Some interesting TV collections coming out today, although the sort of thing that will annoy people who have been picking seasons up piecemeal.
Since this is Horror Month, we’ll start with The Twilight Zone Complete Series Collection, which happily includes all five seasons of the program, and is made up of the recently released “Definitive Collections”, remastered presentations with nifty extras. A stupendous 28 discs is included in a set that will cost you about $200, which is much less than the price I was paying for the individual seasons when they first came out.
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The complete run of The Greatest American Hero also hits shelves today, in a tin collector’s box with a cape (!) and “a battery-powered reproduction of the show’s infamous guide book.” (!!)
Harvey Toons The Complete Collection is a four disc set featuring such second-grade characters as Casper, Little Audrey, Herman and Katnip and Baby Huey. Still, running a stated 200 minutes, there’s no way this could be in any way “complete.”
Other TV sets available today:
Andromeda S5; Baywatch, Collections 1 & 2; Commander in Chief V1 & V2; CSI New York S2; Medium S2; Penn & Teller Bullshit S3; Planet of the Apes TV Series; Stargate SG-1 S9
As for movies, we’ll start with, again the horror stuff, although it’s a slow week. Expect more to come as Halloween nears.
My film of the week is The Norliss Tapes, a 1973 TV pilot movie by Dan Curtis that was obviously intended to launch another show just like The Night Stalker. The movie is very similar to the Kolchak movies, although they do lack the humor those films are known for. Still, a very nifty flick, and it’s great to see stuff like this emerging from TV vaults. There’s a lot more where this came from.
Another essential buy is Super Inframan, the long-awaited widescreen presentation of the insanely fun Hong Kong film that is the ultimate statement of stuff like Ultraman and Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. Everyone should have this in their movie collection.
Abominable is a Bigfoot movie with Lance Henriksen. His last Bigfoot movie, Sasquatch, was just OK, but Scott Foy over at Dread Central surprisingly gave this movie a very good review, so you might want to check it out.
The Blood Trilogy collects three previously released Herschell Gordon Lewis gore films in one set; 2,000 Maniacs, Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red. Not my bag, but three films for well under $20 for those so interested.
X-Men The Last Stand The third and possibly final X-Men movie, in numerous editions.
