NEW RELEASE TUESDAY (1/7/14): THE FOLLOWING, ARCHER, CHINA BEACH & MORE

A bunch of fan favorites are hitting store shelves today and we have a breakdown of what's worth picking up and viewing.

Thriller Pick-of-the-Week

The Following - The Complete 1st Season (DVD/BD)

FOX's midseason hit, The Following, releases its short first season and provides viewers an opportunity to catch up on the rollercoaster before its second season debuts later this month.

Comedy Pick-of-the-Week

Archer - The Complete Fourth Season (DVD/BD)

FX's popular animated comedy, Archer, gets a fourth season release just days before the premiere of its new season. This latest release continues to follow the missions and antics of Sterling Archer and gang at ISIS. Break out the liquor and bring on the drinking games!

Retro Pick-of-the-Week

Barney Miller - The Complete Fourth Season

This classic situation comedy, set in the 12th Precinct of Manhattan, New York City, releases another individual season. Back in 2011, the entire Barney Miller series was released in a complete box set by Shout! Factory after obtaining the rights from Sony Television. Now Shout! is releasing the sets that Sony didn't get to and frankly we love it. Barney Miller has become a little gem for Stay Tuned and we are currently halfway through the show's eight season run. The comedy, antics, and chemistry between the detectives of the 12th helped propel the show's popularity, and its influence in future police comedies is clearly noted (Hello Brooklyn Nine-Nine!).

China Beach - Season 2

One of the most requested television series releases its second season. StarVista/Time Life did an excellent job obtaining the rights of almost all of the original music, which was emblematic in the storytelling of the characters and essential for the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Honorable Mention

House of Lies - The Second Season

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season: Three (BD)

 

RETRO-TGIF! 'DINOSAURS' MARATHON!

Talking dinosaurs became the hit of the town in the early '90s and ABC's Dinosaurs successfully helped usher the sitcom back to popularity. The idea was outlandish. Who would watch a show featuring talking puppet dinosaurs? Well it turned out to be a whole lot of people. The short first season generated enough buzz and ratings to merit a full-order second season.

Dinosaurs was based on an original concept by Jim Henson (Fellow UMD Terp!), and takes place in Pangaea around 60,000,003 BC. The show focused on the daily trials and tribulations of the Sinclair family, a typical, normal dinosaur family with 2.5 children. The head of the household was Earl Sinclair, a tree pusher for the WESAYSO Corporation. His wife, Fran, was the happy homemaker keeping the house in order and raising two teenagers and a baby. Does her voice sound way to familiar? Well Fran Sinclair was voiced by none other than actress Jessica Walter, recently best known for her loving maternal roles of Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development and Malory Archer in FX's Archer. Robbie and Charlene are the teenage brother and sister duo that face the normal adolescent pangs of growing up. But the real star of the show was Baby Sinclair (and yes, that was his legal name). Baby became the fan favorite of the show with his catchphrases "I'm the baby!," "Gotta love me," and "Not the mama."

Even though it was a family show on the TGIF line-up, Dinosaurs didn't avoid topical issues and dealt with sexual harassment, civil rights, drug abuse, racism, women's rights, and peer pressure, as well as environmentalism and endangered species in its four season run. In fact, the final episode of the show was probably the most dark and somber sitcom series finale ever in television history. The Sinclairs signed off in the midst of the beginning of global cooling that would last tens of thousands of years...and ultimately wipe out all dinosaurs.

But we want to provide you with a happier tone for TGIF. So Stay Tuned has provided the video of the first season of Dinosaurs. Only consisting of five half-hour episodes, the season begins with the origin story of Baby's birth and ends with Robbie's right of passage when he turns 15.

8:00 - 10:30 PM - Dinosaurs (We added a bonus half hour just because it was included in the video)

Well that does it for another Retro-TGIF and we hope you enjoyed the show! Remember to check back next Friday for another 2-hour comedy block of past TGIF shows.

Keep it locked to Stay Tuned for anything and everything television!