Sony Pictures Entertainment, 16 discs (From $319.82 at Amazon, offers are varying.)

One of the best TV series ever made, offered as a complete package – with loads of documentary extras and other treats. But when the show itself is this good, having it as a complete set, or giving it, is about as good as it gets. – DB

Shout! Factory, 6 discs, $78.35

Anyone who loved Seth Rogen in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up will be just as delighted by this one-season NBC wonder, a high-school comedy-drama created by Paul Feig, with Apatow as a writer-producer and Rogen as one of the high schoolers. Shout! Factory did a great job with this 2004 video release – and giving it as a gift is a way to find it even more grateful fans. – DB

Shout! Factory, 38 discs, $224.94

Maybe you had to be there. But if you were, or if the person you’re shopping for was, this syndicated Norman Lear soap opera spoof from the mid-Seventies may well be the DVD release of the season. Louise Lasser stars as a confused, depressed and frustrated housewife, and Mary Kay Place steals the early shows as aspiring country music singer Loretta. Still bizarre, and entertaining, after all these years. – DB

HBO Studios, 2 Discs, DVD $27.98

Enlightened: The Complete Second Season
HBO Studios, 2 discs, $23.49

Enlightened didn't seem like much on the surface: a neurotic, self-centered mid-level manager returns to her desk job after a questionable nervous breakdown that landed her in "holistic" rehab. But in the hands of creator/writer Mike White, who also stars, the series became a lyrical take on the existential drift of modern life. Enlightened seemed to always find the perfect tone as it mined the beauty of the banal and often made television a poetic experience.–EG

Lionsgate, 16 discs, $42.48

The 2013 in the title refers to this new release by Lionsgate, which packages this classic Sixties British series in a very affordable, new reissue.  On 16 discs for under $50, it presents all 51 episodes of the 1965-68 The Avengers series – the ones starring Patrick Macnee as bowler-wearing British secret agent John Steed and Diana Rigg as his jumpsuit-wearing, very liberated female partner, Emma Peel. Young readers should know that this has nothing to do with the current movie series based on the Marvel Comics superheroes, who surfaced in comic books that same decade. Older readers already know that, and know why any Emma Peel collection is worth owning, and savoring.  – DB

BBC Home Entertainment, 3 discs, $27.99

After Monty Python’s Flying Circus, John Cleese and his then-wife Connie Booth went on to co-write and star in this utterly brilliant British sitcom, featuring Cleese as acerbic, put-upon rustic hotel owner Basil Fawlty, Prunella Scales as his impatient wife Sybil, Booth as their employee Polly, and Manuel Sachs as clueless assistant Manuel. Like the British version of The Office, it’s a concise, compact classic: six episodes were produced in 1975, another six in 1979, and that’s it. Each one makes me laugh out loud, no matter how many times I watch, and there are details tony and clever enough to reward repeated watching on DVD. One of the best TV sitcoms every made? Absolutely. – DB

If you have a friend who’s a big Mel Brooks fan (and if not, why are they friends), here’s a recently released treat: Mel Brooks’ very short-lived Robin Hood spoof from 1975. This TV series lasted only 13 episodes – and they’re all here, starring Dick Gautier as Robin, Dick Van Patten as Friar Tuck, and Misty Rowe as Maid Marian. Until now, this DVD release was one of the missing links in the Mel Brooks chain of outrageous comedy, so this compilation hits the bull’s-eye. – DB

BBC Home Entertainment, 1 Disc, $29.73

A surprising, charming British import series that is perhaps one of 2013’s best. This unlikely romance follows two childhood sweethearts who get a second chance after 60 years. If you think this will all be sentimental fluff, don’t be fooled — it’s a captivating drama with the couple’s adult children spinning complicated, modern problems all the way. Featuring winning performances by Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid. –EG

Dirk Gently

Acorn Media, 2 discs, $19.99

This quizzical series, starring Stephen Mangan (wildly funny in Showtime’s Episodes) is based on Douglas Adams’ best-selling book. Dirk is the sometimes bungling, misfit proprietor of The Holistic Detective Agency. His catch-phrase motto of trusting “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things” means he’s got oddball methods that often seem wildly off topic and his credibility is continually in question. Fans of Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” will enjoy the loopy assemblages of whodunit, time travel and romantic comedy that all somehow resolve brilliantly, like sticking a landing from a high-flying balance beam dismount. –EG

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

BBC Video, 2 discs, $13.49

Eons before the 2005 movie version, but after the original BBC Radio version, this 1981 miniseries presented a very low-budget, high-concept version of Douglas Adams’ fabulously inventive space oddity. It’s all here, from the talking galactic book guide to the deadly Vogon poetry.  This set is five years old now, but a real bargain – and, for Adams-come-latelies, a real eye-opener. – DB

Call the Midwife: Season One

BBC Home Entertainment, 2 discs, $22.86

This ongoing BBC series is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, a midwife in post-World War II London’s hardscrabble East End. The premiere year of 2012 that followed the group of young nurses as they brought newborns into the world and encountered every stripe of human strength and frailty, was maybe one of the best single seasons of drama in recent memory.  –EG

Naked City: The Complete Series

Image Entertainment, 29 discs, $81.99

The 1958-63 Naked City was perhaps the forefather of gritty police dramas to follow, like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue that not only looked at the crime but also into the personal dramas of the detectives behind the investigations. The series had a guest star roster that would go on to be the top actors of our time including Robert Redford, Peter Falk, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Walter Matthau and many others. All 138 episodes included. –EG

Family  Guy, Volume Ten

20th Century Fox, 3 discs, $5.99

We still have our black armbands on our dog’s legs after the, gulp, recent demise of Brian Griffin, one of the all-time shocking deaths in prime time television. If someone on your list is a fan of the anarchy and surrealism of the Griffin clan, this is a good collection - 14 episodes from Season 9 that includes Brian’s appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher promoting his self-help book, "Wish It, Want It, Do It.” The other fave episode here is "Road to the North Pole," an extended musical Christmas special in which Stewie and Brian set off on a holiday journey to (what else) assassinate Santa Claus. –EG

Joseph Campbell on Power of Myth With Bill Moyers (25th Anniversary Edition)

Athena, 3 discs, $99.99

This 1988 PBS presentation is so powerful, and so inspirational, it has the potential to change your life, and the way you look at it. Joseph Campbell was a professor who devoted his life to collecting and analyzing mythologies from around the world – and in the two years before he died of cancer, Campbell sat with Bill Moyers for a series of casual yet meaningful talks that distilled Campbell’s lifetime of knowledge and enthusiasms. “Follow your bliss,” Campbell offers as his final words of advice, and it’s obvious that, with this six-episode TV interview, both he and Moyers are doing just that.  (Bonus features include new introductions from Bill Moyers.) — DB

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol

Classic Video, 1 disc, $4.78

This animated holiday special, from 1962, is more than 50 years old now, but still delights.  Credit composers Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, who also teamed for Funny Girl, with a gift-wrapped treat of a score – and a reworking of the Dickens classic that, at this price, makes a perfect shocking stuffer. – DB

Universal Studios, 19 discs, $45.49

Friday Night Lights was a TVWW favorite from its premiere. It's one of the best family dramas ever made. One of the best teen dramas ever made. One of the best sports dramas ever made. You get the picture. The show also featured one of TV's best couples, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. –DB