Buying DVDs of shows you've never seen (1 Viewer)

Do you ever buy DVD releases of shows you've never seen? So far, my collection (a small one at that) includes my all-time favorites, like Simpsons, Married... with Children, and Family Guy, but recently, other shows that I never watched but wish I could have are coming out on DVD. There are many shows that looked good but I never had time for, or were simply before I started watching TV, that I'd be interested in picking up... However with the price of season sets, it makes me wonder if that's such a sane thing to do. Seems more like a gamble.

What's your take on it?

If you're not sure about a particular title, then the best way to go is to rent it from Netflix or similar by-mail operation (Blockbuster would be too expensive). Watch the first disc and if you don't like it, it hasn't really cost you much; if you do like it, you could then rent the rest; if you really like it, you could then buy the set. TV sets are too expensive for blind buys in my opinion.

Dana

I've done this a couple of times, I did this with King of Queens and What's Happening. What's Happening only cost me $20 so it wasn't that big of a risk, and King of Queens was also priced pretty cheap. I ended up really liking King of Queens and loving What's Happening.

I wouldn't have done this with those shows if they were priced differently, like say if they were in the range of the Friends sets $45 it wouldn't have happened.

Other wise, I buy what I've seen, and take the same stance on TV shows that I take on movies. If I read a review and it sounds like something that fits my taste then I'll think about picking it up, and actually that's been real successful for me.

I did for Roswell...lucky I liked it! Figured it might be worth it, seeing the reviews looked good for the series and the picture/audio quality (can't really judge the original music issue since I never saw the show on tv). I like the premise, and there were only three seasons; not only that, but the series is supposed to have a pretty good finale.

I'm happy with my purchase

I did this for Firefly ... and also XENA: Warrior Princess Seasons 2 and 3.

So far, I've been very pleased with these purchases. (Firefly, in particular, was an astoundingly good show. I can't imagine how it could have been canceled so prematurely.)

Now, Firefly just cost me $35, while the two XENA boxes were $45 each. If these had cost around $100/box (like the recent 15 episode Star Trek: Voyager Season One release) then there's *no way* they would ever have been purchased.

EDIT: By the way, Star Trek: Voyager Season One is now up to $139.95 at all the B&M stores near me. I wish them luck in trying to get that price out of even a hard core Star Trek fan, much less a casual Sci-Fi fan who may just be cruising the store shelves looking for some decent science fiction to add to his collection. It's a quality show with excellent production values, but it's not worth $139.95 for 15 episodes!

I make blind buys for TV Shows all the time:

Queer as Folk
SportsNight
Penn & Teller's Bullshit
Firefly
Six Feet Under
Stargate SG-1 (Season 1 was my first ever TV Season Set purchase)

I've made a lot of blind buys:24,Angel,Alias,Buffy,The Critic,Dilbert,Firefly,Mr. Bean,Punk'd,and Starsky and Hutch.I do it all the time but I usually do a little research on tvshowsondvd.com before buying one.

I do it all the time: Buffy, Angel, Stargate, Sopranos, Sex & The City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Coupling (BBC)...

In all these cases, these are shows that I never watched but which picked up a lot of buzz and I started regretting missing. Haven't been disappointed yet.

I've made a ton of blind buys on tv shows. I borrowed my friend's copy of Sopranos S1...after finishing it in a wekeend I was hooked. Up until season 5, I've never seen a single episode on tv.

I also blind bought OZ, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Chappelle's Show, South Park (only seen season 1), and Sports Night.

I've yet to make a bad decision.

I hadn't seen anything from Simpsons season 1 except the first episode, and I knew that it wasn't supposed to be that great. I enjoy all the episodes, but of the three current sets, it's the one I watch the least.

That's the closest I'll come to a blind buy; episodes that I've never seen of a show I like.

I've only done this four times...with Samurai Jack, Red Skelton, ProStars, and Power Stone--all bargain bin buys.

I have, however, bought DVDs of shows I had--at the time of purchase--only seen one or two episodes of. These include Family Guy, Futurama, Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Sailor Moon, and Yu-Gi-Oh.

I do have a couple of blind buys planned for the future such as Punky Brewster.

I have bought several movie DVDs as blind buys such as Star Trek Nemesis, Pluto Nash, From Justin to Kelly, The Avengers and a few others.

i dont go to the show anymore so i just buy them.
i can tell if i want them or not with out seeing them most of the time.

Alias was a blind buy and well worth it - cant wait until Season 3

I also bought Farscape as a blind purchase but they were only 5 episodes per DVD so it wasnt that expensive to try it. Own the lot now so you can guess what I thought of it.

I also bought Seasons 1 of The Shield and NYPD Blue having never seen any of them. I have managed to watch some episodes from each, but cant get into them in the same way as I have other shows. Dont get me wrong I like the episodes I have seen, but they dont make me want to rush and watch the next episode in the same way that Farscape and Alias do, although I realise shows like Alias and 24 are designed for that.

Farscape
Stargate SG-1
CSI
Sopranos
Alias
Buffy and Angel

and many more

My So-Called Life. It was a good purchase because I'd never heard ANYONE say a bad thing about it, so I figured it would be worth the 45 bucks. I still can't believe how good the show ended up being. It was well worth the purchase. Twin Peaks, Season 1 was a blind buy, but I haven't watched much of it, because I don't want to get invested into it and not have ANY of season 2 yet...

Blind Buys (*checks TV DVDs shelf*):
Clerks (though I was quite familiar with the flicks)
Cracker (British)
Coupling (BBC, interesting story here—see below)
Homicide: Life on the Street (i've bought all seasons since)
MI-5 (BBC, a.k.a. Spooks)
The Office (BBC)
Only Fools and Horses (Brit.)
The Persuaders (Brit.)
Prime Suspect (Brit.)
The Prisoner (Brit.)
Secret Agent (Brit., a.k.a. Danger Man)
Sex and the City (don't have cable, let alone HBO)
The Shield
Six Feet Under
Soap (Sooooo worth it)
The Sopranos (all 4 seasons)

Wow. That's a lot more than i realized.
On Coupling: I had heard great things about the show so when it was up for preorder on Amazon, I signed up. Just days before the release, I noticed that it was on my local PBS channel, so I decided to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I sat down a couple seconds into the episode (Episode 2: "Size Matters") and after about 5 seconds, turned off the TV laughing hysterically, knowing I had made a wise purchase and not wanting to ruin the rest of the episode until i could see it in context.

I forgot 1 major blind buy of a TV show. I blind bought both season 1 and 2 of 24 and it cost me a prety penny. Well worth it though.

Sanford & Son - took a gamble on the first season because it was so cheap, and now own the first three (never been shown in the UK)

Dick Van Dyke - anything with MTM in it is fine by me, plus it always gets good reviews (I'm not aware of any episodes being shown in the UK in the last 20 years).

Sex & The City - I had only seen a couple of season 6 episodes before plunging in when all the seasons were on sale just after Christmas.

I did this 4 times:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Angel
The Sopranos
Alias

All were worth it but Alias paid off the most!