My living room bookcases haven't known what's hit them lately, with all of the many television-on-DVD, well, DVDs, that I've been loaded them with. Yet, despite the sheer quantities that I've managed to gather, everything from
Gilmore Girls and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer to
The Vicar of Dibley and
Monarch of the Glen (with more than a few
Justice League animated DVDs in between), there are still a few series that for whatever reason haven't quite made the jump to the digital.
So which series I am most desperate to own on DVD? Below are my top five (okay, six) picks for the most criminally unavailable television series on DVD.
Andy Richter Controls the Universe
Whenever I ask people which television series they would most like to see on DVD, this is invariably the answer I receive and I couldn't agree more. A critically acclaimed yet short-lived Fox series (is there any other kind?),
Andy Richter Controls the Universe was a zany single-camera comedy WAY ahead of its time. The series starred Andy Richter as, well, Andy Richter, a mild-mannered technical writer (and aspiring short story writer) working for a large nefarious corporation that was haunted by the ghost of its bigoted founder (like I said, zany). Andy's universe was pretty much his office and his days consisted mainly of daydreaming and interacting with his fellow prisoners--I mean co-workers: snappish supervisor Jessica (Paget Brewster), nerdy Bryon (Jonathan Slavin), suave ladies' man Keith (James Patrick Stewart), and gorgeous receptionist Wendy (Irene Molloy). What other show could brag about having its lead wear a puppy coat (yes, a coat whose many, many pockets were filled with adorable puppies) or daydream about crushing an old lady's skull into a diamond to impress the object of his affections? Just
Andy Richter Controls the Universe. So, Paramount, what do you say about bringing this cult comedy fave to DVD already?
Twin Peaks
A girl wrapped in plastic. A coffee-swilling FBI agent obsessed with cherry pie. A town of kooks so odd that any of them could have been guilty of murder. I'm talking about David Lynch's groundbreaking series
Twin Peaks, a show so creepy that it gave my thirteen-year-old mind nightmares for years.
Before I get any angry emails pointing out that
Twin Peaks' first season is available on DVD, let me clarify. Yes, now defunct studio Artisan did release the series' first season on DVD a few years ago, but they neglected to include David Lynch's brilliant and intoxicating two-hour pilot on the box set (it was a rights issue, apparently) and the studio was purchased by Lionsgate before season two was ever released. Gord Lacey's site TVonDVD.com continues to keep me
updated about the series' future on DVD and about Paramount taking over releasing
Twin Peaks on disc. Hopefully we'll see the surreal mystery-drama's second season hit stores this fall. But if it were up to me (which, sadly, it's not), I'd have them release the entire series (including that pilot, available on DVD only via Chinese bootleg) in one big deluxe box set, with a few retrospective bonus features. (No need to include feature film
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, though; I'd rather pretend it didn't exist.)
Grosse Point
Poor Irene Molloy. Neither of her series (see
Andy Richter, above) have made it to DVD. But for those of you who can remember,
Grosse Point was a fun, rather tongue-in-cheek WB satire about the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a
Beverly Hills 90210-esque teen drama. Created by Darren Star (
Sex and the City), it starred Irene Molloy as the vicious star of the fictional high school drama "Grosse Point," along with Bonnie Somerville, Lindsay Sloane, Al Santos, Kohl Sudduth, and Kyle Howard.
Clever and at times scathingly on target,
Grosse Point barely lasted a season (17 episodes were produced) but I'm constantly reminded about this series. Sony controls the rights (it was produced by Michael Ovitz's now defunct Artists Television Group) and there's been a bit of a back-and-forth about a release date, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the show finally makes it onto DVD.
Melrose Place
Is there another show that best represents television in the 1990s? Okay, maybe there is, but does it also feature advertising agency backstabbing, bedroom hopping, and a psychotic bomb-loving redhead who's clearly seen too many episodes of
Twin Peaks? Not to mention an extremely affordable, centrally located apartment complex with a shared pool and the most gorgeous people you've ever seen...
While reruns of the seminal nighttime soap appear to air nearly every day of the week on one cable network or another, I'd love to revisit
Melrose Place from the very beginning. Remember when Billy (Andrew Shue) was an aspiring dancer? Or original cast members Amy Locaine and Vanessa L. Williams? (Hint: they were replaced early by Heather Locklear's Amanda.) Or when Michael (Thomas Calabro) was actually nice? So wouldn't it be nice to start humming that familiar instrumental scene, check out those cheesy nighttime shots of Los Angeles' Melrose Avenue, and catch up with Billy and Alison, Jake and Amanda, Sydney and Michael, and the rest of the Melrose Place gang?
Brittas Empire and Jonathan Creek
Two British television shows sadly overlooked thus far by the BBC for Region 1 DVD treatment.
Brittas Empire was an indescribably bizarre comedy about Gordon Brittas (
Red Dwarf's Christopher Barrie), the overbearing, insensitive, and generally oblivious manager of a suburban leisure center whose behavior was so intolerable that he drove his poor wife to adultery, alcohol, and copious amounts of prescription medication. Throw in a support staff of equally bizarre individuals--a homeless, single-mother receptionist who keeps her children in her desk drawers, a (barely) closeted gay couple, and a deputy manager with oozing facial pustules--and you have the recipe for a hilarious comedy about the murder, mayhem, and frequent disasters of the Whitbury New Town Leisure Center.
In an entirely different direction,
Jonathan Creek was a brilliant mystery drama series about Jonathan Creek (played with humor by Alan Davies), an illusionist who designs large-scale magical acts for famous magician Adam Klaus (Stewart Milligan, though
Buffy's Anthony Stewart Head played him in the pilot). Jonathan's skills lend themselves to breaking down and solving seemingly impossible crimes, which are baffling in their very complexity. Along for the ride is Jonathan's friend/love interest, Madeline "Maddy" Magellan (Caroline Quentin), an intrepid reporter with a nose for trouble. Imagine Mulder and Scully with a little less sex appeal and a plethora of neuroses and you're nearly there. (Fortunately, when co-star Caroline Quentin departed after the third season,
Jonathan Creek's producers cleverly brought in
Absolutely Fabulous' Julia Sawalha to replace her.) Agatha Christie would have loved the series' fascination with a that crime novel staple: the locked room mystery. Just as Jonathan and Maddy ingenuously solve each episode's puzzles, it's astonishing to think about how
Jonathan Creek creator David Renwick dreamed them up in the first place.
Jonathan Creek is smart, funny, and genuinely charming mystery drama, so why the bloody hell isn't it on DVD yet?
Did I miss anything? What other television shows are you desperate for on DVD?
What's On Tonight
8 pm:
Shark: Mind of a Demon with Fabien Cousteau (CBS);
America's Got Talent (NBC);
Blue Collar TV/Blue Collar TV (WB);
George Lopez/Freddie (ABC);
So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm);
One on One/All of Us (UPN)
9 pm:
Criminal Minds (CBS);
America's Got Talent (NBC);
One Tree Hill (WB);
Lost (ABC);
Eve/Cuts (UPN)
10 pm:
CSI: New York (CBS);
Law & Order (NBC);
Lost (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching10 pm:
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America (9 pm ET).
If Monday night's
Hell's Kitchen wasn't enough Gordon Ramsay for you, here's your chance to catch him again. On tonight's episode of
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares ("Sandgate"), Gordon attempts to save The Sandgate, a hotel and restaurant, from financial ruin as a burnt out chef nearly suffers a nervous breakdown from being forced to cook for four restaurants at once and the owners are completely clueless about how to run a successful eating establishment. Can Gordon save The Sandgate from itself?
I don't know about you, but I've been salivating over the sheer possibility of an eventual US DVD release of seminal Britcom series Spaced, starring Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Jessica Stevenson, Mark Heap, Katy Carmichael, and Julia Deakin.
