Why does Warner Brothers hate us so?

And why is TV Shows on DVD not all over this?

Let me explain: In the past week or so, TV Shows on DVD has run news items about 3 hourlong Warner Brothers shows coming to DVD in full-season sets: "Dallas," "Falcon Crest," and "Scarecrow and Mrs. King."

The sets announced contain 27, 18, and 21 episodes, respectively. Considering each program is an hour long, minus original commercial time, that makes for a total of, um, a lot of minutes on each set.

Here's the problem, one about which TV Shows on DVD has remained strangely silent: Instead of doing the honorable thing for the consumer and splitting these into half-season sets, like our good friends at CBS/Paramount Video, Warners is just throwing all these episodes onto ONE SET! That's right, a full season! How are consumers supposed to afford this? Everyone knows, including TSOD, that the split-season strategy is a boon to DVD buyers, allowing them to afford otherwise unwieldy, grossly expensive boxes.

And what about the poor retailers? Has WB given no consideration to the harried chain stores that must somehow find shelf space for these monstrous FULL-SEASON boxes, boxes which consumers clearly don't want?

I mean, who has time to watch a whole season of a TV show in less than a year or so, anyway?

So it looks like Joe DVD Buyer gets screwed again as TSOD stands by, failing to point out the absurdity of a corporate policy that forces fans to buy a whole season of a favorite show. As a result, they have to dig deep into their pockets to handle that steep $40.00 MSRP, a price that may be discounted to 27.99 at Amazon, for all those episodes. Contrast that to CBS, which gives us a much more manageable half-season of, say, The Fugitive, 15 hourlong episodes, for a low, reasonable MSRP of...

Hmm, 40 bucks. Wait a minute. That can't be right.

Well, that's just one show. And it's all, like, old, and stuff. Let's look at a more recent show, one around more the same time as those 3 Warners shows I mentioned at the top: Vega$.

You can get Vega$ Season 1, Part 1 (don't you just love the sound of that?), a tidy package of 11 hourlong episodes, for a nice, manageable MSRP of...

37 bucks.

Hey, isn't CBS/Paramount's strategy supposed to provide value for the consumer? I'm kinda baffled here.

Surely TV Shows on DVD is aware of some quirk regarding Warner Brothers' pricing strategy, something that exposes how ill-suited it is for the fans that purchase their sets. After all, I'm no expert, but it looks to ME that Warners is offering full seasons, sometimes twice as many episodes, for the same MSRP as a CBS/Paramount half-season set. And we know that can't be a good value, or everyone would be doing it. Right?