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The Office: Season Four

Actors: Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, B.J. Novak
ASIN : B001AEF6AY
Sales Rank : 24
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0025195017329
UPC : 025195017329
Release Date : December 02, 2008
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 405

Description

Steve Carell (Get Smart) returns in his Golden Globe®-winning role of “The World’s Greatest Boss,” Michael Scott, in Season Four of the hit comedy series The Office! This must-own four-disc set includes every irreverent episode from Season Four, including the five extended full TV-hour specials, plus hours of hilarious deleted scenes and bonus features! Rejoin Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) as they bring romance to the workplace, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) as he continues his quest to be Michael’s right-hand man, and newly deemed “Wunderkind” Ryan (B.J. Novak), who’s working to drag Dunder Mifflin into the digital age. Developed for American TV by Primetime Emmy® Award winner Greg Daniels (King of the Hill, The Simpsons), The Office is the intelligent and edgy Primetime Emmy® Award-winning series that critics are hailing as “the funniest show on TV” (Gavin Edwards, Rolling Stone). You’ll enjoy the inappropriate remarks, uncomfortable silences and petty behavior again and again!

Amazon.com

Is a season of The Office with less episodes still a great season? That seems to be the debate among the Emmy-winning sitcom's faithful audience in regard to season four, which like every program in 2007 and 2008 suffered due to the Writers Guild strike. But even a truncated season can't dispel the fact that The Office remains one of television's funniest and most consistently inventive programs. If a theme can be grafted upon season four, it's Things Fall Apart: former temp Ryan (writer-producer B.J. Novak) is promoted to executive position and then squanders that power, while Dwight (series MPV Rainn Wilson) attempts to recover from his breakup with Angela (Angela Kinsey) and her apparent relationship with the hapless Andy (Ed Helms). Elsewhere, HR's Toby (writer-director Paul Lieberstein) finally flees Dunder Mifflin for that long-threatened vacation to Costa Rica (and is replaced by Oscar nominee Amy Ryan), and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) reaches his own breaking point in "Did I Stutter?" The center of office entropy is, of course, boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell), who is knocked off his pedestal throughout the season; his sweetly naïve television spot is disparaged in "Local Ad," he's passed over for the executive outing in "Survivor Man," and in the season's highlights, he is forced to twice endure humiliation at the hands of his own girlfriend Jan (Melora Hardin), first in the heartbreaking "Deposition," and then immediately after in the Emmy-nominated "Dinner Party," which puts their disintegrating relationship in sharp focus. Even office lovebirds Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) experience some rocky moments as Jim anguishes over the right time to propose to her. But don't let that laundry list of disasters fool you into thinking that season four is a downer; if anything, many of the episodes are among the funniest the show has produced to date. Most notable among these are the opener "Fun Run" (the Scranton team participates in Michael's charity race for rabies prevention), "Job Fair" (Michael attempts to hawk Dunder Mifflin to high schoolers, while Jim struggles to land a client), and the aforementioned "Dinner Party" and "Goodbye, Toby." Longtime viewers may wince at some of the broader gags in the season, like Michael and Dwight driving into the lake in "Dunder Mifflin Infinity," but the best episodes are so strong--and Carell and his fellow players so dead-on in their performances--that it's hard to make a case against the season for those relatively few low points. Extras in the season-four set are fewer than in previous releases, though that may have to do with the reduced number of episodes. Deleted scenes are offered for every episode, and many are real gems, most notably those in "Dinner Party" and "Goodbye Toby." A smattering of commentaries is also included; Carell and Krasinski are noticeably absent, but Wilson, Fischer and the writing and directing staff more than make up for their absence. And the featurette "Writer's Block," which includes footage of the writers' panel at an Office convention, gives an amusing alternate to the usual behind-the-scenes coverage. Michael's complete ad for Dunder Mifflin, a battery of amusing faux PSAs for rabies, and a gag reel do much to fill out the supplemental features. --Paul Gaita



Stills from Season Four of The Office (Click for larger image)

Arrested Development - The Complete Series (Seasons 1, 2, 3)

Actors: Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat
ASIN : B000JJ3Y78
Sales Rank : 140
Region Code : 1
Format : NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543410065
UPC : 024543410065
Release Date : December 14, 2006
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours

Amazon.com

Season One: Winner of the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy its first year out, Arrested Development is the kind of sitcom that gives you hope for television. A mockumentary-style exploration of the beleaguered Bluth family, it's one of those idiosyncratic shows that doesn't rely on a laugh track or a studio audience; it's shot more like a TV drama, albeit with an omniscient narrator (executive producer Ron Howard) overseeing the proceedings. Holding the Bluths together just barely is son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), the only normal guy in a family that's chock full of nuts. Hardworking and sensible, Michael's certain he's going to be given control of his family's Enron-style corporation upon the retirement of his father (Jeffrey Tambor). The fact that he's passed over instead for his mother (Jessica Walter) is only a blip when compared to his father's immediate arrest for dubious accounting practices, and the resulting freeze on the family's previously limitless wealth.

Bereft of money, and even less family love, the Bluths have to band together in their moment of need--not easy when everyone's looking out for number 1. In addition to his scabrous parents, Michael has to contend with his lothario older brother (Will Arnett), his basically useless younger brother (Tony Hale), his greedy twin sister (Portia DeRossi), and her sexually ambiguous husband (David Cross). Michael's only comrade in sanity is his son George Michael (Michael Cera), but then again, the teenage boy harbors a secret crush on his cousin (Alia Shawkat). A peerless ensemble led by the brilliant Bateman (who ever knew he could be this good?), all the actors are pitch-perfect in their roles, delivering the dryly funny, sometimes absurdist dialogue with the speed and flair of classic farce. The unusual tone of Arrested Development takes a bit of getting used to--it's far different from anything you'll see on TV, even HBO--but once you buy in to the Bluths' innumerable dysfunctions, you'll be laughing your head off for hours.--Mark Englehart

Season Two: The axe of cancellation dangled perilously over Arrested Development during its second season, but the award-winning comedy fought against fate to deliver a hilarious if scattershot 18 episodes (reduced from the original show order of 22), and stayed alive for the beginning of a third season. Most likely, the creators and actors knew the clock was ticking down, so they didn't hesitate to throw their all into these manic, hilarious episodes, which have only the thinnest of plot arcs but an electrifying energy that makes them hard to resist. Some of the story antics were more of the same: good son Michael (Jason Bateman) tries to keep his company afloat, but is often foiled by older brother Gob (Will Arnett); the precarious marriage of Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and Tobias (David Cross) undergoes a trial separation; and young George-Michael (Michael Cera) fights his attraction to his cousin Maeby (Alia Shawkat). Other show developments, though, were new and stunningly, uproariously bizarre: Buster (Tony Hale) joins the army, but later finds his hand bitten off by a seal (yes, a real seal), and Oscar (Jeffrey Tambor), the hippie brother of jailed George Sr. (also Tambor), rekindles an affair with sister-in-law Lucille (Jessica Walter), which may have resulted in Buster's conception years ago.

Jokes flew fast and furious, as did guest stars--Ben Stiller, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Christine Taylor, Thomas Jane, Ed Begley Jr., Ione Skye, and Zach Braff among them--making it hard to keep straight who was doing what and why. No matter, as each of the episodes was in and of itself was a perfect gem of comedy, strung together by sharp writing and fantastic performances. In addition to the regular cast, both Liza Minnelli, reprising her role as "Lucille Two," and Martin Short, as an, um, eccentric family friend, deserve special mention, with the episode both appeared in, "Ready, Aim, Marry Me," a frenetic exercise in slapstick farce. Typical examples of the show's offbeat humor were found in "Afternoon Delight," in which various members of the Bluth family discover the true meaning of the '70s ballad, "Meet the Veals," wherein the Bluths encounter the conservative parents of George Michael's girlfriend, and "Motherboy XXX," surrounding an unsettling mother-son traditional dance. The entire cast cohered perfectly through this season, and their give and take provided a perfect balance among the actors, all of whom were even better than the previous year. However, it's Bateman who should be singled out as the show's anchor, mixing dry sarcasm with impeccable comic timing. Despite plummeting ratings, Arrested Development didn't just keep its head above water, it swam with grace and hilarity. --Mark Englehart

Season Three: Arrested Development--one of the greatest comedies in the history of television--went out in a blaze of glory. The truncated final season packed more biting humor per minute than ever before. In only 13 episodes, dozens of intertwining storylines spun in all directions: In addition to the overarching story about the fractious infighting of the Bluth family and the family's housing development company being investigated for treason in Iraq (a plot arc that comes to a dazzlingly surreal conclusion), the put-upon "good son" Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman, Teen Wolf Too) pursues romance with a lovely British woman (Charlize Theron, Monster) who turns out to be woefully inappropriate; swaggering magician Gob (Will Arnett, Monster-In-Law) flees from his newly-discovered teenage son while still pandering for the affection of his self-absorbed father (Jeffrey Tambor, The Larry Sanders Show); flighty Lindsay (Portia de Rossi, Ally McBeal) and her sexually blurry husband Tobias (David Cross, Mr. Show) both get the hots for the family's new lawyer, Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio, Charles in Charge); and much, much more. It's difficult to describe what makes Arrested Development so brilliant. The ensemble is uniformly superb (Jessica Walter, as the family's boozing, scheming matriarch, is particularly devastating this season) and the surprising guest stars (including Andy Richter, James Lipton, Justine Bateman, and many others) are perfectly cast; the characters' abominable behavior defies conventional television notions of "likability", yet they only grow more endearing the more you watch; the humor embraces wild slapstick and sharp satire, often within a single scene; and the nimble documentary style allows for sly glancing references to jokes and scenes from long-past episodes, rewarding devoted fans. But the key is that, no matter how screwball Arrested Development becomes, the show offers a rich, textured, and wonderfully coherent world in which these characters feel genuine, a world completely unlike the flat, plastic simulacrum offered by the average sitcom. Arrested Development was true to itself to the end. Its followers will cherish it forever. --Bret Fetzer

How I Met Your Mother - Season Three

Actors: Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan
ASIN : B0019CSXAM
Sales Rank : 64
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543533252
UPC : 024543533252
Release Date : December 07, 2008
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 9 to 13 days
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 429

Description

"Friends" minus one. The series is narrated through flashbacks from the future about the 5 friends and their dating misadventures

Amazon.com

No other sitcom is as gleefully inventive as How I Met Your Mother. The basic setup is familiar stuff: Five charming, good-looking twentysomethings pal around New York City seeking love and happiness. But many episodes have a narrative trick. For example, when his friends try to persuade Ted (Josh Radnor) from going on a date with the doctor removing the butterfly tattoo he got while drunk, their justifications send the show careening back and forth among three interconnected flashbacks. Other episodes repeat scenes from different perspectives, or leap forward, or interrupt scenes to provide necessary exposition. None of this is groundbreaking, but it is consistently smart and clever--and when combined with crisp comic dialogue and zippy performances, it's pure sitcom delight. This is a show that manages to make a gang's in-jokes actually funny. Season Three is absolutely essential for any fan of the show, because this is the season we actually meet the title character; after two years of preamble, the mother to Ted's unnamed kids finally appears! But there are abundant other reasons to get this season, including Marshall (Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) buying a crooked apartment, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) getting the yips and getting slapped, and the return of Robin Sparkles, Canadian teenybopper alter-ego of Robin (Cobie Smulders). There's a wee bit of unfortunate stuntcasting (though she doesn't embarrass herself, Britney Spears still sticks out by dint of sheer inescapable celebrity), but it's a minor flaw in an all-around superb season. Add in an abundance of commentaries, featurettes, music videos, additional scenes, and How I Met Your Mother: Season Three is clearly a must-have for fans and a great introduction for newcomers. --Bret Fetzer

Beyond How I Met Your Mother: Season Three on DVD

Arrested Development – Season Three on DVD

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Season Three on DVD

Family Guy, Vol. 6 on DVD

Stills from How I Met Your Mother: Season Three (Click for larger image)

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3

Actors: Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Charles Gideon Davis, Danny DeVito, David Gueriera
ASIN : B0018RKEQE
Sales Rank : 85
Director : Fred Savage, Jerry Levine, Matt Shakman
Brand : Twentieth Century Fox
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543525998
UPC : 024543525998
Release Date : December 09, 2008
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 6 to 12 days
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 332

Product Description

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 09/09/2008

Amazon.com

The folks who populate It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia may be pals, but they sure aren’t Friends. They may be a gang, but they’re not Our Gang--heck, these cretins make Spanky, Alfalfa, and company look like members of the Good Sam Club by contrast. Consider, if you can bear it, the first of the 15 episodes (presented, with bonus features, on three discs) from this, the show’s third season: Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Dee (Caitlin Olson) discover a baby in a dumpster. Do they report it to the police? To Child Services, maybe? Of course not! They take it to a commercial agent, hoping to cash in by putting the kid in TV ads; and when the agent says that Latino babies are all the rage, they take him to a tanning salon so he’ll appear darker and more “ethnic looking.” Meanwhile, Dennis (Glenn Howerton) pretends to be join a tree-hugging group of hippies, merely so he can steal the group leader’s girlfriend, while Charlie (Charlie Day) and Frank (Danny DeVito) spend the day rummaging around at the trash dump. It’s tough to go downhill from there, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. In the course of the following episodes, members of the quacked quintet reveal themselves to be not only rude, devious, unscrupulous, amoral, and dishonest, but also racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and dumb (their endless arguments about nothing are riotously ridiculous). Not that this will surprise anyone who’s seen the show before. Dee, Mac, and Dennis try out for the Philadelphia Eagles while Charlie and Frank drop acid. Dee sleeps with the old, toothless janitor at a competing bar in order to steal their microbrew recipe. They mock a deaf mute. They fart in each other’s faces. When they think Paddy’s Pub, where they work, is going to be sold, three of them quickly land gigs at a nearby restaurant, where they get drunk on the job and steal from the customers. They even get held hostage by the hillbilly McPoyle family, possibly the only people in the known universe who can make our “heroes” look good. And it’s all pretty hilarious, including the bonus features. Those include humorous commentary on two episodes by McElhenney, Day, and Howerton (the show’s executive producers and occasional writers), two featurettes (a season overview and a look at the McPoyles) that are as whack as the show itself, a gag reel, and a “Dancing Guy” sequence so strange as to beggar description. --Sam Graham

Beyond It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Season 3 on DVD

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD

Arrested Development – Season One on DVD

Arrested Development – Season Two on DVD

Stills from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Season Three (Click for larger image)

How I Met Your Mother - Season Two

Actors: How I Met Your Mother, Monique Edwards
ASIN : B000TM1CKQ
Sales Rank : 160
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Widescreen, Box set, Color, Dolby
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543467281
UPC : 024543467281
Release Date : December 02, 2007
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 9 to 13 days
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 521

Product Description

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 04/01/2008 Run time: 484 minutes Rating: Nr

Amazon.com

The sweet, snarky charms of How I Met Your Mother are in full force on this clever sitcom's second season. The show's conceit is that it's all from the point of view of the future self of Ted Mosby (played in our time by Josh Radnor, voiced in the future by Bob Saget), telling his kids the story of how he met their mother--a character that, two seasons in, has yet to be introduced. Instead, the show revolves around Ted's romantic pursuit of Robin (Cobie Smulders) and the cozy relationship of Ted's best friends, Lily (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's beloved Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel from another cult show, Freaks and Geeks). Careening through these two love stories is Barney (Neil Patrick Harris, the former Doogie Howser, M.D.), an aggressively single womanizer, whose intimate friendship with this largely sincere and domestic bunch doesn't make much sense...but often makes for excellent comedy. This goofy quintet of late 20somethings flounder their way through life in New York, wrestling with love and careers. When the first season ended, Ted and Robin had finally hooked up, but Marshall and Lily had suddenly split up. Season two runs with this, enriching the relationships among all the characters over the season's progress while spinning out all sorts of stand-alone plots that make each episode a treat. Examples: Ted discovers that his parents have been keeping a secret from him; Marshall, feeling burnt by love, starts doing couple things with a newly single male friend; Lily gets a job at Ted's office and is appalled by Ted's obnoxious boss; Robin tries to keep Ted from discovering her sordid past; and Barney...well, Barney is the gleeful source of a dozen cockeyed tales, ranging from asking Lily to paint a nude portrait of him to grappling poorly with his gay brother's sudden turn to monogamy to going on The Price is Right to find his father. The entire cast is superb (and much more confident this season), but Harris's inexplicably endearing smarminess really pushes the show into a higher comic bracket. That performance energy--combined with the cunning use of flashbacks and other twisty story techniques--makes How I Met Your Mother both sweet and spicy, a conventional sitcom that tweaks the formula enough to make it feel fresh and engaging. If the creators can keep this up, this show will become a classic. Season Two features an abundance of fan-pleasing extras, including cheerful commentaries, extended scenes, and a disturbing music video of the show's theme song. --Bret Fetzer

Sex and the City - The Complete Series (Collector's Giftset)

Actors: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon
ASIN : B0011UBDTK
Sales Rank : 87
Studio : Hbo Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0026359445828
UPC : 026359445828
Release Date : December 01, 2005
Publisher : Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer : Hbo Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Hbo Home Video

Product Description

Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 12/31/2007

Amazon.com

Sex and the City is based on Candace Bushnell's provocative bestselling book. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw, a self-described "sexual anthropologist," who writes "Sex and the City," a newspaper column that chronicles the state of sexual affairs of Manhattanites in this "age of un-innocence." Her "posse," including nice girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis), hard-edged Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and party girl Samantha (Kim Cattrall)--not to mention her own tumultuous love life--gives Carrie plenty of column fodder. Over the course of the first season's 12 episodes, the most prominent dramatic arc concerns Carrie, who goes from turning the tables on "toxic bachelors" by having "sex like a man" to wanting to join the ranks of "the monogamists" with the elusive Mr. Big (Chris Noth). Meanwhile, Miranda, Cynthia, and Samantha have their own dating woes.

The second season builds on the foundation of the first season with plot arcs that are both hilarious and heartfelt, taking the show from breakout hit to true pop-culture phenomenon. Relationship epiphanies coexist happily alongside farcical plots and zingy one-liners, resulting in emotionally satisfying episodes that feature the sharp kind of character-defining dialogue that seems to have disappeared from the rest of TV long ago. When last we left the NYC gals, Carrie had just broken up with a commitment-phobic Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but fans of Noth's seductive-yet-distant rake didn't have to wait long until he was back in the picture, as he and Carrie tried to make another go of it. Their relationship evolution, from reunion to second breakup, provides the core of the second season. Among other adventures, Charlotte puzzles over whether one of her beaus was "gay-straight" or "straight-gay"; Miranda tries to date a guy who insists on having sex only in places where they might get caught; and Samantha copes with dates who range from, um, not big enough to far too big--with numerous stops in between.

The third season was the charm, as the series earned its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series to go along with its Golden Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress (Parker). One of this season's two principal story arcs concerned hapless-in-love Charlotte and her pursuit of a husband; enter (if only...) Kyle McLachlan as the unfortunately impotent Trey. Meanwhile, Carrie has a brief but memorable fling with a politician who's golden, but not in the way she anticipated. She then sabotages her too-good-to-be-true relationship with furniture designer Aidan (John Corbett) by having an affair with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who himself has gotten married. Like I Love Lucy, the series benefited from a brief change of scenery with a three-episode jaunt to Los Angeles, where Carrie and company encountered, among others, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The fourth season is just as smart and sexy as ever, mixing caustic adult wit and sharply observed situation comedy on the mean streets of Manhattan, though this time the quartet of singleton city girls must endure even tougher combat in the unending war of love, sex, and shopping. Carrie finally seems to have found her ideal life partner when she is reunited with handsome craftsman Aidan. But can their relationship survive trial by cohabitation? Meanwhile Charlotte seems to have both her dream Park Avenue apartment and a solution to her marital problems with Trey. But when the subject of babies comes up, everything starts to unravel for her, too. It's not just Charlotte who has baby issues either: after what seems like an eternity of enforced sexual abstinence Miranda is horrified to discover she's pregnant. And as for the sultry Samantha, she's on a quest for monogamy, first with an exotic lesbian artist, then with a philandering businessman, with whom to her utter dismay she just might have fallen in love.

It was a short but sweet fifth season, as HBO's resident comediennes found themselves affected by forces beyond their control--the pregnancies of both Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. A truncated shooting schedule to accommodate the actresses forced this season to be reduced to a mere eight episodes, but they and creators forged ahead, creating a handful of episodes that if short in content were long on emotion and laughs. Carrie and Miranda wrestled with their solitary lifestyles, albeit with new attachments--Miranda had new baby Brady and single motherhood, while Carrie found herself in the world of publishing as the author of a real-life book of her columns. Charlotte wondered if she'd ever find another man, while Samantha finally got rid of the one that had been vexing her far too much. If the season as a whole felt less than the sum of its parts, those parts were some of the best comedy in the show's history. The season's climactic episode, "I Love a Charade," was one of the series' best episodes ever, equally touching and funny, and grounded the show in an emotional maturity that announced that after all their wild travails, these women had truly grown up.

After a long wait--like the entire fifth season--Carrie is dating again. The sixth season starts with Carrie and her sparkly new potential, Berger (Ron Livingston), trying to leave past relationships and hit it off, with mixed results. Meanwhile Carrie's friends seem to be settling down, relatively speaking. Miranda decides that her affair with TiVo cannot compete when Mr. Perfect (Blair Underwood, at his most charming) moves into her building. Charlotte's feelings for her "opposites attract" boyfriend (Evan Handler) deepen, but they still have a few things to iron out. Most surprising is Samantha's hot relationship with waiter-actor-stud Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) taking on something resembling love, despite Samantha's best intentions. Before the sixth season started in the summer of 2003, a bombshell hit: it was announced that this would be the finale. But it would be a long season, and these 12 episodes plant the seeds for the final 8 airing the following winter. These dozen episodes illustrate the maturity of the show: there's not a bad one in the bunch, and the show is still flat-out funny. The comedy blends serious points of how we perceive singles, couples, and parents (and the gifts we lavish on the latter two). Carrie's method of celebrating her singlehood is just another gem in this treasure of a series.

With the last eight episodes of the sixth season, HBO's grand sitcom concluded, leaving untold numbers of women--and many men--feeling deprived. The six-year series certainly did not outlast its welcome; the final season is some of the best TV had to offer in 2004. In many ways, the eight episodes served as a single finale, with all four characters approaching a kind of destiny and happiness, the theme of this last half-season (which aired weeks after the first half). Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) continues her romance with Russian artist (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a flippantly arrogant man who's been around the block, but able to supply Carrie's needed desire for magic. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has settled down with Steve (David Eigenberg), but there is more that will change with her, including her address. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continues to make baby plans now that the husband slot is filled quite nicely (Evan Handler). Going down the final stretch--and Samantha's (Kim Cattrall) cancer--gives the series a more serious tone, but there's always a jab to tickle the funny bone: Miranda's awkwardness with happiness, Charlotte's latest passion, Carrie typing someplace new, and Samantha getting into Paris Hilton territory. Like any series winding down, there is a wedding, a baby, old faces popping up, and some star-ladened new ones. In the final two-part episode, "An American in Paris," Carrie faces her romantic destiny, but also solidifies herself as a fashion icon, an Audrey Hepburn for 21st-century television. In the penultimate episode, she asks her friends an emotional question: "What if I never met you?" Certainly fans can ask of themselves the same question and reminisce how much better TV became since they first tuned in these four women of the City.

The Big Bang Theory - The Complete First Season

Actors: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons
ASIN : B000W91RUG
Sales Rank : 45
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0883929024292
UPC : 883929024292
Release Date : December 02, 2008
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 355

Amazon.com

University physicists Leonard and Sheldon know whether to use an integral or a differential to solve the area under a curve. But they don’t have a clue about girls. Or dating. Or clothes. Or parties. Or having fun. Or, basically, life. So when a pretty blonde named Penny moves in the apartment across the hall, the guys decide to get an education outside of the classroom. Boys, you have a lot to learn. With series creators Chuck Lorre (Two and a Half Men) and Bill Prady (The Gilmore Girls) concocting the right mix of logic and lunacy and stars Johnny Galecki (Roseanne) and Jim Parsons (Judging Amy) turning geekdom into Phi Beta fun, The Big Bang Theory is big on laughs. And life.

Amazon.com

The delightful sitcom The Big Bang Theory revolves around a character type rarely seen on television: The alpha geek. Physicists Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) get their lives shaken up when an attractive young woman named Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moves in to the apartment across from theirs. The key to the show, though, is not that they both fall haplessly in love--Leonard does, but Sheldon remains impermeably aloof and caustic about anything resembling romance or human relationships in general. While the push and pull of Leonard's yearning for Penny motivates much of the series' ongoing plot, the show's real drive comes from Sheldon's fantastic combination of obsessive-compulsive neurosis and grandiose obliviousness. He's a brilliant comic creation, imperious and dorky, a seamless collaboration of clever writing and an inspired performance by Parsons. Whether Sheldon loses his job for insulting his new boss, or finds his ego bruised by a child prodigy, or finds himself unable to bear being part of a lie that Leonard has told, he attacks the world with a relentless need to assert his supremacy--and the results are deeply funny.

The triumph of The Big Bang Theory is that everyone is written with genuine affection; what could have been a lifeless parade of stereotypes--Two Nerds and a Hot Chick--becomes instead a charming collision of cultures. The familiar stuff (computer games, comic books, social incompetence) has the grit of specificity; the show understands the difference between Halo and Halo 3, knows what the Bottle City of Kandor is, and grasps the infinite variety of ways in which a conversation can go terribly awry. (Penny gets less nuance, but Cuoco still gives her a distinctive personality.) Kudos as well to supporting players Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar, who bring their own variations on geekiness to the table, and to great appearances by some of Galecki's former cohorts on Roseanne--Sara Gilbert as geekette Leslie and Laurie Metcalf as Sheldon's fundamentalist mother. All in all, one of the most winning sitcoms in years. --Bret Fetzer

Entourage - The Complete Fourth Season

Actors: Adrian Grenier, Jeremy Piven
ASIN : B0011UO91E
Sales Rank : 148
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : HBO Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0883929014156
UPC : 883929014156
Release Date : December 26, 2008
Publisher : HBO Home Video
Manufacturer : HBO Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 9 to 13 days
Label : HBO Home Video
Running Time : 360

Product Description

Sure it would be great to have it all, but at what price? For Vince, Eric, Drama and Turtle, life in Hollywoods fast lane can be an intoxicating ride. In Season Four, in fact, Eric and Vince have taken on new roles as producers. Will their film be hailed as a critical masterpiece, or will it end up on the trash heap of broken Tinseltown dreams?

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The fourth season of Entourage follows Vincent Chase's quest for legitimacy (and Oscar) through his dream project, the Pablo Escobar biopic Medellin, whose development deal was the focus of season three. As expected, the production is riddled with troubles: Vincent (Adrian Grenier) and Eric (Kevin Connolly) clash over the ability of the film's director, Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro), to handle the grand scale of a film. Eric even flies in Oscar-winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (playing himself) to the shoot in Colombia at Billy's request in order to rescue the script, only to send him home when Billy comes up with the ending himself. ("I've never had anyone pay me not to work before," says Gaghan in a hilarious cameo. "It was nice.") But as the pet project puts strains on their friendship, Eric finally takes a step off of Vince's coattails to become a manager in his own right; his first step is snagging actress Anna Faris (as herself) as a client (in true Hollywood form, after she hits him with her car). As buzz on Medellin ebbs and flows, Eric and Vince's agent, Ari Gold (Emmy winner Jeremy Piven) wheel and deal to lock in distribution and spin the behind-the-scenes drama to their advantage. Key to the negotiations is a swaggering, hotheaded studio magnate named Harvey Weinhald--the caricature is obvious--who threatens the life of any agent who double-crosses him. And that's right where our boys land, but is it a gamble that will pay off? The fourth season, as always, is rife with celebrity cameos (Dennis Hopper, the late Sydney Pollack, Kanye West), but the Medellin plot pushes out any chance for other Entourage cast members to get a storyline (Johnny Drama gets a condo! Buys a hat!), which ultimately becomes a detriment considering that Medellin, as the big finale at Cannes attests, may not have been worth all the hype. Bonus features include commentary by the cast and creators, a panel discussion, and the Medellin trailer, which with its slo-mo, self-important music and bad makeup, is a gem. --Ellen A. Kim

The Office - Season One

Actors: Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, B.J. Novak
ASIN : B0009VBTP0
Sales Rank : 184
Brand : Universal
Studio : National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781417070473
ISBN : 1417070471
UPC : 025192850622
Number Of Discs : 1
Release Date : December 16, 2005
Publisher : National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Manufacturer : National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Running Time : 135

Description

In this hilarious and faster-paced adaptation of the popular British comedy series, Steve Carell is Michael Scott, the egotistical, insensitive and almost supernaturally incompetent regional manager of the Dunder Mifflin paper supply company. Michael sees himself as the office funnyman, a fount of business wisdom and his employees' cool friend. He has no clue that his staff merely tolerates his inappropriate behavior because he signs their paychecks. Michael acts as the obnoxious tour guide for an omni-present documentary crew who unflinchingly capture his many shortcomings along with Dunder Mifflin's petty workplace politics, simmering romances and side-splittingly awkward moments.

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The British sitcom The Office has the most devoted following this side of Monty Python, so an American remake seemed doomed. Amazingly, the remake actually finds its own enjoyable version of the original's uncanny comedy of embarrassment. Office manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell, The Daily Show, The 40 Year-Old Virgin) believes he's the beloved leader of the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of a paper products company--but his relentless and painfully forced efforts at comedy creep out everyone around him, including paranoid Dwight (Rainn Wilson, who had a memorable recurring role on Six Feet Under), nervous receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer, LolliLove), and aimless salesman Jim (John Krasinski, A New Wave), who's smitten with the already engaged Pam. The pilot episode suffers from closely replicating the British pilot, but after that The Office finds its own footing, turning diversity training, an office birthday party, and a basketball game into excruciating yet hypnotically funny rituals of humiliation. Carell, though clearly talented, can't match Ricky Gervais' unique performance as the aggressively needy British manager (it's hard to imagine that anyone could); as a result, the supporting roles become more prominent, and Wilson, Fischer, and Krasinski quickly create a rapport that matches and may even exceed that of their British counterparts. Be sure to watch the deleted scenes; remarkably, they're as good as the material that made it on the air in this six-episode season. --Bret Fetzer

Sex and the City: The Complete Third Season

Actors: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth
ASIN : B000063TQS
Sales Rank : 259
Director : Allen Coulter, Allison Anders, Charles McDougall, Daniel Algrant, Dennis Erdman
Brand : SEX AND THE CITY
Studio : HBO Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0026359923227
UPC : 026359923227
Release Date : December 21, 2002
Publisher : HBO Home Video
Manufacturer : HBO Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 9 to 13 days
Label : HBO Home Video
Running Time : 540

Description

Sex and the City returns for a third season that is even fresher, funnier and more tastefully dressed than the first two. Join Carrie and her friends Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha as they do weddings, funerals and Bat Mitzvahs, Staten Island, the meat-packing district and the Playboy Mansion. "A-List" celebrity guest appearances include Carrie Fisher, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Hugh Hefner, Donovan Leitch, Matthew McConaughey, Alanis Morissette and Vince Vaughn. So get ready to cross the velvet ropes and enter a world of... Sex and the City.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Audio Commentary of 4 Episodes with Executive Producer Michael Patrick King
Biographies
Episodic Previews
Episodic Recaps
Other:Biographies - Cast, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Noth, Darren Starr, Michael Patrick King, and more!
Scene Access

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The third season was the charm for one of HBO's gold standard series, which earned its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series to go along with its Golden Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress (Sarah Jessica Parker). The writing is as sharp as ever, with more trendy product placement than a Bret Easton Ellis novel and ribald banter that's a cross between the Algonquin Round Table and the Friars Club. One of this season's two principal story arcs concerned hapless-in-love Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and her pursuit of a husband; enter (if only...) Kyle McLachlan as the unfortunately impotent Trey. Meanwhile, sex columnist Carrie has a brief but memorable fling with a politician who’s golden, but not in the way she anticipated. She then sabotages her too-good-to-be-true relationship with furniture designer Aidan (John Corbett) by having an affair with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who himself has gotten married.

"Do we need drama to make a relationship work?" Carrie muses at one point. Sex and the City needs drama to make it work, and Parker and Cynthia Nixon (as career woman Miranda), this ensemble's better half, give the show its pulsating heart as they wrestle with commitment and, in the episode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," sadder-but-wiser breakups. On the lighter side, the sexual dalliances of "rude and politically incorrect" Samantha (Kim Cattrall) provide great fodder for comedy. Like I Love Lucy, the series benefited from a brief change of scenery with a three-episode jaunt to Los Angeles, where Carrie and company encountered, among others, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. At its best, to quote one character, Sex and the City is "sharp, edgy, brutal at times, always a little juicy." It may be "very New York," but the sex and relationship issues it tackles are universal. For its devoted fans, the release of this 18-episode, three-disc set is, to quote Gellar's clueless Hollywood junior development exec, "chick flick big." --Donald Liebenson