I'm pretty excited that the first season of FX's "Damages" hits the shelves today. The show stars Glenn Close as a diabolical attorney, Rose Byrne as her naive protege, and Ted Danson as the man she's trying to take down. I really liked the pilot, but I was watching too many other shows over the summer to get into it. Besides, it's so great to have the instant gratification of an entire season on DVD.

- Posted by Kate

Season three of "Lost" hits the shelves today. The DVD set includes some pretty intriguing extras: "The World of the Others," "Lost Flashbacks," "Lost On Location," "The Lost Book Club" (ha!), and "Lost in a Day." You'll also find the usual assortment of deleted scenes, a gag reel, and audio commentaries.

I also ran across some pretty decent season four spoilers over at E! Seriously, though, think for a minute before you click that link. Maybe you don't want to know. Maybe you just want to watch a couple more of those cheesy webisodes and then cool it until February.

- Posted by Kate

It's another great week for TV shows on DVD. We've got "Gilmore Girls:" The Complete 7th Season and "Gilmore Girls:" The Complete Series. The complete series set has forty two discs and a booklet of "Gilmore-isms."

You can also pick up "Northern Exposure:" The Complete Series at the video store tonight. Twenty six discs of Dr. Joel, Maggie, Ed, Shelley, and Maurice.

Another show to check out on DVD is one you might not have seen yet: "Little Mosque on the Prairie." This Canadian comedy follows a group of Muslim Canadians who set up a mosque in their little town in the middle of nowhere. It's funny stuff.

- Posted by Kate

This is an unusually good week for DVD releases. First, you've got a little program called "The Colbert Report." This "best of" compilation clocks in at nearly three hours!

Season 1 of "Flight of the Conchords" also hits the shelves today. All the episodes are on the discs, but I'm not sure about extras.

Out and out collectors can pick up complete series sets of "Seinfeld" and "The King of Queens." The "Seinfeld" set has a lot of extras - including a coffee table book. Kramer's coffee table book? I guess we'll just have to see.

Season 3 of "Project Runway" is also being released today, just in time for the new run (8 days and counting!)

- Posted by Kate

Well, today's the day the DVD extras edition of "My So-Called Life" is hitting video stores near you. The discs contain all kinds of bonus features, including commentary from the now very un-Angela Chase-like Claire Danes. So, in honor of Angela, Jordan Catalano, Rayanne, Ricky, and Brian Krakow, here are my ten favorite moments from "My So-Called Life:"

1. Jordan can't spell Angela's name but she looooooves him anyway.

2. Patty comes through when Rayanne ODs.

3. Rayanne sings The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." It was both awesome and cringe-worthy. Not easy to pull off.

4. Ricky asserts his right to hang out in the girls' bathroom. I know, I know, it happened more than once.

5. The infamous Anne Frank comment. Why does she say it? She's fifteen. We've all been there.

6. Ricky's family kicks him out. No, it wasn't a happy storyline, but it was a good one.

7. We learn that Rayanne's mom feeds Rayanne only appetizers.

8. Angela finds out that Rayanne hooked up with Jordan, and she forgives her...eventually.

9. Angela drives off with Jordan even though she knows Brian really wrote the note. Why? Again, because she's fifteen.

10. We never meet Tino. What does Tino look like? Is he even a mortal creature?

Update: And I can't believe I forgot about the time that Angela thought Jordan wrote a song about her but it was about his car! Thanks, Dad.

- Posted by Kate

Season three of "Veronica Mars" comes out on DVD today! Here's some video from the gag reel that some kind soul has posted on YouTube.

- Posted by Kate

Yes, I am old enough now to have had a youth. It happens to us all, right?  Now that so many old shows are playing on cable and coming out on DVD it's possible to check in with stuff I watched when I was a lot younger and see if it still seems like "good" TV. Some shows don't fare so well ("L.A. Law" and "Perfect Strangers" come to mind) and some shows have surprised me. I'll say right off that there are plenty of shows that aren't on the list. "Cheers" is a good example. It's not on the list because it's stood the test of time just like we all expected it to. Same goes for "The Cosby Show." Here are five of the shows I was surprised I still really liked:

1. "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991) Things go a little bit off the rails in the second season, but otherwise "Twin Peaks" is as good as the best shows on TV right now. Who killed Laura Palmer? Well, you probably already know, and I thought knowing would ruin the fun. It is a police procedural, after all.  Turns out, rewatching "Twin Peaks" is almost better than seeing it for the first time. There are so many little details, and there are characters who didn't seem all that important who suddenly come alive, like Josie. Warning: the early 90s were not a good time in American fashion. It can be distracting.

2. "The Golden Girls" (1985-1992) This was a funny show. It was such an actual sitcom, too, with really stupid plots - remember when Dorothy and Rose write that "Miami, Miami" jingle? - but still such a great show. The acting is good, and the friendship between the girls seems a lot more real than the bond between Carrie and company, or Joan and her pals from "Girlfriends." They were having fun while they were eating all that cheesecake.

3. "Growing Pains" (1985-1992) This one really surprised me. Ion started showing reruns of "Growing Pains" and "The Golden Years" around the same time, and I watched a couple episodes of both shows. "The Golden Years" seemed kind of forced, whereas "Growing Pains" was actually funny. It didn't seem as dated as I expected.

4. "Northern Exposure" (1990-1995) I liked this show a lot when it was first on, but I don't think I fully appreciated its wackiness. Holling and Shelly? Hilarious and awesome. Also Ed, and Ruth-Anne, and Marilyn. It's a little disconcerting to see Rob Morrow in this role, because he looks pretty much exactly the same as he does now in "Numb3rs." Okay, his hair is shorter now.

5. "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990-2000) I'm not saying the whole run is worth watching, but the first three seasons (The Brenda years!) are pretty solid. It's funny to see how the show changes from a comedy that pokes gentle fun at the Beverly Hills elite to out and out melodrama. Also, season one has this whole weird subplot where the twins' mom almost has an affair with this other guy.

- Posted by Kate

Now that "Top Chef" is wrapping up and "Kitchen Nightmares" has failed to wow me, I'm missing my TV of the people-burning-things-and-yelling-at-each-other variety.  If only Alton Brown would call Bobby Flay a donkey on "Iron Chef: America."  One cooking "reality" show that you might have missed the first time around is "Jamie's Kitchen."

Dreamy British chef Jamie Oliver starts a non-profit restaurant, Fifteen, which he plans to staff with 15 homeless or unemployed young Londoners.  The documentary style show takes us from the auditions to the opening of the restaurant.  We get to see the fifteen apprentice chefs stumble through cooking school, fail their cooking exams, piss Jamie off, and...burn things and yell at each other. It's really worth a look.

- Posted by Kate

Today season one of "Heroes" hits the shelves. The seven disc DVD set includes lots of extras, like the unaired 73 minute pilot and several "behind the scenes" features. There are also 50 deleted scenes.  Not bad for under $40.

- Posted by Kate

File this under "it's about time:" cult favorite "My So-Called Life" is coming out on DVD on October 30. The complete boxed set will include:

- “My So-Called Life Story:” The amazing story of the origins, life and afterlife of the series.

- 1995 Museum of Television and Radio Panel
“A Conversation with Claire Danes and Winnie Holzman”

- “The Characters” - Exploring the back stories and relationships of the characters.

- An exclusive interview with Claire Danes

- Photo gallery

- “The Music” with composer Snuffy Walden

- Deluxe book accompanies set and includes original art alongside full-color cast photos and liner notes from Winnie Holzman, Joss Whedon, Janeane Garofalo, and Michele Byers (author and co-editor of new book Dear Angela: Remembering My So-Called Life - due out this year).

- Posted by Kate

There are so many TV-on-DVD box sets that make you just ask "Why?" – why, for instance, would anyone want to own the sixth season of "The Dukes of Hazzard"? So when a real gem comes along, one that features a classic show that isn't on the tube in a rerun every time you change the channel, it's worth mentioning. So, I'm mentioning it: On April 3, Fox is releasing the complete first season of "WKRP in Cincinnati."

Commentary and a making-of documentary are part of the bonus goodies, but the real reason the "WKRP" set is a must-own: "Turkeys Away," named one of TV Guide's all-time best TV episodes, in which the radio station throws turkeys out of an airplane as a holiday promotion with the people of Cincy.

WKRP news anchor Les Nessman: "It's a helicopter, and it's coming this way. It's flying something behind it, I can't quite make it out, it's a large banner and it says, uh – Happy ... Thaaaaanksss ... giving! ... From ... W ... K ... R... P!! No parachutes yet. Can't be skydivers ... I can't tell just yet what they are, but--Oh my God, they're turkeys!! Johnny, can you get this? Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this!"

WKRP station manager Arthur Carlson, post-"Turkeygate": "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Priceless. Well, actually not: It'll set you back $39.98 (retail) when it's released, and it's worth every cent.

- posted by Kim

O.K., it's only on DVD, but still good news for fans of those cancelled-too-soon series from the 2005-06 TV season.

The "Invasion" and "Threshold" complete series DVD box sets follow last week's release of the "Surface" complete series box, which makes me wonder which new fall season show is most likely to end up as a one-DVD-box set wonder.

A couple of guesses: ABC's "The Nine" or "Six Degrees," both really good dramas that may have a tough time building high ratings in a season that features several returning dramas that already have loyal audiences--"Lost," "Grey's Anatomy," "Prison Break," "24," etc.--plus a slew of new serial dramas that require a big time commitment.

- posted by Kim

Our generous pals at HBO and HBO Home Video have struck again, which means two TV Filter readers will hit the jackpot! We have two prize packages, with each package featuring four HBO DVD box sets: "The Comeback: The Complete Only Season," "Entourage" season two, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season five and "The Wire" season three!

Again, two lucky readers will each win all four box sets, which is more than enough great TV to get you through the next few weeks 'til the new fall season officially starts!

To enter, all you have to do is answer the following trivia question and send the answer, with "HBO DVD Package" in the subject line, in an e-mail to winthis@microsoft.com.  TWO winners will be selected at random from amongst the correct responses, and each winner will snag one awesome HBO DVD package.

HBO DVD PACKAGE CONTEST TRIVIA QUESTION:
What was the first movie to be shown on HBO when it launched on November 8, 1972?

Again, all you have to do to enter is send your answer to winthis@microsoft.com for a chance to win a cool package of four HBO DVD box sets. The contest begins today, and all entries must be received by August 28, 2006 at 12:01 a.m. ET. (The MSN TV Filter Sweepstakes Official Rules).

Good luck everyone, and keep checking in for more TV Filter giveaways … we've got more great swag coming your way!

- posted by Kim

- What Judd Apatow did for adorkable high school students in his cancelled-before-its-time classic NBC dramedy "Freaks and Geeks" he did for adorkable college students in "Undeclared," the short-lived Fox comedy that hits DVD (Shout! Factory) in a fancy-schmancy box set loaded with interviews, commentary and other bonus goodies.