Sunday, June 13, 2010

“'Beaver,' ' Everwood ' fans get new releases”

“'Beaver,' ' Everwood ' fans get new releases”

'Beaver,' ' Everwood ' fans get new releases

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 12:46 AM PDT

As I have mentioned here before, distributors will at times begin to release TV series on DVD, then stop before the complete run is done. Poor sales are a factor at times, or rights issues. But whatever the reason, fans are left feeling incomplete.

But occasionally there is relief. Everwood, for example, went five years between the release of its first and second seasons, but fans have beat the drums loudly enough that the third season (Warner, 22 episodes, five discs, $39.98) arrives on Tuesday, just a year after the second. The new set even adds four bloopers.

Even better news is the release Tuesday of the third season of Leave It to Beaver (Shout! Factory, 39 episodes, six discs, $39.97), the comedy about Wally and Beaver Cleaver, their family and friends. Shout! Factory has become a key distributor of titles from Universal, which apparently lost interest in some of its TV titles. It released the second season of Leave It to Beaver four years ago, then that show went into limbo. Similarly, Universal released the first season of the '60s version of Dragnet in 2005, and that was that; Shout! Factory will issue the second season in July.

Leave It to Beaver remains one of the great family comedies, and one with a tartness not always associated with the form, via Cleaver foils like Eddie and Lumpy, as well as the sarcasm-tinged relationship between Cleaver parents Ward and June. And, if you cannot get enough of the show, you may want to wait two weeks until June 29, when the complete series of six seasons will be released. (It will also continue to come out in single-season packages.) Also from Shout! Factory, that set consists of 234 episodes on 37 discs, along with selected extras. Retail price is $199.99.

Of course, if you're scrounging for a Father's Day gift, you might want to grab the third-season Leave It to Beaver — or Everwood — for a TV-loving dad. But the folks at Fox think some dads would prefer edgier fare, and note that new collections of Family Guy and American Dad! are arriving Tuesday, ''just in time for Father's Day.''

Family Guy: Volume 8 (15 episodes, three discs, $49.98) not only includes episodes from the show's seventh and eighth season, it has deleted scenes, commentary on all episodes and, on some episodes, uncensored audio. American Dad!: Volume 5 (14 episodes, three discs, $39.98) also has commentary, deleted scenes and some uncensored audio.

If you're a fan of Seth MacFarlane, the mastermind of Family Guy and American Dad!, you may also want to look for Johnny Bravo: Season One (Warner, 13 episodes, two discs, $24.98), appearing under the Cartoon Network Hall of Fame banner. MacFarlane was a writer and illustrator on the series. Among the extras are a making-of documentary, audio commentary on three episodes and MacFarlane doing a temporary audio track for one episode.

High-definition Blu-ray is becoming increasingly common on new releases not only of movies but of TV shows. On Tuesday, two fantasy series hit Blu-ray. Sanctuary will have Blu-ray releases of its first and second seasons (E1, $49.98 each) along with the standard DVD release of its second season (13 episodes, four discs, $44.98). And Supernatural will issue a Blu-ray of its first season (Warner, 22 episodes, four discs, $49.99), which made its debut on standard DVD in 2006.

And how do you get people to buy something they have already purchased in a pretty good DVD? Besides promising a better picture and sound, you offer new extras. The first-season Sanctuary Blu-ray adds a ''visual effects picture in picture'' element to the series pilot. The first-season Supernatural includes a panel discussion and an interactive map of the season's urban legends, along with most of the extras from the standard DVD.

Down the road: Jesse Stone: No Remorse, the latest of the movies with Tom Selleck as Stone, will be on DVD on July 27. . . . Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection, with two seasons plus a 30-minute special, is due on Aug. 24. . . . Letters to God arrives on Aug. 10.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com and on Facebook and on Twitter. He also does a weekly video chat for Ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Posted by at

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)