Supercheap Blu WALKING DEAD & ANARCHY!! BOARDWALK!! HOMELAND!! CHUCK JONES!! ONCE UPON A TIME!!...

Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

Season one of Frank Darabont’s “The Walking Dead” on Blu-ray, $44.99 in 2010 and $37.49 in April, is selling (this week only) at $19.49 (61% Off!!)

The 3-disc deluxe editon of “The Walking Dead’s” first season on Blu-ray, $44.99 last year and $35.95 earlier this month, is selling (this week only) at $24.99 (58% Off!!)

The first three seasons of “Sons of Anarchy” on Blu-ray are selling (this week only) at $25.99 each!! (61% Off!!) Season three was $62.99 last year. Season two was $62.99 in May. Season one was $58.32 in June.

Amazon has the brand spanking new third season of “Community” -- the last overseen by series mastermind Dan Harmon and the one introducing John Goodman as Greendale’s terrifying vice dean of air conditioning repair -- arrives today on Amazon at only $19.96. (It’s $31.86 over at DeepDiscountDVD.)

The first two seasons of “Mr. Show” (starring Bob “Breaking Bad” Odenkirk, David “Arrested Development” Cross, Mary-Lynn “24” Rajskub, and Sarah “The Sarah Silverman Program” Silverman), $29.99 in 2008 and $14.49 last month, is now $7.41!! (70% Off!!)

The complete-series set for “Land of the Lost,” $46.99 in 2010 and $31.99 in November, is for the moment $13.75!! (66% Off!!)

New This Week

The first seven episodes of “The Walking Dead’s” second season, which dealt with the search for a missing girl, were I believe the series’ best ever. The series’ latter six episdoes, said to be scripted subsequent to AMC’s firing of showrunner Frank Darabont, represented the series’ nadir (no matter how many times comic co-creator Robert Kirkman assures us the scripts have been awesome since Darabont left).

A big extra on the new set is heretofore unseen footage from the original 2nd-season opener Darabont scripted – and an explanation from Darabont’s wildly inferior successor as to why that footage was excised.

“Homeland” comes to us from Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Chip Johansson, all longtime writer-producers on “24.” It stars Claire Danes (“Terminator 3,” “Temple Grandin”), Morena Baccarin (“Firefly,” “V”), Damian Lewis (“Band of Brothers,” “Life”) and the great Mandy Patinkin (“Chicago Hope,” “Dead Like Me,” “Criminal Minds”).

It’s about a hot CIA analyst who risks everything trying to prove that an American POW who spent eight years in captivity in Iraq is The Manchurian Candidate.

It was easily one of last season’s best new series. And not just because Baccarin gets naked.

HitFix says:

... the best new show of the fall season. ... functions terrifically as both a thriller and a commentary on our post-post-9/11 world …

AOL says:

... manages to be both an addictive espionage thriller and a compelling character study, as well as a well-constructed exploration of the difficulties and ambiguities of fighting terrorism a decade after Sept. 11. Without a doubt, it is one of the finest new shows of the year. ...

Time Magazine says:

... pretty easily my favorite new series of the fall ...

TV Guide says:

... fall's most riveting new drama ... Shows like Homeland have a way of keeping us deliciously off balance. Can't think of a place I'd rather be or a show I'd more highly recommend.

USA Today says:

... stands out as the season's best new drama. ...

The New York Times says:

... gripping ... “Homeland” is almost impossible to resist.

The Los Angeles Times says:

... not just the best new drama of the season (and would be, no doubt, even if the bar had been set higher than it has been this year), it's the first telling of a post-9/11 story that is all the things it should be: politically resonant, emotionally wrenching and plain old thrilling to watch. ...

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

.... offers the same "24" sense of urgency without a ticking-clock gimmick. If "24" was about the short game, "Homeland" is about the long con. It's an engrossing serialized drama with one of the best casts on TV. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

... spellbinding ... Eventually, Brody will begin looking over his shoulder. We can't wait to see what he'll find.

The Washington Post says:

... arrives with a taut air of near-perfection. ... What makes “Homeland” rise above other post-9/11 dramas is Danes’s stellar performance as Carrie — easily this season’s strongest female character, who is also hiding some personal secrets of her own. The latter half of the first episode is exhilarating. I’m hooked.

The Boston Herald says:

... riveting ... Patinkin is the perfect low-key foil to Danes’ manic energy. What seems like a straightforward question — Is Nick a traitor to his country? — might be the most devilishly complicated thing to answer, and definitely worth pursuing in this complex show.

The Boston Globe says:

… Am I hooked? Big time. Of all the drama pilots I watched, this was my favorite. …

Variety says:

... does some of its best work via flashbacks to Brody's time in captivity, sprinkling additional tidbits with each glimpse into the past. …

ABC’s “Once Upon A Time” is the first series created by the writing team of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who cranked out 21 episodes of “Lost” before they authored the screenplay for “TRON: Legacy.”

The new show deals with a contemporary hamlet named Storybrooke, Maine, which is where Snow White’s evil queen magically banished all the fairy tale characters we know and love from the Disney and Shrek movies. The catch is only the queen (now the mayor of Storybrooke) remembers the true identities of Snow White, Prince Charming, Pinocchio, Rumplestiltskin, Cinderella, et al. All the other characters have collective amnesia and have somehow emerged in new identities.

32-year-old Jennifer Morrison, the longtime “House” regular who embodied Jim Kirk’s pregnant mom in the last Star Trek movie, plays Snow White’s daughter Emma Swan. Because Storybrooke is somehow arrested in time, Snow White’s daughter now looks about the same age as Snow White (played by 33-year-old Ginnifer Goodwin from “Ed” and “Big Love”).

Wait, there’s more. Snow White’s daughter Emma – who works in modern-day Boston as a bounty hunter and knows nothing of her fairy-tale origins – gave up her newborn son Henry (Snow White’s grandson) for adoption a decade ago, and Henry is now the adopted son of the Evil Queen Mayor of Storybrooke. Moreover Henry has just learned only Emma can somehow free the fairy tale characters from the queen’s tyranny, and travels to Boston to lure Emma to Storybrooke. Got all that?

Like “Lost,” “Once” traffics like crazy in flashbacks and flashforwards, zipping between the fairy-tale world to which Snow White is native and the real-world world she and her pals inhabit now.

But while the “Lost” pilot seemed to swim in a surfeit of intriguing characters (Jack, Kate, Hurley, Shannon, Sayid, Sawyer, Charlie and even the silent John Locke), I found myself hard-pressed to grow invested in Emma, Henry or any of the Storybrooke residents.

There’s also no great underlying mystery (remember the Frenchwoman’s recorded warnings and the unseen tree-crushing monstrosity that finished off the wounded Oceanic pilot?) to lure me back for future installments.

As for the flashbacks, I have to say the idea of all the fairy-tale characters inhabiting a shared universe worked fabulously in “Shrek,” but seems pretty ridiculous (and kind of a clumsy crib) in an enterprise devoid of sharp comedic elements. (And, yes, we’re aware DC Comics’ post-“Shrek” graphic novel series “Fables” – which ABC tried to adapt into a TV series a couple of seasons ago – is even more similar to “Once Upon A Time.”)

To its credit, “Once” is livelier and more ambitious than “Grimm,” which is the NBC fairy-tale-creatures-in-the-modern-world hourlong from “Angel” vets David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf that premiered about a week after “Once” did. And Lana Parrilla (“Boomtown,” “Swingtown”), who plays the “Once” queen, is indisputably hot stuff.

HitFix says:

... unless you're deeply invested in the fairy tale characters and seeing the variations on their familiar backstories - seeing, for instance, that Snow and Charming had a very different first meeting than the one we know about - then most of the story and character work is flat, despite a cast of likable, game actors. ...

AOL says:

... I generally like the premise and I'm intrigued by the mythology that Horowitz and Kitsis are setting up, but in the first and third episodes (which is all I've seen so far), there are times when the enterprise lacks a certain heft and when the fantasy realm seems a little generic. Also, some characters, especially Lana Parrilla's Evil Queen (who is also the mayor of Storybrooke), are one-dimensional in kind of maddening ways, though Robert Carlyle makes up for that with his charismatic turn as both Rumplestiltskin and a Storybrooke resident named Mr. Gold. ...

The Wall Street Journal says:

... has an enchanting premise, even if it plods at times when it should sparkle and soar. ...

Time says:

... The costumes and appointments are what you’d expect, the special effects numerous but not very special, and Kitsis and Horowitz don’t really seem to have rethought Snow White and the other fairytale characters beyond the archetypes they started as. As a result, it’s hard to get too invested in their struggles and their endings, happy or otherwise. ... I ended the first hour smiling, but not feeling deeply invested in the characters, and because it spends so much time simply establishing the premise, I’ll have to wait to see if future installments integrate the worlds better and create a sense of greater stakes. …

The New York Times says:

... having Ms. Goodwin (“Big Love”) in the cast automatically made it one of the more promising new shows. She’s excellent, and Ms. Morrison, known for playing uptight snobs on “House” and “How I Met Your Mother,” uses her whiskey-and-cigarettes voice (close your eyes, and it sounds like Angie Harmon) to good effect as the reluctant savior. Watching the pilot again, though, it became harder to ignore the soap opera underpinnings and the twee sentimentality. ...

The Los Angeles Times says:

... Once the action leaves the overly Maxfield Parrish-ized world of magic trees and drooping pregnant princesses, things pick up considerably. There's a book; there an enlightened boy, Henry (Jared Gilmore); and best of all, there's Morrison. Her Emma is predictably cynical and prickly — fairy-tale princess, my Aunt Fanny — but she's sharp and lively enough to keep audiences begging for "just a few more pages" before they go to bed.

The Chicago Sun-Times says:

... gets points for being creative and different, and I’ve certainly watched worse shows this season. … But I don’t see this fairy-tale fantasy having broad enough appeal to conjure up the kind of viewer numbers it will need to stick around. ...

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

... succeeds on charm but comes up short on logic. Viewers looking for plot holes will find them. … Only time will tell whether "Once Upon a Time" becomes a sophisticated addiction like "Lost." But credit ABC for trying something different -- albeit with familiar characters -- that families can sit down to watch together.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

... The show is not only great, fluffy fun, but note that it occupies a traditional family time slot on Sunday nights. For years, Sunday evenings were dominated by the Walt Disney anthology series under a variety of names for, at one time or another, three broadcast networks. ABC is clearly looking to revive that tradition. ...

The Washington Post says:

... a smartly-crafted reward for fans of light fantasy, with the right mix of cleverness, action and romance. ...

The Boston Herald says:

... plays like a lighter version of “Twin Peaks,” but I don’t know that I’d let the wee ones watch. ... gets off to a bewitching start. I can’t wait for the next chapter.

The Boston Globe says:

… this is a love-or-hate proposition, and I mostly hated. The ambition is impressive, as it asks us to imagine Goodwin’s Snow White and Parrilla’s Evil Queen as moderns. But Morrison is a wooden lead, and the back stories - a random collection of fairy tales - don’t promise to surprise. …

TV Guide says:

... dazzling but dauntingly precious ... I was initially underwhelmed by all the heavy-handed whimsy, but I began to take Once a bit more seriously upon sampling the upcoming third episode. …

USA Today says:

... You can see how it could easily keep some viewers enchanted (those who don't immediately reject it as silly or twee) as the characters slowly figure out who they are, and then unite to defeat the Evil Queen. Unfortunately, having seen the first and third episodes — which may not, by the way, speak well for the unshared second — what's harder to imagine is how this idea supports an open-ended weekly series. ... Give ABC credit for trying something different. But next time, try harder. And better.

Variety says:

... Despite the pilot's charms, the prospects of a happy ending, TV-wise, look a little cloudy. …

Looney Tunes: The Mouse Chronicles collects all of Jones’ Sniffles and Hubie & Bertie cartoons for the first time in HD, at a time when Blu-ray Looney Tunes shorts are still in woefully short supply:

Sniffles Cartoons:
Naughty but Mice
Little Brother Rat
Sniffles and the Bookworm
Sniffles Takes a Trip
The Egg Collector
Bedtime for Sniffles
Sniffles Bells the Cat
Toy Trouble
The Brave Little Bat
The Unbearable Bear
Lost and Foundling
Hush my Mouse

Hubie and Bertie Cartoons:
The Aristo-Cat
Trap Happy Porky
Roughly Squeaking
House Hunting Mice
Mouse Wreckers
The Hypo-Chondri-Cat
Cheese Chasers

TV-on-Disc Calendar

Last Week
Adventures of Tintin 3.x
The Closer 7.x
House 8.x
House 8.x (Blu-ray)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 1.x Vol. 1
Mike & Molly 2.x
NCIS 9.x
NCIS Los Angeles 3.x
Perry Mason 7.x Vol. 1
Revenge 1.x
The Super Hero Squad Show: The Infinity Gauntlet Vol. 4
Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation

This Week