As the holiday season gets closer, you might be looking for a good TV show on DVD or even Blu-ray to toss into the shopping card. Or maybe you just want to get something for yourself when you remember where you hid all those gift cards you were given last year. CBS had a good year putting out releases of their various series from across the decades.
Star Trek: Discovery: Season One brought back the long running series to a place that Star Fleet has never ventured before: Streaming. The show was produced for CBS All Access as the ultimate way to get viewers to make the leap to the internet the same way that Star Trek: Voyager was used to launch UPN. After three reboot feature film and more than a decade since Star Trek: Enterprise shut down, how would audiences react to a new show? I know quite a few folks who signed up for the stream to see all 15 episodes. Discovery takes place about a decade after Enterprise stopped. The action sticks around the border space between the Federation and the Klingons. The opening episode has First Officer Michael Burnham (The Walking Dead‘s Sonequa Martin-Green) ends up triggering an escalation with the Klingons. She makes a few wrong moves and finds herself nailed for mutiny and sentenced for life in prison. Sadly this is not Star Trek: Oz. Eventually she finds herself on the U.S.S. Discovery and dealing with more Klingons. Unlike the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Discovery has storylines that go beyond their episode. The show has a great cast including Doug Jones, best known for playing the creature in The Weight of Water, Wilson Cruz from My So-Called Life and Shazad Latif, beloved internationally as Clem Fandango on Toast of London. The Blu-ray boxset has plenty of bonus features. There’s deleted scenes from each episodes. Ten featurettes get into what it took to relaunch the Star Trek series. There’s a lot of promos that were used to let Trekkies find the show that wasn’t on the TV dial. The second season of 13 episodes will start on January 17, 2019.
Jericho: The Complete Series collects both seasons of the series about life after a nuclear attack that aired in 2006. The little town of Jericho is isolated from the world. The townspeople do their best to survive in the radioactive America. But can they really live through the mutated world. The boxset has all 29 episodes of excitement featuring Skeet Ulrich.
The Invaders: The Complete Series has David Vincent (A Beautiful Mind‘s Roy Thinnes) discover an alien force has landed on Earth and is infiltrating our systems. The first season he is alone in his pursuit to warn humanity. The second season has him find others that believe. There was not third season. There were plenty of great guest stars playing both humans and aliens including Suzanne Pleshette (The Bob Newhart ShowSpace: 1999), Ed Asner (Lou Grant), Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-0), Roscoe Lee Browne (Soap) and even Gene Hackman. All 43 episodes are in the boxset. Creator Larry Cohen went on to direct the classic films The Stuff, Q, God Told Me To, It’s Alive, Hell Up in Harlem and Black Caesar.
Bosom Buddies: The Complete Series features the start of Tom Hank-mania in America. Tom and Peter Scolari (Girls) work at an advertising agency, but have an issue affording rent in New York City. The duo find out about a place with a great rate except it’s for women only. So they do what two creative guys do, they dress up as women and score the keys. Over the course of 37 episodes the duo have numerous adventures in dresses and pants. During the second season the dressing up action cuts back as the boys expose their secret to a few of the women on their hall. The big thing to note is that the transfers used her are the syndicated prints that swapped out Billy Joel’s “My Life” with Stephanie Mill’s “Shake Me Loose.”
I’m Dying Up Here: Season One is the Showtime series about life at a Los Angeles comedy club in the early 1970s. The show really goes deep when exploring the life of the comics. The series starts with what should be a success story as a comic gets his shot on the Tonight Show. After his set, Johnny Carson waves him over to the sofa where he keeps getting laughs from the host and the audience. His story has an abrupt stop as he steps out in front of a bus. The real star of the series is the production design crew who really get deep into ’70s clunky furniture Sadly Showtime canceled the series after the recent season two finished airing.
Duckman: The Complete Series is one of the great animated series of the ’90s. Duckman (voiced by Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander) is a private eye who keeps looking at everything, but his case. He’s got a family he can’t understand and a sister-in-law that won’t get off his back. His partner in investigation is a pig named Cornfed. Duckman is driven by his libido and is extremely raunchy. He’s the Godfather of Adult Swim. The boxset has all 70 episodes from the four seasons it ran on the USA Network.
Love Boat: Season Four: Volumes One & Two is a must get for the simple fact that the Village People board the Pacific Princess. Do you need another reason? How about The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders when they mattered! Plus Mannix (Mike Connors) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Robert Vaughn) board the ship for a vacation.
The Beverly Hillbillies: The Official Fifth Season brought Jed, Elly Mae, Granny and Jethro to color! The season features gorillas, hippos and aliens.
