robbyrussell's Recommendations

Family Guy: Vol. 3: Season 4
In this collection of episodes from the fourth season of the animated series, family man Peter Griffin gets chased by a gigantic chicken, goes head to head with Quagmire on the reality show "The Bachelorette" and kicks butt in Preschool Trivial Pursuit. It's full speed ahead with more cheeky humor! Included are 13 hilarious installments, plus the featurettes "Behind the Scenes with Stewie" and "Resurrection of Family Guy."

Big Eden
Successful but lonely New York artist Henry Hart (Arye Gross) returns to Big Eden to care for his ailing grandfather and winds up confronting his unrequited passion for his high school best friend and his feelings about being gay in a small town. As Henry works though his emotions, the townspeople quietly conspire to help him along, until Henry realizes new possibilities for both friendship and romance. Eric Schweig and Louise Fletcher also star.

Cowboy Bebop Remix
Cowboy bounty hunter Spike Spiegel and ex-cop Jet Black patrol the galaxies for dangerous criminals in this futuristic anime. Spike and Jet resort to dangerous tactics to bring in the universe's most wanted, and trouble's never far behind. Joining the pair aboard the spaceship Bebop are femme fatale Faye Valentine, computer hacker Ed and smart doggie Ein. Completely remastered and remixed, this version features newly animated scenes.

Seinfeld: Seasons 1 & 2
See how NBC's famous show "about nothing" -- one of the most popular sitcoms of all time -- first became "must-see TV." Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) leads the Manhattan foursome that also includes frustrated George (Jason Alexander), sometimes-shrill Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and, of course, Kramer (Michael Richards), Jerry's big-haired, eccentric neighbor with a knack for unique entrances. Keep an ear peeled for your favorite catchphrases. ...

Twin Peaks: Season 2
David Lynch's surreal cult phenomenon returns for a second season, following FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) as he continues to investigate the puzzling murder of high school student Laura Palmer. Eerily bizarre and quirky, "Peaks" is hailed as one of the most original series television has ever seen. Sherilyn Fenn, Michael Ontkean, Lara Flynn Boyle, Peggy Lipton and Ray Wise co-star in this groundbreaking mystery drama.

Doc Martin: Series 1
Frozen by a newfound fear of blood, once-brilliant London surgeon Dr. Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) is forced to abandon his city practice and start anew as a small-town country doctor in the Cornish hamlet of Portwenn. As the first season of this English sitcom unfolds, Doc Martin opens his office, only to find his waiting room impossibly full. But nobody in town is really sick … they just want to meet their new neighbor.

Scrubs: Season 1
This show gleefully departs from the usual medical dramas, instead mining the laughs that come with interning at a busy and bizarre hospital. From the first day onward, J.D. Dorian (Zach Braff) and his classmates, the surgery-obsessed Chris Turk (Donald Faison) and smart-and-sassy Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), discover that becoming a doctor requires tons of patience, clarity and a sense of humor in this first season of the hit series.

Freaks & Geeks: The Complete Series
Set in a suburban Detroit high school in the early 1980s, this Emmy-nominated drama focuses on the lives of two groups of teens who don't live in the fabricated, glossy world that most TV shows depict as "normal." No, Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) and her brother Sam (John Francis Daly) live in the reality of being less-than-popular that most Americans remember -- or try to forget -- about their high school years.

The War: A Ken Burns Film
Documentarians Ken Burns and Lynn Novick bring the harrowing history of World War II to life through the personal accounts of a handful of participants from four "typical" American towns -- proving nothing was typical during this terrible time. Historical footage and photographs combine with realistic sound effects to create visceral scenes of the battles at Omaha Beach, Guadalcanal, Okinawa and more in this seven-part PBS presentation.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 1
This 2003 series, based on the original TV series from 1978-80, was broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel and instantly won a legion of admiring fans. Join Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Laura (Mary McDonnell) as they lead a ragtag fleet of human survivors (from the destroyed colonies of Kobol) in search of a mythical planet called Earth. But beware, the robot race of Cylons is in hot pursuit … and it seems nothing will stop them!

Fullmetal Alchemist
In this anime tale from the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim series, brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric use the taboo science of alchemy to try to resurrect their mother. Instead, they unleash a chemical reaction that tears apart their bodies. Fast-forward four years: The siblings are scouring the land for the mythical Philosopher's Stone, which could restore their maimed bodies. And they may have located the fabled rock … in an affluent desert burg.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig
Catch all 26 episodes of this heart-pounding anime series that's big on thrills and excitement. Cyberworld's been rendered helpless by terrorists who've used technology to their advantage. Who can stop them in their unrelenting tracks? The fearless troops of Chief Aramaki. Watch as Aramaki and the rest of the gang, including Togusa, Batou and Ishikawa, turn the tech battle up a notch to push the criminals to their limits.

Greek: Chapter One
Discover the inner workings of the Greek world at Cyprus-Rhodes University in this ABC Family series centering on Casey (Spencer Grammer), who's running for sorority president, and her little brother Rusty (Jacob Zachar), who wants to shed his nerdy past by joining a fraternity. Highlights from the first season include a rigged sorority scavenger hunt, Rusty's efforts to join the Kappa Tau floor hockey team and several major parties.

Samurai Champloo
Director Shinichiro Watanabe mixes a maturity rarely found in anime with a historical Japanese setting and a funky hip-hop soundtrack. Fuu is a spacey waitress at a teahouse where a sword fight breaks out between Mugen, a wild warrior, and Jin, a more composed ronin. In exchange for saving them from execution, Fuu demands that they accompany her on a journey to find "a samurai who smells of sunflowers."

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Vol. 1
Anyone who was first exposed to classical music through the antics of Bugs Bunny and pals is going to love this collection, which features almost 60 classic Warner cartoons, including greats like "Rabbit of Seville," "Duck Amuck," "The Scarlet Pumpernickel," "Hair-Raising Hare" and "Devil May Hare." In addition to that wascally wabbit, characters like Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and Marvin the Martian are along for the ride.

The Best of the Colbert Report
Armed with flawed logic, unreasonable conclusions and sidesplitting humor, no-nonsense journalist and truthiness seeker Stephen Colbert delivers to audiences his comical take on current events in this collection of popular sketches and interviews. Parodying such shows as "The O'Reilly Factor," Colbert goes toe-to-toe in verbal battles with celebrity guests including George Lucas, Barry Manilow and Willie Nelson.

Damages: Season 1
This riveting legal drama stars Glenn Close as steely litigator Patty Hewes, head of the feared and revered Hewes & Associates. Dedicated to their work, Hewes, protégé Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) and senior associate Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan) battle billionaire CEO Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) in a class-action suit where millions of dollars, reputations and lives are at stake. The first-rate cast also includes Philip Bosco.

The Wire: Season 1
This gritty series from David Simon has become one of cable network HBO's biggest success stories. Set in Baltimore, the plot revolves around a police investigation involving murder and drugs. Told from both the investigators' and the perpetrators' points of view, the series challenges viewers as it finds redeeming and not-so-redeeming qualities in each of its characters. Stars British actor Dominic West as detective Jimmy McNulty.

Doctor Who: Season 1
More than 15 years after "Doctor Who" went off the air, the venerable sci-fi series got a well-received 21st-century makeover, complete with younger actors, modern editing and CGI animation. In the revamped show's first season, the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) meets his new sidekick, a department store clerk named Rose (British pop star Billie Piper); then, the duo travels to Victorian England to help a beleaguered Charles Dickens.

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Vol. 2
This collection is strictly for fans of Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil, indeed, all the classic animated characters from the golden age of cartooning at Warner Brothers Studios. Sixty short cartoons are included on this exciting four-disc set, a worthy follow-up to the first volume of Looney Tunes gems.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Faced with almost certain destruction of her planet's natural resources, warrior princess Nausicaa rallies her people against an evil queen's rampaging army in an effort to give her homeland a new lease on its future. Hayao Miyazaki directs this environmentally conscious anime that transports viewers to a magical place -- the Valley of the Wind -- where the ultimate showdown between good and evil will play out. Includes a voice talent featurette.

Red Dwarf: Series 3
Three million years into the future, only Dave Lister has survived a radiation leak on the ship Red Dwarf in this sci-fi parody that first aired on British television in the 1980s. Join Lister and some twisted characters -- including a hologram of his dead roommate and a creature that once was the ship's cat -- on their bizarre adventures. Episodes include "Backwards," "Marooned," "Polymorph," "Bodyswap," "Timeslides" and "The Last Day."

Red Dwarf: Series 4
This long-running BBC sci-fi series began its fourth season boasting a bigger special-effects budget and the addition of a new character: a female android played by Judy Pascoe, the real-life wife of Robert Llewellyn (aka Kryten). Returning for more interstellar misadventures -- now in the 23rd century -- are Dave Lister (Craig Charles), obnoxious hologram Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) and the rest of their off-the-wall Red Dwarf shipmates.

Six Feet Under: Season 1
This darkly comical HBO television series follows the members of a dynamic but dysfunctional Los Angeles-based family that operates a funeral home. It has an ironically grim but intriguing premise: Each episode is based on the death and extenuating circumstances of the family's current client. Captivating, original and utterly engaging, this Emmy Award-winning series is the brainchild of American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball.

City of Men
Based on Fernando Meirelles' s acclaimed drama City of God, this Brazilian TV series navigates the slums of Rio de Janeiro, following the exploits of two teens coming of age in one of the city's infamous shantytowns. Blending scenes of uncompromising realism with humor, these episodes introduce 13-year-old best friends Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) and Acerola (Douglas Silva), whose pluck and spirit prevail in the face of soul-crushing poverty.