Perry Mason: Season 1, Volume 2 – If you’re thinking about bitching because CBS split this first season of “Perry Mason� into two volumes, consider that this second part of the season includes 20 episodes…and the first part contained 19! Holy crap, 39 episodes in one season…? When people talk about how today’s work ethic is shit compared to what it used to be, they aren’t kidding! Of course, you won’t be surprised to hear that Mr. Mason’s record is 39-0 by season’s send, but you will be depressed to find out that there aren’t any special features.

7th Heaven: The Complete Third Season – As family dramas go, “7th Heaven� is pretty solid – Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks make plausible parents, and on the kid front, there’s the always-hot Jessica Biel to look at – but let’s talk about the set and its packaging. In a nutshell, both suck. There are no special features, which is pretty much inexcusable, given that the show is still on the air and the cast is decidedly accessible, but even after saving money by not paying anyone to do commentary, CBS / Paramount additionally stuffed six discs into a standard-sized DVD case. Lazy and cheap.

Survivor: Vanuatu – There’s a reason you don’t see very many competition-based reality shows released as full-season sets on DVD: they don’t tend to have much in the way of replay interest. I mean, once you know who’s won, what’s the point, right? Well, in the case of “Survivor,â€� it’s clearly more than just the competition; in addition to the interviews with the contestants and the camaraderie between them, the show ends up being worth watching over and over again just because the scenery is so beautiful. CBS offers up commentary for this set as well as four featurettes and the reunion special. Believe it or not, I’d never watched a complete episode of the show before checking out this set, but it’s clear why “Survivor” continues to be a ratings monster; it’s a lot of fun.

Thundercats: Season Two, Volume 2 – Well, you have to give Warner Brothers credit: they’re so certain that “Thundercats� fans are going to buy both halves of this second-season set that they’ve continued the numbering of the discs from Volume 1 and labeled these as Discs 7 – 12. I can’t speak to the quality of the show itself – it premiered right about the time I stopped watching cartoons regularly – but, at the very least, I’m comfortable in saying that the character designs remain some of the best of the ‘80s. The only special feature, though, is the Thundercats Ultimate Adventure Challenge. Yawn.

Touched By An Angel: The Third Season, Volume 2 – Okay, so I only watched one episode from this devoid-of-special-features set…but that episode (“Inherit the Wind�) sure had some kick-ass guest-stars. It opened with Keb’ Mo’ as an Angel of Music, and it also featured Bill Cosby as the Angel of Reconciliation (named Phil), as well as appearances from Charlie Schlatter (he played Ferris Bueller on the short-lived TV version of the flick), Ian Abercrombie (Mr. Pitt from “Seinfeld�), Cloris Leachman, and the great Paul Winfield. The older you get, the more you’ll like this series…but if you’re under 40, you’ll probably find more inspiration from “Joan of Arcadia.�

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Season Two, Volume 1 – As the series moves into color for the first time, so does it become harder for viewers to suspend their disbelief during the episodes with the more bizarre premises. How bizarre are we talking here? Try this synopsis on for size: “A cyborg double of Admiral Nelson boards the Seaview as part of a sinister plan to launch missiles at China, Russia, and the U.S..� There’s also an episode where a scientist is turned into a giant, as well as the obligatory discovery of aliens in another episode. Given the limited special effects of the era, the show was generally at its best when sticking with some semblance of reality.

Real Genius 2.

Oh, sure, it’s about as likely to happen as the long-rumored “Pretty in Pink 2″…but it sure would be cool.

If you don’t remember the original Val Kilmer flick, check out the trailer below:

From Skidoo, (Also featuring Groucho Marx, Mickey Rooney, and Carol Channing. This is the best fake acid trip ever concocted by Hollywood.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Yeah, more Rosie news. Apparently O’Donnell wasn’t happy with The Donald’s near firing of Miss USA recently. She threw some insults at him, and he’s thrown some peachy ones back. Rosie then went on Trump’s Wikipedia entry and added some poorly spelt crap, continuing to act like a two-year-old. Wait, no. Two-year-olds act much better than Rosie, period.

Remember a couple years ago when people were sending around games that involved torturing cats in some way, by either using them as bowling balls or launching them from rockets to see how far they would fly? Well, now you can do with with the “Jackass” crew. You can play the game here. I assure you that you’ll play it more than once.

MacGyver: The Complete Final Season – I’m no Patty or Selma Bouvier, but I understand what people enjoy about “MacGyver.� You can’t deny the inherent coolness of a guy who can take a paperclip, a wad of gum, three sheets of toilet paper, and a sprig of parsley and make a functional radio transmitter. By this seventh and final year of the show, however, two things are woefully apparent. The first is that Richard Dean Anderson’s hairdresser had lost control of the man’s mane; the thing is on the verge of getting a co-starring role, so prominent is it. The other is that when you have to resort to a two-part episode where MacGyver dreams he’s gone back in time to the days of King Arthur, it’s time to call it quits. Fortunately, the producers of the show agreed with my position on this matter.

The Golden Girls: The Complete Sixth Season – Say what you will about “The Golden Girls,� but in addition to being a guilty pleasure, it also gave a lot of actors who weren’t exactly spring chickens a chance to appear on TV again. This season found Don Ameche, Cesar Romero, Harold Gould, Hal Linden, Bill Dana, and Alan King popping up either as relatives or dates of the girls, and it also saw Debbie Reynolds showing up as a potential new roommate. (Dorothy was planning to remarry her ex-husband, Stan, but it didn’t take.) Fans will enjoy the bonus feature, a 20-minute segment from a Museum of TV and Radio appreciation of the show where Rue McLanahan and Betty White detail the origins of the series.

Charmed: The Complete Sixth Season – And now, the polar opposite of the Golden Girls. The reality of the matter, folks, is that no matter how hot Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, and Holly Marie Combs may be…and they are damned hot, my friends…I will never, ever forgive the WB for canceling “Angel� but allowing this show to stay on the air. It’s not bad; it just tends toward being a bit silly. That having been said, having these three witches appear in tight outfits and hot costumes in the various episodes makes it much easier to watch. (Milano spends an enjoyable amount of time in a bikini top during this season’s first episode.) It’s still a chick show at heart…the longest running female drama in TV history, in fact…but it gets short shrift for its DVD releases; there’s not so much as the first special feature here.

Gilmore Girls: The Complete Sixth Season – Otherwise known as the last season of the show that purist fans will ever watch. This is the year that starts with Lorelai and Rory not talking and Rory taking a break from college in order to do community service for stealing a yacht with her boyfriend, Logan…and it ends with Logan leaving Rory to take a job in London and Lorelai sleeping with Christopher a.k.a. Rory’s dad. And somewhere in between, there are guest appearances from Joe Pernice, Sparks, Sonic Youth, and Paul Anka. What’s not to love? Season 7, apparently…but that’s just the word on the street; I won’t watch it ‘til it’s out on DVD.

Home Improvement: The Complete Fifth Season – Yawn. More tool-related shenanigans with Tim Allen…and, again, the only extra is a bunch of bloopers.

J.A.G.: The Complete Second Season – Please offer a hearty hello to Catherine Bell, who joined the series during this, its second year. More military courtroom action for your viewing enjoyment, plus audio commentary and two featurettes (one about the season itself, the other about the J.A.G. Corps in the real world).

Stay tuned for at least one more volume…possibly two more volumes…of TV DVD QT’s before the end of 2006. I’d like to not start 2007 with a gargantuan backlog, thank you very much…

Catch it while you can: the “Star Wars Holiday Special,” edited down to five minutes.

This definitely has an awesomeness problem.

Hey, a lot of people have been waiting for it and now a trailer for the Transformers movie due in ‘07 is up. Frankly, I was never into any transforming mech toys when the things were huge the first time around. Why can’t the Go-Bots get their due? It’s like picking a Rough Riders 4X4 and not giving the Stomper 4X4 a try and seeing if it could be just as enjoyable (all right, I’m getting into obscuro toy talk here). That said, I always fancied myself more of a That’s Incredible! dude, although Real People did have Skip Stephenson (R.I.P.). All right, I have no idea where I’m going with this anymore.

Trust us: Matt Damon displays one thousand times more personality in this Letterman clip, in which he shares his dead-on impersonation of Matthew McConaughey, than he does in the entire 168 minutes of “The Good Shepherd.�

Plus, the clip is only 90 seconds long…which means you’ll gain an extra 166-1/2 minutes in your day, to use however you see fit.

We’re always working to save you time and increase your productivity, here at Premium Hollywood. Enjoy the clip…and thanks to VH1’s Best Week Ever for the link.

…lying unconscious, flat on his back.

…is, it would seem, its teaser poster.

Um, ew.

Someone out there please reissue us some Captain Kangaroo on DVD. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, and it’s a real shame. Gimme some Cap’n!

I don’t watch SNL any more. But not doing so means I miss out on videos such as the following. Who knew Justin Timberlake was funny? If he was doing songs like this, I’d buy his CD. Maybe even give it five stars.

I’m really disappointed in Lee. This little affair he’s having with Cara is wreaking havoc on both of their marriages. I sort of expect such behavior from Starbuck because she’s generally pretty unstable and doesn’t always think things through, but Lee should know better. It’s not like he’s desperate; he already has a great wife in Dee, who is a much, much better catch. But it seems like he’s in love/lust with Cara and he truly wants to be with her. She, of course, applies her warped moral code to the situation saying that she can’t divorce her husband because “marriage is a sacrament.� Please. If she really believed that she wouldn’t be running around behind her hubby’s back.

Until I saw the “previously� scenes at the beginning of the episode, I had forgotten about the baby Hera. There hasn’t been any mention of her for some time, but now that Boomer and Athena have met, the cat’s out of the bag. I can understand why Athena would be pissed about Roslin’s secret, but she has to understand the logic behind it. Adama was none too pleased to discover the truth – but was he upset about the President’s actions or the fact that he was left out of the decision?

Down on the planet, it occurred to me that for being on tight rations for the last few weeks, the Chief certainly doesn’t look like he’s missed any meals. My first thought when he found the secret chamber was that maybe he stumbled on some form of alien life. Throughout the entire series, there hasn’t been a single mention of the possibility of non-human/non-Cylon life in the universe. I wonder if the series will ever explore that possibility.

The scene where the Cylons came with Baltar to Galactica to talk terms was pretty tense. I’m not sure why Caprica (Baltar’s #7) wasn’t with them – as it stood, Biers and Cavil did most of the talking.

That led into an intense sequence where Lee butted heads with Sam (Cara’s husband) over forming a rescue party for Cara (who will no doubt make it through unscathed) as the Cylons marched on their position. The Admiral is set to nuke the planet so that the Cylons don’t discover the chamber. I have a feeling the Chief will figure out the secret of the Eye before that happens.

Based on Sunday’s estimates, courtesy of boxofficemojo.com:

1) The Pursuit of Happyness: $27 million (Bill Clark: A Don’t Call Me Shirley Joint)
Bill, finally gets to play one of his first two picks, and it’s a doozy, easily putting away the much higher ranked “Charlotte’s Web,� much to my surprise. (Pssst: “Charlotte� is the far better movie. Pass it on.)
2) Eragon: $23.4 million (Jason Zingale, Seven Strangers Productions)
Another huge surprise. The “movie event of the year� is the textbook definition of fun-bad. But that didn’t seem to bother the elves, dwarves and hobbits one bit.
3) Charlotte’s Web: $12 million (Deb Medsker, Punch and Pie Pictures)
Stunning. How did this not wipe the floor with everyone else at the multiplexes? Perhaps this is the audience rebelling to the news that Dakota Fanning is considering a role where her character is raped. Surely, for someone so pure to commit an act so vile, even for a movie, is the first sign of the Apocalypse.
4) Happy Feet: $8.5 million, $149.4 million to date (Mark Pfeiffer, Reel Times)
Perhaps my joke about Reel Times’ stay in second place was a tad premature. He now has a $25 million lead over Punch and Pie.
5) The Holiday: $8.2 million, $25.3 million to date (owner: Mark Pfeiffer, Reel Times Studios)
After two months of boy junk, the women, it appears, are fighting back.
6) Apocalypto: $7.7 million, $27.9 million to date (David Medsker, Scary Clown Studios)
Don’t feel sorry for Mel Gibson. The movie will ultimately make money and as long as his movies do that, Mel will never, ever hurt for work.
7) Blood Diamond: $6.2 million, $18.3 million to date (Kristin Dreyer-Kramer, Nights and Weekends)
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to see a movie starring two of the most beautiful people on the planet, either.
Casino Royale: $5.7 million, $137.5 million to date (Steve Wamsley, TSSU Productions)
TSSU still holds a commanding lead, but with one movie left (“The Good Shepherd�), expect it to dwindle.
9) The Nativity Story: $4.7 million, $23 million to date (Mark Pfeiffer, Reel Times)
Insert your own joke here. Because I don’t have one.
10) Unaccompanied Minors: $3.6 million, $10.2 million to date (Kristin Dreyer-Kramer, Nights and Weekends)
The Chicago Sun-Times gave this zero stars. Clearly, that writer was not subjected to the junk (ahem, “Home of the Brave�) that we had been subjected to prior to seeing this movie.

Current standings:
1) TSSU Productions: $250.1 million
2) Reel Times Pictures $197.7 million
3) Punch and Pie Pictures: $172.6 million
4) Scary Clown Studios: $132.2 million
5) Seven Strangers Productions: $121.1 million
6) Nights and Weekends: $97.3 million
7) A Don’t Call Me Shirley Joint: $35.1 million
What’s All This, Then?: $5 million

Coming this week: What’s All This, Then? tries to get out of the cellar with “Rocky Balboa� (Wednesday) and “Night at the Museum� (Friday), though he’s not encouraged by the fact that neither movie is particularly good. Scary Clown releases “Letters from Iwo Jima,� though would like to see the studio ramp up the promotional efforts a little bit. Shirley releases the much-anticipated “Dreamgirls,� while NightsandWeekends hangs on for dear life with the sports drama “We Are Marshall.� On Christmas, it’s Dueling Medskers: Scary Clown releases “Children of Men� and Punch and Pie releases “Black Christmas� (which Scary Clown dropped in exchange for “Turistas.� Whoops.)

What could be better than an hour-long episode of “The Office�? How about an hour-long episode that involves competing Christmas parties, Asian waitresses and lots and lots of drinking?

The episode got off to a great start when Dwight brought in a dead bird (was it a goose?) that he happened to hit with his car. How cool did he look in that orange stocking cap? It was a great exchange between him and Toby, where Dwight begs Toby to allow him to clean and cook the bird at the office.

Moments later, Michael sets up the rest of the episode when he announces that he intends to take his girlfriend to a resort on an all-inclusive vacation. His rendition of Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise� was priceless. His girlfriend shows up and breaks up with him because he photoshopped himself into a picture she had from a vacation (with her ex-husband) two years earlier, and sent it out as his Christmas card. (I’m sure his awkward marriage proposal last week didn’t help matters, either.)

Jim: “It’s a bold move to photoshop yourself into a photo of your girlfriend and her kids on a ski trip with her ex-husband, but Michael is a bold guy. Is ‘bold’ the right word?�

Michael’s jovial mood quickly turns to depression, which manifests itself as he plays a sappy song clip over and over on his computer. I didn’t recognize the song, but it sounded like James Blunt (or some such crooner). Dwight asks, “Why don’t you just buy the song?�

Meanwhile, Pam extends an olive branch to Karen and the two become quick friends.

Jim: “Yep, it looks like the Scranton people and the Stamford people are finally coming together. And that’s what you want, right?�

Based on your delivery of that line, Jim, not so much.

Angela’s domineering attitude in the party-planning meeting gives Pam and Karen the idea to have their own (more enjoyable) party. The scene where the two opposing committees posted their flyers was great and Jenna Fischer’s comedic timing was on full display. Later, when Karen is asked if they are taking the party war too far, she responds, “I don’t think we’re taking this far enough.� She looks over to Pam, who says, “I just got goose bumps.�

Andy, who is trying to take residence up Michael’s ass, offers to take him to lunch, and Dwight and Jim go along. “Bro’s before ho’s,� Michael reasons. So it’s off to Benihanas, where they drink a lot of saki and egg nogs before returning to work (with two Asian waitresses).

Here are a few of the better moments from the two parties:

- Kelly’s karaoke, where she sang, “We belong together…Ryan!� while Ryan is pounding a margarita.

- Michael losing track of which waitress is “his,� and wisely marks her arm with permanent marker.

- Angela restricting Kevin’s intake of brownies. “You’ve got to be kidding!� Kevin exclaims. Angela responds, pointing at his belly, “You’ve got to be kidding!

- Meredith swaying back and forth with a bottle of vodka in her hand while Kevin sings karaoke.

- Angela suddenly “discovering� the power cord to the karaoke machine, hidden in a nearby planter. She’s a wily one, that Angela.

It looks like Jim is starting to realize that he’s still in love with Pam. His little speech to Michael about rebound relationships implies that he’s realizing that Karen was just a rebound for him. This happened more quickly than I expected, but I have a feeling that Pam will get back with Roy before Jim finally decides to make his move. However, I’m sure he’ll burn bridges with Karen first, ruining that relationship for good.

If I were him, I’d stick with Karen, at least for a while. She’s got a sick sense of humor, she’s hot, but mostly, she’s willing to admit she likes him. Pam’s great, but she’s too timid in the art of love.

And, at the end, who agreed to go on vacation with Michael? It has to be Jan, right?

What goes around comes around, right? So it would seem. You may recall that Rosie O’Donnell recently got into a scrap with Kelly Ripa over the latter’s reaction when Clay Aiken put his hand over her mouth on TV. Well now O’Donnell is taking flak for mocking spoken Chinese on “The View.” It went a little something like this:

In a Dec. 5 segment, O’Donnell joked about how Danny DeVito’s recent — and seemingly drunken — appearance on the ABC daytime talk show had become international news.

“You know, you can imagine in China it’s like `ching chong, ching chong chong, Danny DeVito, ching chong chong chong, drunk, “The View,” ching chong,’” the 44-year-old comedian said.

Apparently this did not go over well. When informed of this, O’Donnell replied,

“To say ching chong to someone is very offensive, and some Asian people have told me it’s as bad as the n-word. Which I was like, `Really? I didn’t know that.’”

Ah, Rosie, what will you do next? Nothing could be as patently offensive to the brain cells as your performance in Riding on the Bus with My Sister. Let’s all remember that now, shall we?

Santa has delivered an early Christmas present to Browncoats the world over: a shiny new “Firefly� experience in the form of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG:

Multiverse, maker of a free MMO-creation platform, plans to announce Friday morning that it’s struck a deal with Fox Licensing to turn the show into an MMORPG in the fashion of Star Wars Galaxies or Eve Online.

The “Browncoats,” as Firefly’s most devoted fans are known, have been campaigning to bring the show back almost since the moment it was canceled in late 2002. Now they’ll get their wish, albeit in a new form.

“We see virtual worlds as an extraordinarily promising new entertainment medium,” said Adam Kline, Fox Licensing’s vice president of media enterprises in an e-mail. “We believe Multiverse can deliver an experience that will remain true to the original series, while enabling a whole new level of personal involvement for fans.”

The game is still very much in the development stages…which should give you plenty of time to decide whether you want to play as a Reaver; a preferred client of Inara and her fellow Companions; or both.

I’m almost through the first of three two-hour installments of the Sci-Fi miniseries “The Lost Room,” which stars Peter Krause (”Six Feet Under”) as a detective investigating a mysterious hotel key. It turns out that the motel key can open any door in the world, but first leads the user to a motel room where something “very bad” happened.

I don’t want to give anything else away, but suffice to say, anyone who likes a good sci-fi tale will probably enjoy the first two hours. It looks like Sci-Fi is going to air all three installments in a row on Sunday (12/17) night.

I’ve witnessed a few bad Sci-Fi movies in the past, but this isn’t one of them, which is probably why Krause and Juliana Margulies (”ER”) signed on. I’m really starting to dig original cable programming…”Battlestar Galactica,” “Nip/Tuck,” “The Shield,” “Rescue Me,” “The Closer” and “Eureka,” just to name a few. These are good (to great) shows that wouldn’t survive on regular broadcast television.