DVD UPDATE: Stalled shows get restarted!

[This week in TV DVD, Shout Factory restarts stalled shows with online-exclusive season sets of Room 222, Ironside and Mr. Belvedere. Among the new arrivals on store shelves -- "Chuckles Bites the Dust" in The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6, David Tennant in Doctor Who: The Complete Specials, and Clint Eastwood in Mister Ed Season 2. (Yes, THAT Clint Eastwood) . . . ]

Looking for St. Elsewhere Season 2? NYPD Blue Season 5? Once and Again Season 3? Season 2 of Murphy Brown or Malcolm in the Middle? Season 7 of All in the Family?

Don't expect to find these DVD sets. They don't exist. All these series started coming out on disc, then stopped midrun.

That's before St. Elsewhere's amazing two-part flashback history of St. Eligius hospital, not to mention that mindtwisting series finale. It's before Rick Schroder joined the NYPD Blue squad. Before Murphy had her baby. Before Mike and Gloria split up.

We never got even a second season of orphan shows like Picket Fences, Life Goes On, Family, Cagney & Lacey, Kojak, Baretta, Archie Bunker's Place, Newhart and The Practice -- thanks, or no thanks, to sales apparently not strong enough for their studios to continue releasing subsequent sets.

Now Shout Factory is trying an innovative tack to keep the seasons coming. For select "library" (vintage) titles, they'll try releasing later sets online, rather than to stores. That makes them available to diehard fans, who can order directly from Shout. It cuts out the retail middleman -- little interested, anyway, in shows decades old and rarely seen -- and that allows the release of later seasons to be more financially feasible.

Already out in this new Shout Factory Exclusives line are Room 222 Season 2, Ironside Season 3 and Mr. Belvedere Season 4, with My Two Dads Season 2 due March 16.

The 1970 high school half-hour Room 222 is an especially welcome continuance, being such a landmark show -- TV's first truly integrated cast, topical subject matter, early hybrid dramedy, creators including James L. Brooks (who'd move on to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later, of course, The Simpsons), and star-to-be guest actors like Richard Dreyfuss and Kurt Russell.

ABC aired Room 222 in the same years (circa 1970) as a similar no-laugh-track gem Shout plans for a Season 2 release later this year -- NBC's The Bill Cosby Show, the smartly understated portrayal of a high school gym teacher confronting daily obstacles with wit and wisdom. (You can buy Season 1 here with the bonus of a revealing Cosby interview.)

Ironside is the kind of straightforward '60s-'70s crimesolving drama that has a circle of devoted adherents -- and a signature twist in its wheelchair detective -- but not enough flash, style or starpower to attract many buyers beyond that. Ditto the '80s family laffer Mr. Belvedere, beloved of viewers of a certain age but unlikely to collect a sizable new following.

Of course, these shows' fans have to find these sets at Shout's web site, which may be easier said than done. Let's hope they can help pass the word on web forums and other venues.

Shout deserves credit (and our $$) for doing the right thing, especially by producing the sets as standard DVD releases -- not the manufactured-on-demand sets (MOD) duped onto home-style purple DVD-R discs for sale through Amazon (some Nickelodeon and MTV shows) or Warner Archive (Eleventh Hour).

Click through the links in this article to find details on DVD content and features, and to purchase sets. (Click on the Exclusives tab at the upper right of the Shout web page.)

You'll also find announcements of other upcoming releases of true TV rarities. First and foremost -- The Goldbergs, a radio and TV landmark for its ethnic portrayals and the remarkable backstage history of creator Gertrude Berg. Shout has rounded up not just the lesser last-season filmed syndication episodes but also an array of kinescopes of the live episodes from early TV, tapes of radio episodes, historical extras, and an essential explanatory booklet.

Jump on board to buy if you're at all interested, so Shout will keep the goodies coming.

Also out on DVD in stores this week:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6 -- Here's an orphan show whose parents finally got their act back in gear. After a hiatus of 3 years, Fox Home Entertainment re-started MTM DVD releases last October with Season 5 -- and now delivers the season that contains the immortal episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," one of TV's best half-hours ever. No bonus features here, but we're happy just to have Mare and the gang going again. (Now only one season remains to be released, with that influentially ironic series finale.)

Mister Ed Season 2 -- For completists like me, Shout Factory continues full-season releases with the '60s talking horse and his human pet Wilbur. (MGM's 2004 releases were best-ofs.) There's a fun guest roster this time -- Clint Eastwood, George Burns, Zsa Zsa Gabor. And there are more added-value extras, including vintage commercials and an interview with Alan Young and costar Connie Hines, who passed away Dec. 18.

Doctor Who: The Complete Specials -- Five discs of David Tennant finales: The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time Parts 1 and 2. With behind-the-scenes extras, on both DVD and Blu-ray.