I really like the half-season releases. Yeah, I suppose I'll end up spending more than if I bought a full-season release but at least for BSG (which broadcasts ten consecutive episodes, takes a long break, and then broadcasts the last ten) it gives me the ability to re-watch the first half of the season right before the second half airs.

Yeah, I could just leave the earlier episodes on the TiVo, but the DVDs are just more convienent, especially when I wanna listen to the podcasts while watching an ep (the podcasts magically transform into DVD commentaries).

Exactly. The materials are all there, they just add shiny packaging. And $40 is closer to impulse-purchase. And they time the releases to cross-promote with new episodes, which makes it easy for new viewers to catch up. Plus iTunes... And all that has to cut down on piracy.

Even if I didn't like the show, I'd be tempted to buy the DVDs just because I admire their marketing plan so much.

Skipping merrily past all the BSG posts as I haven't seen the episode to say: "Scratch n' Sniff" takes the cake as a top-five favorite episode of Farscape. Anything that has D'Argo and Crichton dancing, people. Dancing.

Continuing to vroom through Highlander.

1. Amanda's pretty inept with a sword, isn't she? One assumes she's been cuteing her way through life, and that at some point there won't be a guy around to rescue her and she'll die.

2. Did Methos really intend to die in "Methos"? It sure looked like it, like he was just too tired and didn't want to deal any more.

3. Were any of you in the fanbase when "Comes A Horseman" hit? Were there shrieks and gnashes of teeth?

One assumes she's been cuteing her way through life, and that at some point there won't be a guy around to rescue her and she'll die.

She gets her own series, where she isn't saved too often.

The Chicago Tribune has a rave about the BSG finale (with some somewhat significant spoilers about the events during the last two episodes that I've whitefonted):

'Battlestar' ends its second season in stellar style: When it comes to what to watch this weekend, one program stands out:

“Battlestar Galactica,” 9 p.m. Friday, Sci Fi: When he spoke to the Tribune in January, “Battlestar Galactica” executive producer Ron Moore promised that the show’s two-part second-season finale would have “some pretty major changes in how we do business. It’s really going to catch people off guard.” He wasn’t kidding.

There are some mind-bending plot twists in “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1 and Part 2” (the second installment airs March 10), but what’s most impressive about both episodes is how they gracefully manage to convey a sense of elegiac foreboding. The direction, the cinematography, the empathic and original music, the acting and the stories all combine to create a kind of suspenseful poetry, and make the case that, right now, “Battlestar Galactica” is the best show on television.

To top all that off, the revelations that unfold at the end of the 90-minute March 10 episode are truly out of this world.

Much of the action in the first episode centers on the presidential election; the interplay between a desperate, determined Laura Roslin and the cynical, supercilious Gaius Baltar is a barbed, bare-knuckled treat. Baltar ends up grabbing onto the mother of all wedge issues (and don’t read the next bit if you don’t want to know a mild spoiler about Friday’s episode): A planet is found that can sustain — barely — the surviving remnants of humanity.

Should the Galactica fleet keep running, or put down roots on this new planet, which may be able to shield them from the Cylons for a good long time? That’s the question, and the debate between Roslin and Baltar on the topic gets quite pointed.

There are many other juicy stories in these two episodes; Starbuck’s quest to find her lover and his band of fighters on Caprica, Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch) acting as Baltar’s Machiavellian political adviser, and Dean Stockwell guesting as a man of the cloth who attempts to counsel Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol, an endlessly likable character who does something extremely unlikable in this surprising pair of episodes.

Nothing, however, in the first two hours of the “Battlestar Galactica” finale can really prepare you for what happens in Season 2’s final half hour. Many revelations are packed into the final few minutes, and to reveal a single one of them would be a base act of treachery.

Still, it’s astonishing how confident Moore and the “Battlestar” writers are. They clearly know they have many more stories to tell, so dropping dozens of revelations into the last few minutes of the season — and doing it skillfully, without flash or smoke and mirrors — is no problem. They make it look easy, and a show with this many moving parts is clearly not easy to make. In any case, by the last spoken line of the season finale, you’ll be on the edge of your seat — and once again wondering just how the Galactica fleet is going to survive.

The Chicago Tribune has been pimping BSG for a while now.

Wow, season finale is in 8 days... and first half is tonight.

I didn't realize the season would be over so soon!

Dr. Who in two weeks, tho!

Jacob, TWoP's BSG recapper, happened to make a passing reference to that fact in his recap of "Downloaded". I'm hoping that he'll do the Doctor Who recaps (does anyone know if TWoP is planning on recapping Who?).