The Seinfeld Seasons are identically set out between each season, the only differences being box art and the actual season featured. There are also two versions of the complete collection, one special version in a box that looks like Jerry's fridge and another more normal version. The special fridge version is nothing more than a cardboard box that looks like a fridge, it's rather disappointing tbh. But the fridge magnets that come with it are rather cool.



Each season comes in an outside sleeve, a second box slides out of this sleeve and then you slide out the dvd box out of that. Yeah, you read that right. These babies come double bagged (well boxed)! It seems a little excessive for the needs, just one of the external boxes would have done the job just fine. While it's not much extra packaging, it does mount up when spread over 7 boxes.
The internal DVD tray is quite nicely done, it includes a short pamphlet that tells you about each episode and the tray itself is a book style two page layout. So you only have to open it once to get access to each of the DVDs. This system works well for seasons that fit on 4 DVDs.
The box art is nothing spectacular (as you can see), but it does include a wide range of pictures with no duplications between seasons. It's also kept consistent between each season, there are no sudden changes in style and the only real difference between each season box is the colour of the outside border. This keeps it all looking tidy and a part of the whole.
7/10

The Seinfeld DVDs include the usual selection of features, the wonderful "Play All" button is here and the menus are rather pleasing to look at, consisting of scenes/places related to the show. Most of the usual suspects are present in the extra section, you have deleted scenes, outtakes, a smattering of commentary (but it's not as good as it could have been), featurettes and collections of Jerry's stand up work. There's literally hours of extras.

But the two stand out amazing extras are the Seinimations and the "Notes about Nothing". You can see the Seinimations in the link above, but it's the "Notes about Nothing" that are clever and unique to the Seinfeld DVDs (so far anyway). Notes about nothing are a collection of interesting facts placed like subtitles in each episode. They keep track of some statistics (like the number of relationships everyone has, how many times Kramer enters Jerry's apartment and the like), plus provide a whole range of facts about the show or related subjects linked to the show. It's like watching the show with the worlds biggest Seinfeld nerd telling you all about everything, but without being annoying. It's a brilliant feature and I often now watch the show with it turned on.
9/10 (It would be 10, but the commentary leaves a little to be desired - more people in each commentary and more episodes with commentary please!)


Seinfeld is a genuinely seminal show, it changed the face of sitcoms and altered viewer expectations. It remains a "love it or hate it" show, often provoking extreme reactions from people one way or the other. Which is a sign of how brilliant it is. Really I don't need to go on about how influencial this show is, so many parts of it have crept into popular culture and have influenced later shows.
10/10

While you can pick up the earlier seasons cheap when in sales the RPP tends to be between £28 and £35 per season. That's 7 boxes for lets say £30 each (but as I said you can get it for less), containing 180 episodes. Which works out at £1.17 per episode or 5p per minute. But, that is still comparable to Futurama and as such it's pretty reasonable. The complete collection represents an even larger saving, so it's worth taking this time.
8/10


Watching Seinfeld via the DVDs is better than watching it on television, add to it the sheer bulk of good extras and you have something that's must have for fans of the show. "Notes about Nothing" is one of the best extras on a DVD ever.

Packaging: 7
Features: 9
Show: 10
Price: 8
Overall: 85%

And to wrap up, here's one of my favourite exchanges in the show.

[Scene: Jerry has answered the phone to a telemarketer]
Jerry: This isn't a good time.
Telemarketer: When would be a good time to call back, sir?
Jerry: I have an idea, why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you back later?
Telemarketer: Umm, we're not allowed to do that.
Jerry: Oh, I guess because you don't want strangers calling you at home.
Telemarketer: Umm, no.
Jerry: Well, now you know how I feel.
[Hangs up phone]

And as a special bonus:
Here's a link to the Seinfeld Poster Challenge there are 38 images related to Seinfeld moments!
(Here are the answers for the impatient or lazy.)
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I thought I'd kick this off with a look at one of my favourite shows and as I'm watching it again right now this seems sensible.

Packaging:
Each of the four seasons of Futurama is packaged in their own season box, which consists of three or four seperate dvd cases. The whole thing comes in a cardboard box that keeps them all together tidy. Essentially you get all four individual season boxes and another box to keep them in. Really this isn't much better than buying them individually. But the Outside box has a lot of original artwork and is quite nice looking.

It's worth noting that the box is rather cumbersome, but that is mostly because I bought the older version of the Complete Collection. The newer one is considerably smaller and I find myself annoyed that they didn't use the smaller size in the first place. As such I have to keep my Futurama collection ontop of my DVD shelving rather than actually on one of the shelves.

Each individual season is a cardboard 3/4 box that the DVDs slide into, wrapped with a plastic sheath which is pretty robust. This means the season dvds can take the odd knock and do just fine when removed from the shelf/big box. Of course, individual dvd boxes, inside another box, inside a sheath and inside a box isn't the most practical way to have a complete collection. But there is original artwork on each of the boxes and the outside boxes so they are nice to look at.
8/10

Features:
Each season of Futurama has quite a lot of features to it. The first two seasons sadly are missing the "Play All" selection on the menu. This is quite an oversight, but seasons 3 + 4 do have "Play All" so it's possible later versions of Season 1 + 2 have corrected this error.

Other features include deleted scenes, draft copies, amusing single frame easter eggs (Season One are movie posters) and concept sketches. There's plenty to keep you occupied and interested if you want to look at it. The deleted scenes are quite nice.

But the crowning jewel in the features/extras section for Futurama are the commentaries. Every single episode has commentary on it including the writers, animators, composers, creators and voice actors. There are plenty of appearances from John DeMaggio and Billy West plus a few from others like Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Phill LaMarr and even Dan Castallaneta. All of the commentaries are infomative, interesting and quite often funny. The highlights of the commentary often come from the voice artists, my favourites include "Dueling Professors" and "Dr. John Zoidberg Comments". It's some of the most enthralling commentary and it adds a whole new layer to watching the show.
9/10 (I'd give it 10 but the easter eggs aren't that interesting, where's my easter egg version of the game Fry plays in the first episode?)

Show:
Futurama is a classic show already, it remains fresh even to this day and hasn't had a truely poor moment yet. I can only identify two episodes that I'm not that keen on "A Fishfull of Dollars" and "That's Lobstertainment", but even those episodes have their great moments and remain watchable. The score I give this show is pretty much predictable. It's perfection.
10/10

Price:
Sadly you make no extra saving for purchasing the seasons together. £80 for the complete season or £20 per season. There's no benefit to grabbing the entire collection these days. You get 72 episodes for this price, each episode is approximately 20mins so you end up paying about 5p per minute of watching - just under a pound per episode. Factor in the fact that every episode has excellent commentary and the Futurama seasons are exceptional value for money. The only problem is, the complete collection doesn't really represent any additional value beyond buying each season seperately.
8/10
Overall:
If you're a fan of the show, the DVDs are must haves. The only problem with the Complete Collection is it's not really an improvement over owning the seasons seperately. The box takes up slightly more space and is impractical for atypical DVD shelving. So it's better to purchase each season seperately.

Packaging: 8 Features: 9 Show: 10 Price: 8 Overall: 87.5%
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Well I promised myself I'd come up with something to get me posting again. The TV industry certainly isn't providing much worth talking about, I would write about "The Wire" but I'm happier waiting until it finishes before I look back on the whole thing in reflection.

Instead I'm going to be reviewing the various TV DVDs that I can get my hands on. I shan't go that deeply into the shows as I'm going to be concentrating more on what you get for your money. Each DVD will be rated on the following:

Packaging:
The key points I'll be looking at are the artwork, elegance of use, robustness,

Features:
I'll be noting any extras added, commentary, easter eggs, deleted scenes and the like. Stuff that you don't really need to enjoy the DVD but sometimes it's nice to have.

Show:
The Show itself will get a short review, most of the time I'm going to be talking about shows I like so for the most part these will rate well.

Price:
Very simply I'll look at the recommended retail price and work out how much you pay per episode and minute. Then I'll use some complex equations to factor in how enjoyable the show is and it will result in a number between 1 and 10. (10 being best value possible per minute).

Then I'll put down an overall average score out of 10.
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I haven't really felt like posting recently, mostly because there has been precious little new television to watch (Torchwood, Boston Legal and the Wire) and I've also gotten behind with a few shows I like to watch - Nip/Tuck and Psych most of all.

Not really any good excuses, instead I'm going to fill the time by reviewing DVD boxed sets. I'll try and be as comprehensive as possible. Starting either tonight or tomorrow.

Until then, I just want to register my aprehension about the final few episodes of "The Wire". I don't think it ends on a happy note, I'm rather worried something very bad is going to happen to one of my favourite characters in it. We'll see, 2 weeks and it'll be over.
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I got carried away and watched all the way up to Ep 7 of the Wire (damn you internet leaks) and as such I now no longer remember which parts occured in which episodes. I must go back and watch them again so I can break each one apart and assess. But I won't do that until just before the final two episodes air.

I can say I really enjoyed Munch's cameo, that was ace. But I've enjoyed all of the cameos this season (characters from previous seasons). Fingers crossed that Bunny and Prez turn up, I've missed them both.
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