tv on dvd

Believe it or not, it’s only now that this charming fantasy series is hitting DVD, and it’s most welcome. Half tribute to the Superman mythos and half sendup of it, this cult-favorite series — and one of the more inspired successes from prolific producer Stephen J. Cannell (Silk Stalkings) — laid the groundwork for all … more…

Oh, how glorious to find a TV miniseries that’s this delightfully grown-up! That it’s also charming, erudite, and witty is the icing on the cake. Laid-off professor of comparative religion Oliver (a rumpled, scrumptious Alan Bates: Spartacus), a fan of wordplay and jazz, teams up with vivacious policewoman Diane (a lovely Sinéad Cusack) to find … more…

Years before 24, in 1995, Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue) gave us Murder One, the story of a single court case told across a TV season’s worth of episodes — 23 in all here, though the series terms them “chapters,” a completely appropriate affectation. The plot — a sordid tale of sex, drugs, blackmail, and of … more…

He’s a renegade who wipes the streets with the scum of the earth. She’s a tough broad… but beautiful. They’re cops! Stephen J. Cannell (Silk Stalkings: The Complete First Season) strikes again — or struck again, in 1984, with Hunter, which would become one of the most popular crime series of the decade. Detective Sergeant … more…

No, the other one: This is the mid-1980s do-over, not the classic of early television, and yet even though you kinda remember it being pretty cheesy, it’s still compulsively watchable. The very first story of the very first episode hints at why: It stars Bruce Willis, it’s based on a story by Harlan Ellison story, … more…

If you never go anywhere without your trusty pocketknife and can’t look at a paper clip without grinning, then you’re probably a MacGyver fan. It’s nothing to be ashamed of — the show was a worldwide phenomenon, and how many TV characters have seen their names turned into verbs? Hundreds of years from now, when … more…

The creators of this extremely short-lived animated NBC series would love to think that it was simply too controversial for network TV audiences and so was inevitably doomed to ignominious cancellation after only three episodes had aired. Would that it were so. The unlikely cartoon troika of God (the voice of James Garner: Divine Secrets … more…

Somebody save us, please, from “hip,” “sophisticated” dramas about overprivileged, self-absorbed yuppies whining about how miserable their lives are. Here, it’s whiny Brits whining about how they’re not having sex, or if they are having sex how they can’t get pregnant, or if they do have babies how they can’t find a nanny, and would … more…

When precisely 4400 people — some of whom have been missing for half a century — appear in the Pacific Northwest in a spectacular cosmic event, unaltered and unaged and with no memories of where they’ve been, the world is stunned and mystified and afraid. Were they abducted by aliens? Why were they returned? Set … more…

Ah, blast from my geeky childhood! I cut my SF teeth on stuff like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and now Buck has arrived on DVD, with a vengeance, you might say. This is 30 hours of chunky homestyle sciffy goofiness, all 32 episodes from the 1979-81 run of the show … more…