Herc On DOWNTON ABBEY!! Tarantino CSI Blu!! Whedon's ANGEL: Cheapest Ever!! Cheapest LAND OF...

Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

The “Angel” complete series set, $127.49 last year and $90.99 last month, is this week only $55.99!! That works out to $11.20/season!! Lowest Price Ever!! (60% Off!!)

“The Sound of Music” 45th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD Combo Limited Edition, $80.99 last week, has plummeted to an all-time low of $28.99!! (68% Off!!)

The complete-series set for “Land of the Lost,” $46.99 in 2010 and $31.99 in November, has plummeted to an all-time low of $12.49!! (69% Off!!) ">

The first two seasons of the Louis CK-scripted “Chris Rock Show,” $27.99 last month, has plummeted to an all-time low of $10.99!! (69% Off!!)

Season seven of “Monk,” $49.99 in 2009 and $31.99 last month, has just plummeted to an all-time low of $11.99!! (70% Off!!) Three other seasons carry the same price!!!

The Blu-ray fifth season of “The Office,” $51.49 in 2010 and $37.99 in November, has plummeted to an all-time low of $17.99!! (70% Off!!)

The Blu-ray sixth season of “The Office,” $62.99 in 2010 and $40,99 in November, has plummeted to an all-time low of $15.99!! (73% Off!!)

The Blu-ray sixth season of “House,” $55.49 in 2010 and $42.49 in November, has plummeted to an all-time low of $18.49!! (69% Off!!)

“Birds of Prey,” which depicts the daughters of Bruce Wayne, James Gordon and Dinah “The Black Canary” Lance teaming up to fight evil, was $34.49 in 2010 and $28.99 in October. It now stands at an all-time low of $11.99!! (70% Off!!)

The third and fourth seasons of “Battlestar Galactica” on Blu-ray, $70.99 last year and $35.49 last month, have for the moment fallen to an all-time low of $19.99 each!! (67% Off!)

All of the first seven seasons of “Columbo” have plummeted to all-time lows of $14.99 or less!! (63% Off!!)

The complete series set for the Apatow-scripted “Ben Stiller Show” (starring Bob “Better Call Saul” Odenkirk), $17.99 last month, has fallen to $8.59!! (68% Off!!)

New This Week

I’m told “Downton Abbey” is the most popular costume drama on British TV since 1981’s “Brideshead Revisited,” and that makes perfect sense to me.

“Downton” isn’t in “Brideshead’s” league (this is the faintest of slights; “Brideshead” is peerless), but it’s one of the most thoroughly engrossing and addictive soaps I’ve encountered. Julian Fellowes’ tale of the stunningly wealthy Crawley clan of North Yorkshire and the army of servants it employs is lavishly produced, and its music by John Lunn is stirring and gorgeous.

Like “Mad Men,” “Downton” delights in examining how differently things worked a century ago, and isn’t afraid of jumping huge chunks of time or tying its plotlines to historical events. The first season, streeting today, starts with the 1912 sinking of the Titanic and ends with the 1914 declaration of World War I.

“Saturday Night Live’s” best segment last weekend (obviously written by a “Downton” fan) did a surprisingly effective job of summarizing some of the series’ many charms:

The series brings back “Ragtime’s” Elizabeth McGovern, fabulous as Cora Crawley, the clan’s kindly Jewish-American countess (the MILF!), and features a platoon of wonderful middle-aged British actors we don’t get to see enough of, particularly: Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley (the dad!), duty-bound Earl of Grantham; Jim Carter as Charles Carson, the stentorian and stern yet even-handed commander of Crawley’s servants; Phyllis Logan as Elsie Hughes, Carson’s harried first lieutenant; and Siobhan Finneran as Lady Grantham’s evil maid Sarah O’Brien (super bitch!).

The younger cast is no less ingratiating, including Michelle Dockery (hot!), Jessica Brown-Findlay (way hot!) and Laura Carmichael (the other one!) as the Earl’s three horny daughters, Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley, the Earl’s immensely likeable and newly anointed heir apparent, Joanne Froggatt as lovelorn head housemaid Anna Smith, Sophie McShera as kitchen maid Daisy Robinson (mouse girl!) and Rob James-Collier as thieving low-level homosexual servant Thomas Barrow (mean guy!).

Nobody in the cast moves me more than Brendan Coyle as John Bates (nice guy!), the earl’s crippled, tortured and insanely menchy valet, and nobody’s funnier than “Harry Potter” icon Maggie Smith (the chicken lady!) as the earl’s fiercely crafty mother, the dowager countess Violet.

Season two, not included on the new set, isn’t quite as good as season one, but I continue to watch avidly, and look very much forward to seeing what Shirley MacLaine does when she joins season three as Cora’s American mom.

If you can give up on this series after watching the first episode, you’re a stronger viewer than I. And that’s nobody’s business but the Turks’.

JULES: You know the shows on TV?

VINCENT: I don't watch TV.

JULES: Yeah, but, you are aware that there's an invention called television, and on this invention they show shows, right?

In my view one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of history, Quentin Tarantino is no snob when it comes to the medium of television.

Tarantino’s love of “Kung Fu” and “Star Trek” is well-documented, but I also remember him talking recently about how great he thought James Caan was on NBC’s “Las Vegas.” He directed an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” He played a recurring role as criminal mastermind McKenas Cole on “Alias.” In 1995, a few months after “Pulp Fiction” cemented his star status, he directed the almost-last episode of “ER’s” first season.

And he directed 2005’s two-hour fifth-season finale of “CSI,” another blockbuster Thursday-night series with initials where its title should be.

Series creator Anthony Zuiker wrote the teleplay, but Tarantino supplied the story, which deals with a vengeful criminal who buries alive a member of the CSI team. The installment also marks the last filmed appearance of Frank "He's Black On The Left Side" Gorshin, who died within hours of the episode’s airing.

TV-on-Disc Calendar

Last Week
Agatha Christie's Poirot 1.x
Agatha Christie's Poirot 2.x
Agatha Christie's Poirot 1.x (Blu-ray)
Agatha Christie's Poirot 2.x (Blu-ray)
The Comic Strip Presents: The Complete Collection
Diagnosis Murder Movie Collection
Hey Dude 2.x
Leave It To Beaver: 20 Timeless Classics
Poldark: The Complete Collection
Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Next Level (Blu-ray)

This Week