HBO’s epic fantasy set in a medieval world of warring kingdoms, cutthroat royal families, barbarians, dragons, and some undefined evil kept at bay (at least up until now) behind a massive wall taller than a skyscraper, is the pay cable network’s most ambitious original series to date.

It has already concluded its second season on cable (due on disc in February 2013) with a third season to come in March, 2013, but it’s an expensive production and bills need to be paid. Thus “Game Of Thrones: The Complete First Season Collector’s Edition” (HBO), essentially a rerelease of the original Blu-ray edition with some bonus goodies.

Based on the ongoing fantasy series by George R. R. Martin and faithfully adapted for the small screen with big screen production values, the shows offers a vast canvas of characters, stories, and landscapes. Sean Bean is the ostensible hero of this first series as Eddard Stark, ruler of the northern kingdom and the Hand of the King (Mark Addy), a once fearsome warrior married to a ruthlessly ambitious queen (Lena Headey) who plots to put her clan on the throne and eliminate Stark.

But that’s just the broadest strokes of a very complicated story with where family dynasties plot their way to power through marriages, war, and political gamesmanship, and an exiled princess (Emilia Clarke) unites the barbarian hordes of a land across the water to take back her family legacy. And it doesn’t begin to trace the equally compelling story of Tyrion Lannister, the debauched “black sheep” of the ruling family played by Peter Dinklage (who won an Emmy for his performance). Like a medieval answer to “I, Claudius,” he’s a dwarf with a sharp mind and a fierce understanding of the ways of power that he hides under his court jester antics. It’s a form of protection as well as escape; he’s not perceived as a threat.

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“The Incredible Mel Brooks” (Shout! Factory) – This five-disc collection is really a grab bag of all things Brooks outside of his feature films: talk show appearances, TV specials, comedy skits, TV shows he wrote, TV shows in which he appeared, TV commercials, animated shorts, and a couple of documentaries about Brooks, a collection spanning sixty years. Which may be too much of a Brooks thing for your average viewer, but let’s face it, your isn’t made for you average viewer. This is for the dedicated Brooks fan and by that measure, it is marvelous.

For the Brooks comedy completists, it includes the pilot episode to “Get Smart,” the spy spoof sitcom he created with Buck Henry, and Brooks’ favorite episode of the short-lived “Robin Hood” sitcom “When Things Were Rotten,” with guest star Sid Caesar. This is Brooks as writer and creator bringing his brand of comedy to TV and he provides new video introductions to each of these, with Henry joining him for “Get Smart.”

But just as funny and entertaining are his many appearances on TV talks shows: “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” “The Dick Cavett Show,” the British talker “Wogan,” plus the 1984 British special “An Audience with… Mel Brooks” (where Helen Mirren wins a bet with him) and the 2010 cable special “Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett Together Again” (with guest appearance by Carl Reiner).  Brooks is a born improviser and he thrives in these situations no less than he did when doing “The 2000 Year Old Man” with Carl Reiner (and there is some of that here too).

There’s plenty more here as well, including the Oscar-winning animated short “The Critic” (1963), with Brooks providing stream of comic improvisational narration, the documentaries “I Thought I Was Taller: A Short History of Mel Brooks,” a 1981 episode of the British arts series “Arena” guided entirely by Brooks’ comic sensibility, and the 2012 PBS special “Excavating the 2000 Year Old Man,” all new interviews on “Mel and His Movies” which cover his entire career in five parts, and a bonus CD with more songs and skits and interviews, all in a 60-page illustrated book with notes and program guide and slipsleeves for each disc.

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“Doctor Who: Series Seven, Part One” (BBC) – The 21st century BBC “Doctor Who” revival has turned into one of the network’s most popular exports. With only a few new episodes every year, the demand is great enough for BBC to release the season in sections.

So while we await the seventh series to conclude on BBC / BBC America, the five episodes of the first half of the season arrive on disc for those who simply can’t wait for the full season release next year.

This round opens with The Doctor (Matt Smith) arriving to find the Ponds, Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), on the verge of divorce and kidnapped by the Daleks, a situation that spurs a fairly quick reconciliation in the name of survival. So once again the only married couple to accompany The Doctor hops into the TARDIS for another round of adventures that take them to the planet of the mad Daleks, the crippled freighter of an interstellar poacher (an episode with not one but two regulars from the “Harry Potter” series), a 19th century frontier town in the American west under threat from an alien gunman, a “slow invasion” by alien cubes, and a return visit from the “Weeping Angel” statues as they move on Manhattan.

It’s also the farewell run of the Ponds on “Doctor Who,” who make a poignant and profound exit. A new companion is slated to join him when the series returns in 2013. And you just may get a clue as to who that will be in this round.

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“Wolf Lake: The Complete Series” (eOne), a supernatural melodrama of a werewolf pack living as humans in a rural Washington State town, arrived on TV between “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the current revival in fantasy / horror TV. Only nine episodes were produced before it was cancelled but the show definitely looks ahead to shows like “The Vampire Diaries” and “Teen Wolf.”

Lou Diamond Philips stars as a Seattle cop who tracks his missing girlfriend (Mia Kirshner) to a small town in the middle of Washington State, where there are definitely some strange doings: the women are extremely fertile (in fact, they seem to give birth in litters!), there are inordinate number of wolf sightings and attacks, and everyone is really cagey about their nocturnal activities. Yet cagey sheriff Tim Matheson hires him anyway because, well, he’s a pretty good cop and with the pack leader (Bruce McGill) dying of cancer and a young thug (Scott Bairstow) vying for the alpha dog spot, he’s got his hands full. Did I mention that Matheson run an AA-styled group for shapeshifters trying to keep the wild wolf at bay? The show also features early appearances by Paul Wesley (now on “The Vampire Diaries”) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and features Graham Greene as town elder with a droll sense of humor and a little coyote spirit in him and Sharon Lawrence as a den mother with a ferocious streak. I can’t say it’s a transcendent example of the genre, but it’s great fun as a rural supernatural show with noir style and a knowing sense of itself.

The three-disc set also features the documentary “Wolf Lake: The Original Werewolf Saga” and the unaired original pilot episode, which comes at the same basic concept with a radically different approach, with Lou Diamond Philips as a Forest Management agent secretly tracking the shapeshifter community, Graham Greene as his local counterpart, and no Mia Kirshner in the equation. Interesting to see how the show was radically retooled to become more of a gothic melodrama with factions fighting for power in the wolf pack and teens struggling with their legacy. DVD only.

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Entourage: The Complete Series (HBO) – Adrian Grenier is Vincent Chase, Brooklyn kid turned rising Hollywood star, and when he follows his career to Hollywood, he brings his buddies along for the ride and for the company.

If Grenier is the poster boy for fame and fortune, Kevin Connolly is arguably the real star of the story as the best friend and brain trust Eric, a manager in everything but name whose streetwise smarts and unflinching loyalty make him a match for Vinnie’s instinctively abrasive and casually offensive super-agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven). The entourage is rounded out by Kevin Dillon as Chase’s half-brother, the struggling bit player Johnny Drama, and Jerry Ferrara as the easy-going go-fer Turtle, happy to takes his place at the bottom of the pecking order as long as he gets his share of the sexual spill-off from the throngs of women Vincent attracts.

The HBO comedy series gives off an insider’s vibe mixed with street smarts and wry observations of relationship politics as it surveys the Hollywood subculture of stars and their posses and the tricky dynamics that fame, money, and status bring to old friendships as they become part of the star’s support network.

It also plays the whole trip as a testosterone fantasy of fame, wealth, sex, and surface risks with little on the line but easy money and temporary reputations. Vinnie rises to the top with his own superhero film (“Aquaman,” with guest star James Cameron as the director), trips up with an ambitious, self-produced epic about the rise and fall of the infamous Latin American drug lord that flops spectacularly, and recovers when Martin Scorsese casts him in his new project. Meanwhile Eric stakes out his claim as a professional manager, Johnny searches for his own project, and Turtle makes a play to start his own business. Would you believe that Vinnie’s golden touch rubs off on them all?

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All in the Family: The Complete Series (Shout! Factory) collects all nine seasons Norman Lear’s taboo-breaking, trend-setting sitcom, a genre that even at its best avoided ruffling any feathers back in the day. Lear had no such inhibitions. Adapting the British sitcom “Till Death Do Us Part” into the American vernacular of the 1970s, he turned American TV and the family sitcom format on its ear, tackling politics, racism, chauvinism, hypocrisy, and the American Dream with a vengeance, and creating Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), America’s favorite bigot. In this dysfunctional family, blue collar conservative father didn’t know best, mother is a daffy but goodhearted dingbat (Jean Stapleton), and their little girl Gloria (Sally Struthers) is a liberated liberal married to a college intellectual (Rob Reiner) constantly bickering with dear old dad, who not-so-affectionatel​y refers to him as Meathead.

Later season introduced Edith’s Cousin Maude (Beatrice Arthur) and next-door neighbor George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), both of whom spun-off into their own Lear-created sitcoms, brought in Sammy Davis Jr. as a guest star (in an Emmy-winning episode), added former blacklisted actress Betty Garrett to the cast, and tacked such issues as interracial romance (“Lionel Steps Out”), hate crimes (“Archie Is Branded”), sexual assault (“Gloria the Victim”), and breast cancer scare (“Edith’s Christmas Story”), among others. By the ninth season, Archie Bunker had mellowed as America’s favorite bigot and he and Edith essentially adopted the nine-year-old daughter of Edith’s cousin, which in the parlance of TV culture is the “jump the shark” moment of the series, but the show still tackled serious issues, including the separation of Mike and Gloria (in a one-hour special). The final season also features the 90-minute “200th Episode Special,” a retrospective hosted by Norman Lear.

213 episodes on 28 discs in a box set of five-disc box set, plus a bonus disc with a new interview with Norman Lear, the documentaries “Those Were the Days: The Birth of All in the Family” and “The Television Revolution Begins: All in the Family is On the Air,” the two original unaired pilots, plus the pilots to spin-off  shows “Gloria,” “Archie Bunker’s Place,” and “704 Hauser,” and a 40-page booklet with essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning TV critic Tom Shales and USC Media Professor Marty Kaplan and a complete episode guide.

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent – The Eighth Year (Universal) opens like pretty much any other season, with Vincent D’Onofrio’s Detective Goren and Kathryn Erbe’s Detective Eames following a murder case to a political family with dirty little secrets, but the second episode brings in a new player and a whole new chemistry.

Jeff Goldblum wanders into episode two like an alien, arriving to a crime scene with a big smile on his face, bags full of food in his hands, and a breezy attitude that immediately puts off Detective Wheeler (Julianne Nicholson), a veteran of the squad (and the show) who is a little low on trust, thanks to losing her old partner (farewell, Mike Logan, we’ll miss you) and her fiancé in the previous season.

Detective Zach Nichols is a terrific Goldblum creation, entering every conversation with a banter that bounces around like a bebop solo and veers off in sudden zig-zags before circling back to the case, keeping his subjects off balance while he lobs them with questions. He’s the son of psychiatrist parents (unseen this season but keep an eye out for a guest shot in season nine) and he has his own style, which makes him an interesting contrast to the more intense and obsessive Goren. And, frankly, more fun. Nichols seems to enjoy his work, even as he keeps frustrating Wheeler with his unconventional methods. It’s not just the suspects he manages keep of balance with his methods.

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In “Mad Men: Season Five” (Lionsgate), the stress of keeping the prestigious but struggling new advertising firm on Madison Avenue afloat takes its toll on the partners.

The honeymoon is over for Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his beautiful young wife Megan (Jessica Pare), the power struggle between silver fox and team schmoozer Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and ambitious barracuda Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) ramps up, the financial problems of Bryce (Jared Harris) become suffocating, and office manager Joan (Christina Hendricks) makes some major life decisions.

You could say that the season is built around the defining episode “The Other Woman,” where the partners (over the objection of Don) make Joan an offer that today would invite a lawsuit. It became the water-cooler TV moment of the year, and not just for the salacious drama at the center of the episode. It’s one thing to think of Pete as a pimp, another to see him literally become one, from the smug way he makes Joan a modest proposal in her own office (oblivious of how utterly monstrous his behavior is) to the sales pitch makes the (all too willing) partners to make Joan a cash offer to sleep with a big client. Don’s disgust does nothing to shut the conversation down.

It started a lively dialogue about the reality of sexual politics in American business life of the era and a lot of women who faced discrimination, condescension, and sexual advances while starting careers in the fifties and sixties were inspired to share their experiences. But there’s so much more to this episode, from how badly Don has misjudged his power in the partnership to Peggy’s decision to leave the agency and Don’s amazing farewell scene, where he goes through all the stages of grief in seconds and ends with a sincerely chivalrous gesture of respect and admiration. Everything changes here, not necessarily better or worse but with decisions that change the course of their lives, and that’s part of why the show is so good.

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Bones: The Complete Seventh Season (Fox) came in at an abbreviated 13 episodes, due to the real-life pregnancy of star Emily Deschanel, which was worked into the series.

Season Six ended  with Dr. Temperance Brennan (Deschanel ), aka Bones, announcing to her partner FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) that she was pregnant and that he was the father. The warm smile that Booth gave in acceptance of the news made for one the best season-enders ever.

The first half of this split season follows Bones still working in the field through her pregnancy while the happily unmarried couple searches for a house (and Booth’s own protective instincts are kicked into high gear). After a break for Deschanel’s real-life maternity leave, the second half picks up with Bones as a new mother trying to handle all the illogical biological impulses that motherhood has introduced into her logical way of life and learning to live with Booth in their new family home.

Meanwhile Dr. Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) still struggles as an instant mother to a teenager, Angela and Hodgins (Micheala Conlin and T.J. Thyne) learn to juggle the responsibilities of new parenthood (with a lesson learned from Angela’s bluesman father, once again played by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons), and Dr. Sweets continues his romance with Daisy (Carla Gallo), still the most aggressively annoying “squintern” in the line-up. There’s also a new squintern in the rotation: Luke Kleintank as Finn Abernathy, a southern fried former delinquent who becomes the Andy Griffith of forensic anthropology, complete with colorful southern phrases involving critters.

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Hart Of Dixie: The Complete First Season (Warner) sends ambitious and abrasive (but in a cute way) young Manhattan medical resident Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson) out of the Big Apple and into the kind of quaint, quirky small town that exist only on television.

She wants to be heart surgeon, just like her father, except she discovers that her biological father was actually the old country doctor who has been inviting her to work out of his practice in Bluebell, Alabama, and though he passes away before she learns the truth, he left her a gift: his share of the practice. It’s just what she needs to learn to deal with patients as people rather than medical puzzles and practice her bedside manner (“Why is everyone so obsessed with that?” she sputters in the first episode).

Medical practice aside, this is the 2011 TV season’s answer to “Gilmore Girls” south of the Mason-Dixon, or “Northern Exposure” as a light southern soap opera if you prefer. Bilson is the obligatory urban fish-out-of-water who clashes with southern belle socialite Lemon Breeland (Jaime King), who happens to be the daughter of the other half of the practice, Dr. Brick Breeland (Tim Matheson). Both are ready to do almost anything to drive her out of town and back into the city, leaving Brick the practice and Lemon her fiancé (Scott Porter), the town golden boy lawyer who meets cute with Zoe twice in the first episode. Before the episode is over, we learn he’s engaged, and the season leads up to the big will-there-or-won’t-​there-be-a wedding.

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American Horror Story (Fox) is a TV rarity: an interesting, creepy, at times gruesome, and increasingly compelling horror story told over the course of a cable TV season.

Created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, this FX original series (the same network where they unleashed “Nip/Tuck”) isn’t the bright musical world of “Glee.” Though set in Los Angeles, where Boston family has moved to start over again after a marital affair has almost  torn them apart, this is a gloomy world, mostly set in a grand yet oppressive old home in a tree-lined neighborhood. And oh yeah, there was a murder committed here. Actually a bunch of murders. In fact, the home is a star attraction on the L.A. Murder Bus Tour route.

This isn’t, however, simply an innocent family beset by the trapped spirits of murders past. They dead just bring out the worst in the living, and there’s plenty to draw out of the bitter father Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott), a psychiatrist who needs to heal himself, resentful mother Vivien (Connie Britton), who still hasn’t forgiven him for his affair, and angry teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga), who has plenty to rebel against.

Jessica Lange, who just won an Emmy for her performance, is the displaced southern belle next door, a cross between Blanche DuBois and J.R. Ewing and played with a relish for theatrical flair. Her life is a performance, and she delivers the show’s best line with a mix of threat and delight: “Don’t make me kill you again.” The rest of the neighborhood slowly introduces itself, and as we discover, most of them actually reside in the Harmon home, trapped by death to replay their terrible stories with every new living resident.

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Steve Martin: The Television Stuff (Shout! Factory/SOFA Entertainment) collects all six Steve Martin specials made for cable and broadcast TV, from his 1976 stand-up special “On Location with Steve Martin” (recorded for HBO) to the 1984 “Homage to Steve,” a video special featuring his Oscar-nominated short film “The Absent-Minded Waiter” (co-starring Buck Henry and Teri Garr) and a 1979 stand-up performance. While it’s great to have his stand-up act preserved, the gold is in his freewheeling network specials and the surreal sketches he spins without worrying about filling out a feature film narrative, from acting out the story of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” with a cast of monkeys and elephants (in “Comedy is Not Pretty”) to the commercials of “All Commercials” (look for pre-Pee Wee Paul Ruebens in the cast) done like a live TV variety show (complete with ridiculous production numbers). They were all shot on video and mastered from videotape, so don’t expect high fidelity here. These are as good as thirty-some year old magnetic video will ever look.

A third disc features Steve Martin appearances on other programs, from “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” to “Saturday Night Live” to “The Late Show with David Letterman,” plus select award shows, and each disc features new interviews with Martin. Three discs in a box set of three thinpak cases, plus a booklet with an essay and menus. DVD only.

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