The Long Run: Complete TV Series

"Six Feet Under: The Complete Series"
"Alias: The Complete Collection"
Packaging isn't everything in complete series TV runs -- it helps to have a good show and an addictive dramatic hook. These sets have both: Alan Ball's sinewy, prickly and compassionate HBO drama of family dysfunction in a funeral home business and J.J. Abrams' sleek, sexy and ingeniously preposterous international espionage serial are the kinds of shows that -- for very different reasons -- earn a brand of devotion from their audiences that more popular shows never quite manage. The shows are complex and complicated, but the packaging here gets extra points for sleek efficiency. The five seasons of previously released "Six Feet Under" sets have been interred from their awkwardly oversized pop-up cases for a hefty box with more than a passing resemblance to a headstone and topped by a green carpet, like a funeral plot. The "Rambaldi Box" that encases the five seasons of "Alias" is the most deviously clever and ingeniously simple high-concept package of the year, a 5-½-inch square paperboard cube held together by discreet magnets. Lift the top and it opens like flower petals to reveal five booklets of slipsleeve DVD holders, plus an exclusive bonus disc hidden in the base.

"Friends: The Complete Series"
Not as compact but just as user-friendly is "Friends: The Complete Series," 236 episodes from 10 seasons of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer. The 40 discs are collected in six easy-to-handle notepad-style flip-over cases (one for each friend, of course), like a recipe card case with an attack of the cutes. It comes with a 60-page commemorative booklet.

In Brief
"The West Wing: The Complete Series" files seven seasons in separate folders in small but smart-looking portable cases; "M*A*S*H: Martinis and Medicine Collection" collects all 11 tours of duty for the 4077 doctors (plus Robert Altman's original movie) in a khaki green military-style folder (the fold-out sleeves are rather awkward to use); "Homicide: Life on the Streets - The Complete Series" drops seven seasons into a mini file cabinet with a bonus disc of crossover "Law and Order" episodes and the "Homicide: The Movie" reunion finale. "The Prisoner Megaset: 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition" collects the essential cult series in a simple box set of thinpak cases.

Essentials With Credentials

"Frankenstein: 75th Anniversary Edition"
"Dracula: 75th Anniversary Edition"
Revisit the movie monsters that haunt our cultural history in their defining Hollywood incarnations. Bela Lugosi made movie history as the Transylvanian count with the hypnotic stare in Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula," the first "official" screen adaptation of the novel that launched the cinematic fascination with vampires. "Frankenstein" followed immediately, with an unknown Boris Karloff bringing life to a haunted, childlike monster that terrified audiences while earning their pity. The deluxe "Dracula" features an option to watch the largely scoreless film with a lovely, lush score (composed by Philip Glass and performed by the Kronos Quartet). And it comes with the atmospheric and elegant Spanish version of the film, shot at night on the same sets with a whole new cast (including an astonishingly sexy heroine Lupita Tovar) and director. Both two-disc sets feature multiple commentary tracks, featurettes and the excellent feature-length documentary "Universal Horror," an excellent survey of the decade-plus-long run of Universal's gothic horrors.

"The Maltese Falcon: Three-Disc Special Edition"
Would you believe it took Warner Bros. three tries to get Dashiell Hammett's hardboiled detective novel right? All three versions are in this generous set -- Ricardo Cortez as a smiling Sam Spade in the pre-code 1931 version, Bette Davis as the temptress who tries to seduce the suave detective (Warren William as the renamed Ted Shayne) in the 1936 "Satan Met a Lady," and of course John Huston's definitive 1941 version, which made character actor Humphrey Bogart into a star and made audiences forget the previous two incarnations. And if that's not enough, you get a trio of radio show adaptations with various shufflings of the 1941 movie's stars, in addition to the obligatory featurette and a handful of short subjects.

"Seven Samurai"
Akira Kurosawa's rousing samurai saga masterpiece was the second DVD release in the Criterion Collection. They take another run at it with this new three-disc edition, featuring an all-new high-definition master, a pair of scholarly commentary tracks, new and archival documentaries, a two-hour video conversation with Kurosawa from 1993 (conducted by fellow director Nagisa Oshima) and a 56-page booklet with essays and appreciations.

In Brief
Warren Beatty's epic drama "Reds: 25th Anniversary Special Collector's Edition" comes with a comprehensive documentary; "Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier" features both Francis Ford Coppola's original 2-½-hour 1979 psychedelic heart of darkness and the expanded and reworked 2001 "Apocalypse Now Redux"; "Pride and Prejudice: 10th Anniversary Limited Collector's Edition" boxes the beloved 1995 mini-series up with a disc of supplements and a full-color, behind-the-scenes book. For cult fans, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: 2-Disc Ultimate Edition" repackage old favorites with new goodies.

Next: More must-have sets