodes).

On the other hand, Blackadder has extras on the DVDs and it was out on tape. Hmm. There must be a common thread that will allow me to avoid the DVDs put out by the lackwits who decided no one needs subtitles for incomprehensible British dialogue.

They can put this tripe on dvd but can't give us another complete season of Law and Order: Original Recipe. Life ain't fair!

I just bought Little House on the Prairie: Complete Season 1. And, stinkylulu, I love it but hate the lame extras. LHotP on dvd is gorgeous with only minor distortions and glitches; but they really dropped the ball on what they could have done with the extras. There's a dopey quiz, the stupid cast filmography, and a photo album set to the show's theme music. Blech.

Schoolhouse Rock is also an excellent buy. So many wonderful extras!

There's a new contender in the "worst" category: the new box set of Crime Story's first season. A despicable case of all expense being spared, this collection sports grainy VHS-level transfers, no extras, chapter selections for only one episode, and-worst of all-some of the licensed songs are missing. For a series that depended as much on period feeling as this one, it's a terrible blow. Fuck you, Anchor Bay.

Smeg, regarding The Prisoner, the copies of volumes I and II that we rented at our local video store are both captioned. In like, the biggest font possible, and all-caps. It's kind of charming. Anyway, the big problem that I had was that some eps are missing, and they're a bit out of order. A&E puts it out. Is that what you have?

That's weird. I'd recheck my copy, but it's currently on loan with my brother. And it has been for the last eight months, gr. I hate watching anything without subtitles/captions, as my hearing's a bit off, but it's possible I missed something. Is it one of those where you can only turn the captions on via a menu, and not while the episodes are playing? (I think I'm looking at you, Moulin Rouge.)

The way I turned on the captioning was by pushing the "Subtitle" button on the DVD remote while the show was playing, Smeg. There might be other ways to turn it on (i.e. in the setup menu) but that's how I did it. Big. Big captions.

My husband bought me the entire series (yes, all 13 episodes) of the Ben Stiller Show on DVD and the part that I have watched have been pretty funny so far but one thing is driving me crazy. There are some commercial parodys that are making fun of what I think were perfume or bottled water commercials and they have made them into Wilsons gardening equipment commercials. Does anyone know for sure what the commercials originaly were for? I can just barely remember them!

Is there any way to contact 20th century fox and ask about a specific show's release date?

Re: Upstairs Downstairs the complete Series (1-5) on DVD. This was my x-mas present to myself. I love what I've been able to see so far - watched about ~6 hrs. worth over the weekend. The set includes the 25th anniversary show. Very sad that many of the principal players had passed away and they're input lost.

However, Jean Marsh, and both the executive producers had many comments interesting insights regarding the productions. I am totally in love again with all my old friends at 165 Eaton Place. Mr. Hudson, Mrs. Bridges, Rose, Elizabeth, James et.al. I shall savor these for a long time.

Bumping for The Pez.

I only have Dick Van Dyke Season 1 on DVD. The best part: Carl Reiner's pilot, starring himself as Rob "Peeeetrie", surrounded by horrible, horrible actors. And Sylvia Miles, who would have been a good Sally although not as good as Rose Marie.

The worst part? Photo Gallery. Whoop a dee doo. The DVD marketers are just tossing things in to make the list of "extras" longer.

I have the complete collection of My So-Called Life. It's great because the show was brilliant, but it has no added features. It makes the Buffy DVD's look good in terms of extras.

Has anyone gotten the Roswell season 1 dvd? Does it have lots of extras? And I was looking at the DVD for the series finale of Dawson's Creek, but it was so expensive! It costs almost as much as an entire season of another program. Is there a lot featured in it that makes it worth the cost?

Oh, and hands down, my favorite tv show DVD's have to be the Alias ones. The cast commentaries, the deleted scenes, the blooper reel set to music. Classic.

I'm also really excited cuz I just got my "V" dvd's. I'll watch them and let you all know if there's any extra goodies on them.

I'm a little curious about the old Dark Shadows episodes that were put on DVD. Has anyone seen them? If so, are they worth getting?

I picked up the third season of Beastmaster (shut up!) on DVD the other day for $29.99 at Coconuts, but I saw that the MSRP is $69.99. Do they just drastically change the price when a series isn't selling well enough or what? The set only came out last Nov.
Now I'm a bit wary about buying expensive season sets if they'll chop the price in half in the future.

Roswell is a six disc set and has one episode commentary on each disc. It's got one deleted scene from the pilot (only about 30 seconds long), two screen tests from Emilie de Ravin (Tess), a music video that Shiri Appleby (Liz) was in, and two featurettes. One is the making of Roswell with interviews with the cast (a few new, most from when they were filming the series), and the other is with the authors of the Roswell book series.

I got the Dawson's Creek finale for $17-18 and thought that was reasonable. They added so many scenes that were cut from the tv version that it's about an hour and 45 minutes long, really just as long as feature films selling for $20. There's optional commentary on the episode and 4 alternate scenes to the pilot episode (also with commentary). Plus, thanks to the Dawson's Creek thread, I also found one Easter Egg.

Just a quick question about TV shows on DVDs. What is an Easter Egg? My brother has the Buffy series and had heard about some of those and neither of us have a clue what it means.

Little secrets on dvds that are triggered by the right button combinations.

I've heard quality-wise, they're as good as you can get. I mean, it was the '60s and daytime so it wasn't that spectacular to begin with, but it didn't deteriorate any.

If you have a certain DVD, you can check this site to see what/where the Easter Eggs are.

Popcorn, thanks so much for the info. I think I'll hold off on the Roswell set, but pick up the DC finale. For some reason it stuck in my head that it was over $30, but the price you mentioned is much more reasonable. Any hints on how I would find the Easter Egg?

How I hate photo galleries in the special features. Can you say, "Filler"?

I'm not sure how many people know about this site, but a coworker told me about deepdiscountdvd.. There is a whole section on TV show dvds, and shipping is free. Some of the prices, from what I can see, are lower than amazon.com or in stores; and without shipping makes the complete season dvds more reasonable.

Most Video Stores in my city do a brisk business renting TV Series DVDs, and I gotta say this is the best way to experience them. One feels less cheated about DVDs with minimal features.

The only DVD I own is one of those Best of The Muppet Shows and it's meh. Selections follow no chronology and every ep has a lame introduction from Jim Henson's son which is not a separate chapter, so you can't skip it without missing scenes. There's a bonus scene in each ep, but it's unclear if this is new material or sketches from original the American broadcasts, which is sort of sneaky IMO.

The best redemption by DVD features I've seen is The Ben Stiller Show. It's a show with a better reputation than reality. Everyone involved went on to greatness, but the learning curve on display is often painful and some humor has aged badly. It's redeemed by the cast commentary on every ep - honest and self-deprecating, doing schtick and offering behind the scenes dirt.

The best DVD I've ever watched is MI-5 (American title for Spooks). The show's great and the extras are comperhensive - insightful, self-snarking commentaries and features on characters, cast, crew and major plot decisions. This is aimed at continuity whores and people who love to overanalyze their entertainment. The menu is playful - one has to ransack the files and tapes on a desktop to access features. What really sold me (as I knew little about Spooks when I picked it up) was the inclusion of spoilers warnings on the packaging.

I have been totally ruined by TV on DVD. It's the instant gratification factor. I don't have to wait a week for the next episode, and once I have the boxed set I don't have to traipse to the video store to rent a new installment. I'm so spoiled I now TiVo episodes of new shows I'm interested in until I have four or five saved, then I watch 'em all at once.

Deep Discount DVD is GOD when it comes to buying DVD's. Though my experience with them varies...when using free shipping, it once took about 2 weeks to get my stuff, but one time it took a few days.

Up until now, I've mostly watched HBO shows on DVD and I think DVD is great for that format. But when I watch an adventure show like "Beastmaster", they have the little mini-cliffhanger before almost every commercial and I think that format thrives on those three minutes of anticipation where the hero is in mortal danger. DVD kind of ruins the flow since you go right to the next scene.
Of course the ability to slow-mo "fighting in a loincloth" is well worth it.

Please, God, tell me how good the JEM! DVDs are.

I just bought the Thorn Birds on DVD. It's wonderful, but for the fadeouts everytime there was once a commercial. The case is gorgeous, it's like opening a book.

My experience with deepdiscountdvd.com has been mixed as a well, except for their costumer service, which has always been horrible. Free shipping can take up to 27 days, and if there is a problem your on your own. I now have been able to find everything I want at similar prices else where so I stopped buying from them.

The best DVD package for a TV show has to go to the special edition Freaks & Geeks DVD. It is the most glorious compilation ever created. I can't even begin to list all the things it contains. Best to go to the website and read about it for yourself. I'm in heaven, and best of all, it came over two weeks early.