This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Series: I normally start this column with the most high-profile recent theatricals debuting on DVD in a given week, but the slate is pretty weak this post-holiday release date. There is no way I am going to give a reboot of "Endless Love," of all things, the top spot in my column.

Instead, let's celebrate Shout! bringing the complete "Bob Newhart" to DVD in one big collection...while trying not to fret about the fact that as of now, no single season releases of 5 and 6 are available for fans who bought the previous releases from Fox. And let's not fret about the fact that those last two seasons don't look all that great and were apparently not at all remastered or anything.

The fact is, this often underappreciated classic sitcom is now available in its entirety, with some bonus features to boot, and that's a good thing. It's a heck of a lot gooder than another "Endless Love." Hi, Bob!

Endless Love: Uh, yeah, in case you haven't guessed, I don't have a lot to say about this one. At least it's not another "Blue Lagoon."

Gambit: A remake of the Michael Caine/Shirley MacLaine 1966 caper comedy starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz and written by the Coen brothers...and ignored until getting out on DVD Memorial Day week. Yep, we have a major bomb threat here, folks.

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Were you a little disappointed when this Wes Anderson film was originally released? Well, you were WRONG! See? It's a CRITERION, son. Show some respect.

Red River: All kidding aside, I wouldn't mind taking a gander at this Criterion release of the classic Howard Hawks/John Wayne Western. The BD/DVD combo package even includes a copy of the out of print paperback that serves as the film's source material. How cool is that? Most DVDs these days barely give you anything to read on the back of the box.

WWE Presents Greatest Wrestling Factions: I like how at some point the term "stable" became verboten in WWE, along with the not-PG-friendly "gang," so we get the ever-awkward "faction" term all the time. This DVD combines a weak-sounding documentary of sorts with a bunch of matches. It looks serviceable (if you like the matches) but uninspired at best.

Men of the Fighting Lady is new from Warner Archive, and it looks pretty good judging by the preview clip on the website. It's a 1954 Korean War flick in color with an all-star cast.

And in streaming...

Warner Archive Instant hasn't added anything since my last update. I'm hoping that by saying this, I will somehow cosmically trigger a massive update that goes into effect shortly after this is published.

Hulu Plus has added several international series: Australian dramedy House Husbands, Canadian Jason Priestly vehicle Call Me Fitz, and Reef Doctors (guess which country that's from). An intriguing add is Foyle's War, which recently left Netflix. Unfortunately, only two seasons are there, which is a lot less than Netflix had and even less less (does that make sense?) than Acorn TV has right now. Nothing new to report on the CBS shows front.

There is chatter that Hulu is in talks to revive "Community." Oh, I'll watch if it's on, but I think the show's pretty much done. I'd rather see Hulu use that money on buying more catalog programming. Tell you what, next week I'll offer a list of shows that could/should wind up there--and I'll make them CBS shows, which should take care of two of my gripes with one shot!

Netflix added a few new ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries, including Bad Boys on the Detroit Pistons, and I'm glad to see they are still acquiring those. There's also a documentary called The Source Family about a hippie cult group in 1970s L.A.  Another interesting add is Escape from Tomorrow, partially shot guerilla-style at Disney World, but from what I read, the story behind the story may be more compelling than the story itself.

This is a lame streaming update, I know, but I want to get the "This Week in..." posts a little bit more back on schedule, so we got to roll with what we have. Hopefully the weekend will bring lots of new content and next week there'll be a lot more to write about.