May 19th, 2009 11:44 pm

The first TV series I owned on DVD

I’ve just re-watched the entire series of one of my favourite television shows ever, ‘Alias’. It was the first TV series I owned on DVD, what was yours?

I’ve just re-watched the entire series of one of my favourite television shows ever, ‘Alias’.

I guess you could say, it was the first show I ever considered myself a fan of.

I mean, there had been other shows I watched religiously. However, I think you cross the line from “avid-watcher” to “fan” when you start buying merchandise; so was ‘Alias’ for me.

It was the summer of 2005. I remember standing in the DVD store perusing titles as I usually did. By this stage my movie collection had jumped from 5-free-with-DVD-player to over 100 titles in space of a few years.

So there I was, standing in the DVD aisle, when suddenly something caught my eye. It was “Alias: The Complete First Season”. I  had remembered seeing the box set sitting behind glass enclosures before, but this was the first time I had seen it out, on a shelf, with many more copies behind it.

I picked up the large box set, examining the cover art in all detail. I turned it over to see all the plethora of  bonus features, audio commentaries, behind the scenes features, deleted scenes, bloopers reel, a sneak peak at season two.

Then something else caught my eye, “Alias: The Complete Second Season” sitting right beside Season One. At that moment, I put down the box set and decided to walk away, thinking “that would be one expensive journey if I buy every single season”.

This was also before the TV on DVD phenomenon exploded, TV series were incredibly overpriced and hot new titles were only just creeping onto the scene. From what I recall, at the time they were between $90 - $120 a season on average.

I kept telling myself, I wasn’t ready to fork over that much cash on slomething I got for free on TV.

Little did I know that in just 5 years my shelves would be buckling from the weight of plastic and cardboard DVD packaging.

Anyway, as I attempted to feign interest in the sports DVD section, my mind kept racing back to ‘Alias’, I remembered watching the first episode on TV and being hooked by every twist and turn.

I casually wandered back over to ‘Alias’ and kept thinking “should I…shouldn’t I?”

At that moment my friend came over to me and told me they wanted to leave. I’d kept them waiting for well over an hour.

In that split second, I made an impulsive decision and picked up the first two seasons of ‘Alias’.

As I walked to the check out, I could already feel buyers remorse coming on, which only grew worse on the way home.

It wasn’t until I placed the first disc in my DVD player, the ‘Alias’ theme tune started pumping and a young woman in crazy red hair started screaming in Korean that I suddenly realised just how wrong I was. I was in awe. I was glued to my screen. I was a officially a fan.

So, what the first TV series you owned on DVD? Let us know in the comments.