TV on DVD Buzz

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the drama category.

Columbo: Mystery Movie Collection 1990 - This collection contains the 6 Colombo movie episodes from 1990. The movies includes are Columbo Cries Wolf, Agenda for Murder, Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo, Uneasy Lies the Crown, Murder in Malibu, and Columbo Goes to College.

Jammin’ with the Doodlebops - This release contains a DVD and a CD featuring The Doodlebops. The DVD contains four episodes from the Disney Channel The Doodlebops television show geared towards preschoolers. The CD contains 4 songs, which I believe are featured on the show, although they might not be the exact songs featured on the 4 episodes in this set, but I am guessing they are the songs on that appear in the episodes on the DVD in this set.

Lone Wolf & Cub: TV Series 6 - This sounds like Lone Wolf & Cub is a Japanese show from the 1970s that is now being released to the English market for the first time.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the reality category.

Escape to Chimp Eden: Season 1 - This release contains the first season of the show about chimps transitioning from captivity to living in the wild in South Africa. The first season contains 12 episodes. The show is set mostly in Jane Goodall Institute’s Chimpanzee Eden located in South Africa. It is a two disc set.

Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht Season 3 - This is the official release of the third season of Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht, which is about a family raising 8 kids. This release should be regular DVD quality and not the kind of crappy Early Release version that Amazon released already. This is a 4 disc set containing the 31 episodes from season 3, which is more episodes than season 1 and 2 combined, although season 4 is about the same length as this season.

This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc The Closer Season 1 set. I am posting the final wrap up of the set today. If you missed the first three wrap ups you can go back and read Disc 1 here, Disc 2 here, and Disc 3 here.

“L.A. Woman” - The episode begins with Sargent Gabriel driving Brenda to a crime scene and getting frustrated at her squinting, so he stops on the way and buys Brenda sunglasses. In this episode an Iranian and his driver were killed in a parking garage. The wife who witnessed the crime thinks the U.S. government killed them. There is a kind of funny scene with her asserting here authority when two rather suspicious FBI agents show up at the crime scene for no reason. Soon it is realized that the murdered were on the FBI watch list and the FBI is reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. Fritz ends up being the FBI liaison working on the case with Brenda’s team. As part of the investigation Tao finds out that there is a website of a man claiming to have killed the man as part of ridding the America of Muslims, but none of the witnesses recognize him in a line up and his recollection of the attack do not line up with what really happened. This one is one of the most unpredictable ends of the show so far and no I do not mean the part with Brenda and Fritz going to dinner, but rather the finding out who killed the Iranian.

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This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc The Closer Season 1 set. I will post a wrap up of one disc per day finishing the set on Thursday. Today’s wrap up is of Disc 3.

“Batter Up” - A man ends up dead as part of a series of gay bashings with a baseball bat. Brenda brings her sick cat to the scene and a forensic worker ends up taking the cat to an emergency animal hospital. It later turns out the cat was pregnant. Taylor makes an arrest for a suspect and Brenda does not want to keep the case after that and Pope convinces her to stay on the case. The suspect ends up saying that it does not go after gays as a hate crime, but rather because they are easier and richer targets. After a search of the suspect’s home they find a bat, which contradicts the evidence already found for the death making it seem that someone else did the bashing that killed. She goes out with Fritz and then ends up going out for drinks with Pope while Fritz does her a favor of picking up the cat from the hospital. Pope gives her earrings while they are having drinks. Taylor gets the suspect to confess, but then Brenda’s team confirms the suspect’s original alibi about being at the grocery store during the murder. She then discovers the victim was having an affair and that gave his partner a motive.

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This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc The Closer Season 1 set. I will post a wrap up of one disc per day finishing the set on Thursday. Today’s wrap up is of Disc 2.

“Show Yourself” - This episode begins kind of confusingly in my opinion with it seemingly vague that there was a triple murder scene and it becoming a priority murder squad case. As they are releasing the scene Brenda approaches a suspicious man that turns out to be an ex-Marine that things his estranged son was the sniper and was involved in other shootings. Brenda struggles on what to tell the media, as they think it is gang violence and she lets them continue to think that rather than starting more hysteria by saying there is a sniper and making a D.C. repeat. Brenda soon learns that sniper is killing the gang members because on of the gang members killed his wife and the LAPD never solved the case. She ends up working with the father because he believes the only way to find and capture his son alive is for him to be there when it happens. Soon, though, it makes it seem like the father may have informed his son about who were gang members or was the one to kill the gang members. She ends up involving Fritz in this case by having him follow the father instead of going to dinner together as originally planned. This episode also ends kind of confusingly with it being unclear to me if the sniper killed himself or was hit by his father as a sniper.

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Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the documentary category.

60 Minutes Mind Reading - This is a simple release of a 60 Minutes segment on mind reading with the help of MRI. Way overpriced at $17.95 for a 12 minute segment.

60 Minutes Is it Murder? - Yet, another overpriced 60 Minutes release of just a segment of the show. By the way it is part of the same show as the above segment. Why do not they just release the whole episode? Does anyone really buy these segments? This one is about drunk driving.

60 Minutes The Mad Scientist of Football - Also, from the January 4, 2009 episode this segment is about coach of the Texas Tech University football team.

Abraham Lincoln-His Life & Legacy - This is a four disc set of History Channel documentaries relating to Abraham Lincoln. The included documentaries are Lincoln, Investigating History: Lincoln: Man or Myth, Man, Moment, Machine: Lincoln and the Flying Spying Machine, Conspiracy?: Lincoln Assassination, High Tech Lincoln, Sherman’s March, and The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth.

e2 Transport - This is a PBS documentary about alternative energy being used for transportation. I have seen the e2 Design documentary release and that one was pretty interesting, so I expect this one is just as good. This release is a six chapter series with each chapter being 30 minutes long.

Killing Hitler - This is a documentary drama about a British plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944. It was originally aired as a BBC movie.

Meerkat Manor Season 4 - This release contains the episodes from the fourth season of the series that documents the life of a real meerkat family. It is a two disc set.

The Trials of Ted Haggard - This is a HBO documentary about Pastor Ted.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the mystery/crime drama category.

Agatha Christie’s Mysteries Collection - This release contains three Agatha Christie’s mystery movies, which are also coming out as single releases today. The movies in the set are Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, and The Mirror Crack’d.

The Beiderbecke Affair - This is a British series that sounds like it could fit in a few other categories of releases, such as comedy or drama, but it seems to best fit in the mystery category. It is basically about two teachers becoming amateur detectives. The DVD special features include a Bix Beiderbecke biography.

Death on the Nile - This release is of the 1978 TV movie based on the Agathie Christie novel of the same name. There were some difference between the book and the movie, as always happens when books are adapted to movie. It includes the deletion of 8 characters and the changing the remaining character roles to include the important things that ended up deleted with those 8 characters.

Evil Under the Sun - This is another Agathie Christie mystery movie. This one sounds like it changed more in the adaption from book to movie than the other one released today. One reviewer on Amazon said it has too much humor that distracts from the murder mystery aspect.

The Mirror Crack’d - This is the third Agatha Christia mystery movie being released today. This one peaks my interest because it stars Angela Lansbury, as Miss Marple. The reviews make it sound like this one has the humor problems, too.

This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc The Closer Season 1 set. I will post a wrap up of one disc per day finishing the set on Thursday. I do not think I started watching this show on television until Season 3, but I think I have watched at least part of Season 2, as my mom owns that set. I rented Season 1 because I thought it would be nice to finally see the beginning of the show.

“Pilot” - The title gives this episode away as being the start to the series. The show begins at a crime scene where a body is found in a doctor’s (PhD, not medical) house. At the crime scene Brenda Johnson is introduced after the medical examiner asks who she it. Part of the introduction clarifies that she is new to the LAPD as Deputy Chief as part of a special unit (priority murder squad) and that she is from Atlanta. She upsets a lot of people working the scene because she bosses them around. It shows them all being males and kind of sexist. In the episode it is also revealed that Brenda is a CIA trained investigator and known for getting confessions that lead to convictions (i.e. a closer). She deals with the whole new squad wanting to transfer back to the robbery and homicide unit. She is determined to stick to the job and not making them get her to give up. The guy whose house the body was found in ends up being missing (on the run) and they also discover that he has been impersonating someone who died at age 19 in 1989. This episode has a few interesting scenes about Brenda feeling like she should not eat something because she does not look as good as the other women in LA, such as passing up a doughnut in the office and the frozen treats at the hotel gift shop. Near the middle of the episode a guy named Fritz is introduced as an old acquaintance of Brenda’s who she did not know was living in LA and who works for the FBI. He delivers the information on the ID for the body and they discover she had been wanted for murder and eventually realize that the person was actually the doctor and ended up killed when the person who loved him discovered he was really a woman.

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Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the science fiction category.

Classic Sci-Fi TV: 150 Episodes - This release contains 150 episodes of classic Science Fiction television. It is a 12 disc set with over 40 hours of footage from 24 shows. It includes 4 episodes of Captain Fathom, 24 episodes of Captain Z-Ro, 1 episode of Climax, 1 episode of Destination Space, 14 episodes of Flash Gordon, 2 episodes of G.E. Theatre, 1 episode of Here Comes Tobor, 1 episode of Invisible Avenger, 1 episode of Johnny Jupiter, 4 episodes of Lights Out, 1 episode of Mandrake, The Magician, 16 episodes of One Step Beyond, 1 episode of Operation ESP, 12 episodes of Phantom Empire, 12 episodes of Radar Men From the Moon, 23 episodes of Rocky Jones, 1 episode of The Shadow, 9 episodes of Space Angel, 1 episod of Stamp Day for Superman, 1 episode of The Star & The Story, 1 episode of Tales of Frankenstein, 6 episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, 1 episode of Thriller and 12 episodes of Undersea Kingdom.

The Invaders The Second Season - This is the second and final season of The Invaders. This release is a 7 disc set containing the 26 episodes from the second season. This Sci Fi series appears to be known for being more about the drama than the special effects, thus creating more believable plots than some other sci fi shows. Amazon also has the first two seasons available as a set, although it currently costs 1 penny more than buying them separately.

M.A.N.T.I. S: Complete Series - This release contains the complete M.A.N.T.I.S. series in a 4 disc set. It is not much of a series with only one episode, but I guess they decided to call it Complete Series rather than Season One. It may just be me, but Series tends to imply it at least had two seasons, although technically I guess you just need two episodes to become a series. This release contains the feature length pilot movie, the 20 episodes aired on FOX, and the 2 episodes that did not air on FOX, but have aired on the Sci Fi Channel. It seems some people liked this show while others call it cheesy.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the animated/kids category.

The All-New Superfriends Hour: Season One Volume 2 - This is a two disc set of the rest of The All-New Superfriends Hour series. I might not be much into superhero shows, but I will give it credit for at least being released in only two sets. It seems too many shows geared to kids get released in a lot of different sets with only a few episodes per set. At least the older shows like this one seem to be coming out as at least partial season sets.

Aria the Natural Season 2 Part 1 - This release is a 4 disc set of the Japanese anime/manga show called Aria the Natural. It is in Japanese with English subtitles. It is also supposed to have some special features.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Season 1 Box Set - This is a 4 disc set of the Fullmetal Alchemist show that is shown as part of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

Spongebob Squarepants - Spongicus - This is one of the kids releases that are pretty limited in what the DVD contains, but I guess you do not need to put as much on the release to impress the kids and the kids get their parents to buy a bunch of the show’s releases because each is different. This release contains the first eight episodes from the sixth season of the show. The episodes are “Spongicus,” “Suction Cup Symphony,” “House Fancy,” “Krabby Road,” “Penny Foolish,” “Nautical Novice,” “Not Normal,” and “Gone.”

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?: Season One, Volume 1 A Monster Catch - This release appears to have only 4 episodes from Season 1 of the Scooby Doo, Where Are You? show.

S.T.R.A.I.N.: Strategic Armored Infantry - Complete Series Box Set - This is another Japanese anime series being released today. It is a two disc set.

Winx Club - Princess Ball: Season Three, Part One - This is a two disc set containing the first part of the third season of Winx Club.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the comedy category.

Blossom Seasons 1 & 2 - This set contains the 37 episodes from the first two seasons of Blossom, which was a show on NBC in the early 1990s about a girl that made video journals of her life (nowadays we would say video blogging, but this was made before the Internet and blogging). The bonus features include the Original Pilot, Blossom Trivia, A Very Special Show (a retrospective look back at the show), A Very Special Friendship (a look at the on and off screen friendships), and Audio Cast & Creator Commentaries.

Cheers The Final Season - This release contains the episodes from the 11th and final season of Cheers. It is a 4 disc set and it is unclear whether it has any special features or not. Amazon also has the complete 11 season set for around $205, which is about a $50 savings compared to buying each season separately on Amazon.

The Love Boat Season Two Volume 1 - This release is the first half of the second season of The Love Boat. There seems some discontent at the studio deciding to release them in half season sets and still having a high price tag, but if you ask me it seems pretty reasonable to be priced $25.99 currently on Amazon when it is a 4 disc set. I imagine if they released it as a full season it would be an 8 disc set for at least twice the money, so I kind of doubt it would be any cheaper than the way they are doing it.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the drama and game show categories.

Classic Game Shows & More - This release contains over 20 hours of classic game shows. It is a four disc set. I could not find any more info than that about this release, so I am not really sure what game shows are exactly on this, but it does seem like an interesting unique release that probably at least has a few of the good classic game shows that you at least used to be able to watch as reruns on the Game Show Channel or perhaps you might remember watching as first runs. You definitely do not see game shows being released as DVD sets very often. The cover art of the collection does reveal about ten screenshots from the shows, but personally I do not recognize any of the old game shows the screenshots are of, although they do mostly appear to be host photos.

Here is this week’s edition for TV on DVD Releases in the drama category.

Higher Ground - This release is of a John Denver TV movie. The movie is about a FBI agent retiring to Alaska to run an air freight company with a friend. His friend ends up murdered and wrongly labeled a bootlegger and John Denver sets out to clear his friends name.

My Uncle Silas Series 1 - This release contains the six episode series originally shown on Masterpiece Theater. The series is based on the The Darling Buds of May stories by H.E. Bates.

This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc Doogie Howser, M.D. Season 1 set. Today’s wrap up is of the episodes and extras on the final disc, Disc 4.

“Vinnie’s Blind Date” - In this episode Vinnie falls in love with a girl blinded in a car accident. The go on a date while she is still blind and then she ends up having cornea transplant surgery to regain her eyesight. Vinnie’s feelings get hurt when Bernadette no longer likes Vinnie when she sees him after the surgery. I am glad that this disc starts with some good hospital aspect stuff, as the third disc was pretty dull with only one episode having this aspect of the show.

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This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc Doogie Howser, M.D. Season 1 set. I am posting a wrap up of one disc per day finishing the set on Thursday. Today’s wrap up is of the episodes on Disc 3.

“Attack of the Green-Eyed Monster” - The episode starts with a teenage patient running into Doogie while on a date with Wanda and getting invited to a college party, which makes Wanda jealous. Also, Doogie’s dad becomes jealous when he learns that one of his colleagues flirted with Doogie’s mom. This episode has a different sequence of scenes that are daydreaming black and white parodies of old movies. To get Wanda back he serenades her. I kind of dislike this episode because there is no real doctor aspect to it, which is really what makes this a good show.

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This week’s TV on DVD Season I am going through and doing wrap ups of is the four disc Doogie Howser, M.D. Season 1 set. I am posting a wrap up of one disc per day finishing the set on Thursday. Today’s wrap up is of the episodes on Disc 2.

“Blood and Remembrance” - In the beginning of this episode Doogie and Wanda break up over a fight about him breaking off a lot of plans for work and her going to the movies with Brian. One of the patients Doogie meets in this episode needs the blood of his wife, who he is currently in the middle of a divorce with. Vinny gets them back to together by sending Wanda roses with a poem supposedly by Doogie, then Doogie tries to help the couple make up by doing the same thing.

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