"Director: David Petrarca"

• Dawson's Creek: Complete Season 1 | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Even viewers who consider themselves beyond their teen-angst years might find Dawson's Creek compelling. In the first series we are introduced to Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes), who for years have watched movies and slept in the same bed; but they find that as they enter high school their relationship will inevitably change. That becomes especially clear when Dawson is immediately attracted to Capeside's sexy new arrival, Jen (Michelle Williams). Meanwhile, their friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson) pursues an unachievable love object. Creator Kevin Williamson based Dawson's Creek on his own youth, and even though the characters may not really look or sound 15 years old, the Dawson-Joey-Jen interplay--especially embodied by the sad-eyed and cynical (but still adorable) Joey and the smart but emotionally inept Dawson--gives the show its heart. And just like Williamson's fresh take on the teen-horror genre, Scream, Dawson's Creek has a winking self-awareness, for example when Dawson says they're having a "90210 moment" or explains that they use big words because they watch too many movies. Highlights of the first series include Dawson's discovery that his perfect home life may not be so perfect, an unwelcome reminder of Jen's past, the Breakfast Club takeoff "Detention", the Scream takeoff "The Scare", a beauty contest in which two unlikely competitors square off, and the heart-rending finale. --David Horiuchi

• Save The Last Dance/Save The Last Dance 2 | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Save The Last Dance: Sara (Julia Stiles) is a small-town girl with a big dream: to become a world-class ballerina. But when her mother suddenly dies Sara must abandon her plans and join her estranged father (Terry Kinney) on Chicago's gritty south side. A white girl in a predominately black neighbourhood Sara feels out of place - until she is befriended by a black classmate Chenile (Kerry Washington) and her handsome brother Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas). Sparks fly between Sara and Derek whose shared love for dance leads to romance. But as Sara and Derek's relationship grows so does opposition from their famillies and friends. Now Sara and Derek face the biggest challenge of their young lives - to stay true to their dreams.. and each other. Save The Last Dance 2: Continuing the story of the original film Sara (Izabella Miko) follows her dream and becomes a student at Juilliard. As she is excels and becomes a star pupil Sara becomes torn between her love for traditional ballet and her passion for the urban street rhythms of hip-hop complicated further by her new love hip-hop musician Miles (Columbus Short). When pushed to make a choice will she follow the path of the tried and true or will she take a risk and dance into uncharted territory?

• Gilmore Girls - Season 1 | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  Welcome to the picture-perfect New England town of Stars Hollow Connecticut. Founded in 1779. Population 9 973. Home of 32 year old Lorelai and her 16 year old daughter Rory: the Gilmore Girls. Quick-witted Lorelai manager of historic Independence Inn is mother to Rory (Alexis Bledel); her daughter's best friend confidante and mentor who's determined to help her avoid the mistakes that sidetracked Lorelai when she was a teen... Episodes Comprise: 1. Pilot 2. The Lorelais'

• Save The Last Dance/Save The Last Dance 2 | DVD | (12/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Save The Last Dance: Sara (Julia Stiles) is a small-town girl with a big dream: to become a world-class ballerina. But when her mother suddenly dies Sara must abandon her plans and join her estranged father (Terry Kinney) on Chicago's gritty south side. A white girl in a predominately black neighbourhood Sara feels out of place - until she is befriended by a black classmate Chenile (Kerry Washington) and her handsome brother Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas). Sparks fly between Sara and Derek whose shared love for dance leads to romance. But as Sara and Derek's relationship grows so does opposition from their famillies and friends. Now Sara and Derek face the biggest challenge of their young lives - to stay true to their dreams.. and each other. Save The Last Dance 2: Continuing the story of the original film Sara (Izabella Miko) follows her dream and becomes a student at Juilliard. As she is excels and becomes a star pupil Sara becomes torn between her love for traditional ballet and her passion for the urban street rhythms of hip-hop complicated further by her new love hip-hop musician Miles (Columbus Short). When pushed to make a choice will she follow the path of the tried and true or will she take a risk and dance into uncharted territory?

• Dawson's Creek - Season 5 | DVD | (30/05/2005) from £10.40   |  Saving you £34.59 (332.60%)   |  RRP £44.99

  It's goodbye to Capeside, hello to Boston in Dawson's Creek's fifth season (a.k.a.: Dawson's Creek: The College Years). While the end of the fourth season sent the five friends their separate ways--Dawson (James Van Der Beek) to USC Film School, Joey (Katie Holmes) to Wilmington College, Jen (Michelle Williams) and Jack (Kerr Smith) to Boston Bay College; and Pacey (Joshua Jackson) to the high seas--it doesn't take them long to find themselves together again. That's a good thing, especially when tragedy strikes a family member and threatens to tear the survivors apart. More than anything, the fifth season seems to be about falling into bad relationships. Jen dates a cute but sleazy musician (Chad Michael Murray), Pacey gets a job in a restaurant where he pursues a woman (Lourdes Benedicto) already having an affair with a married man, then fends off a vampish new boss (Sherilyn Fenn, Twin Peaks). Joey is drawn to her handsome English professor (Ken Marino). And Jack joins a frat, becomes a jerk, and starts a devoted relationship with his beer bottle. Dawson meets an eccentric young filmmaker (Jordan Bridges) which in turn leads to a meeting with his favorite Boston film critic (Meredith Salenger). And Joey's new roommate, the annoyance-with-a-heart-of-gold Audrey (Busy Phillipps), becomes the newest major addition to the cast. The irritation factor is high this season, a couple of "Joey is threatened" interludes don't have the punch that they could have, and in the season finale, the inevitable resolution of the show's central relationship doesn't really resolve anything at all. But viewers who have followed the Capeside crew for four seasons will still want to see what happens in the fifth. The fifth season is the first to have no DVD extras at all, and it continues the music-replacement strategy (which, since the second season has replaced much of the music, and since the third season has replaced Paula Cole's theme song, all due to licensing expenses). In addition to the usual background-music switches, some scenes have been edited (for example, the episode "Highway to Hell" has cut two of the performances on-stage at the Drunk & Dead). Also, the opening credits of "The Long Goodbye" and "Downtown Crossing" had originally used instrumental versions of "I Don't Want to Wait," which had underscored the emotion of those episodes. In the DVD set, those have been replaced by the standard version and an instrumental version, respectively, of "Run Like Mad." --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

• Dawson's Creek: The Finale | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £5.65   |  Saving you £10.34 (64.70%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Bringing the sixth and final season of 'Dawson's Creek' to a close this disc features the two-part finale aptly titled 'All Good Things Must Come To An End'. Dawson Joey Pacey Jen and Jack are reunited in Capeside after five years to celebrate Dawson's mum's wedding. But the celebratory mood comes to an end when they receive some heartbreaking news. As the gang faces a future more uncertain than ever before Joey struggles to come to terms with her true feelings for Dawson Pa

• Dawson's Creek: Season 3 | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  Jen is a cheerleader and Jack's on the football team. I got sane and everyone else went crazy?" That's how Andie (Meredith Monroe) sums up the topsy-turvy beginning to the third season of Dawson's Creek, in which nothing seems to be as it should and the series takes a major turn. It's junior year at Capeside High, and Jack (Kerr Smith), the town's resident gay teen, is indeed on the football team, and Jen (Michelle Williams) finds herself the object of unexpected and unwelcome popularity among her fellow students, especially the freshman quarterback (Michael Pitt). Pacey (Joshua Jackson) finds that his relationship with Andie can't be restored, and Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes), after the events of last year, both think it's for the best that they're no longer together--they just never think it at the same time. Significant events include the friends starting to date outside their circle, Dawson's giving up some of his aspirations, a ! crisis for the school's new principal, a college tour, and the openings of the Potter Bed & Breakfast and Leery Fresh Fish. But the Dawson-Joey relationship is still the heart of the Creek, and it comes to a head in one of the series' most memorable episodes, "The Longest Day," and then the season finale. Even in its first season without series creator Kevin Williamson, Dawson's Creek still had plenty of punch. On the DVDs, executive producer Paul Stupin does his usual commentary track for two episodes, and he's joined by Kerr Smith. They discuss the series itself, Smith's character, and Smith's subsequent career more than the events of the episodes. The second-season DVD set disappointed many fans by replacing a large portion of the music, and that trend continues in the third season, most surprisingly in the loss of Paula Cole's theme song. Instead, the opening credits feature Jann Arden's "Run Like Mad," which was used briefly in the international broadcast. Stupin explains the switch as an attempt to do something different and creative, but then admits there was also "a bit of an economic reality." Fortunately, the DVDs do have John Lennon's "Imagine" and Mary Beth Maziarz's "Daydream Believers"--songs that in dramatic context simply could not have been replaced--and it could be argued that a veteran viewer might skip the opening credits anyway. Still, for many fans, the music made Dawson's Creek what it was, and without all of it--especially the theme song--the DVDs seem like a compromise rather than a permanent keepsake. --David Horiuchi

• Hung Season 1 (HBO) | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £9.80   |  Saving you £30.19 (308.06%)   |  RRP £39.99

  At first glance Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane) seems like an ordinary divorced dad who's trying to make ends meet. But Ray's got one extraordinary God-given gift - call it his winning tool - that sets him apart from other underpaid high-school teachers. With a little help from an unlikely business ally named Tanya (Jane Adams) Ray is about to hatch an inspired plan to ride his winning tool all the way to a more productive debt-free life.

• Save The Last Dance 2 | DVD | (05/02/2007) from £4.19   |  Saving you £8.80 (210.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Continuing the story of the original film Sara (Izabella Miko) follows her dream and becomes a student at Juilliard. As she is excels and becomes a star pupil Sara becomes torn between her love for traditional ballet and her passion for the urban street rhythms of hip-hop complicated further by her new love hip-hop musician Miles (Columbus Short). When pushed to make a choice will she follow the path of the tried and true or will she take a risk and dance into uncharted territory?

• Dawson's Creek: Season 4 | DVD | (17/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  It's senior year for Dawson Joey Pacey Jen and Jack! After spending the summer together Joey and Pacey find it difficult to keep their romance going with the realities of school college applications and their strained relationship with Dawson. Dawson rediscovers his true life's dream Jen turns over a new leaf after getting a new boyfriend and Jack tries to rebuild relationships after revealing he's gay...

• Dawson's Creek: Season 2 | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £32.37   |  Saving you £12.62 (28.10%)   |  RRP £44.99

  The second series of Dawson's Creek finds Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes) exploring the newest phase of their lifelong friendship, leaving Jen (Michelle Williams) and Pacey (Joshua Jackson) on the outside. The former enters a downward spiral assisted by bad girl Abby (Monica Keena), but Pacey happens into a "meet cute" with one of Capeside's new residents, the impossibly perky Andie (Meredith Monroe), who turns out to be his perfect foil. The Creek also struck gold with its second major addition, Andie's brother Jack (Kerr Smith), who shows Joey that he's more than just a clumsy waiter. With the siblings' help, Pacey and Joey show the most personal growth during the season's 22 episodes. The constant parent-child crises can be a bit much, but there were numerous other developments, including a two-part sexual whodunnit, Dawson embarking on his second movie (assisted by Rachael Leigh Cook in a sizzling guest appearance), Dawson's birthday party from hell, a vicious rumour that spreads through the high school, and the emotion-wringing finale. The only bonus feature is a commentary track on the first and last episodes just as with the first season, though executive producer Paul Stupin is by himself rather than accompanied by creator Kevin Williamson. The interplay is missed, but Stupin enthusiastically offers a lot of information about how the cast had become celebrities by the second season and had to juggle other projects and random details and trivia. Stupin mentions how carefully he selected different pieces of music, which "would become forever part of our show." That's ironic because for this DVD set Stupin himself picked a lot of new music to replace the selections that originally aired, presumably because of the cost involved in securing the rights (a problem for many television DVD releases). A couple of episodes are unaltered, but others have had almost every song replaced. Newcomers to the series probably won't notice, but serious fans may want not want to tape over their video cassettes just yet. --David Horiuchi

• Dawson's Creek: The Best of Seasons 1 and 2 | DVD | (04/09/2000) from £9.94   |  Saving you £10.05 (50.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dawson's Creek is, first and foremost, one of the defining shows about teen angst and complicated teenage relationships. The first two seasons were the classic ones, as Dawson oscillates in his affections between beautiful Jen and his best friend Joey and manages to fall entirely between two stools. This is a show in which indecision and failure to commit is always going to lead to nothing good, however uncertain the prospects of commitment. Michelle Williams as Jen and Katie Holmes as Joey provide the show with its emotional centre of quirky intensity. James Van Der Beek as the essentially unreliable Dawson provides good looks and a hang-dog complexity of feeling to the mix, while Joshua Jackson as his sidekick Pacey provides both reliable comic relief and a sense of more depth to come in the show's later seasons. This "Best of Seasons 1 and 2" provides good examples of what the show does best. From Season 1, "The Scare" is a finely judged commentary on teen horror films--the show's creator Kevin Williamson was also responsible for the Scream franchise--and "Beauty Contest" is a finely judged social comedy about the show's high-toned resort community. Other strands in "Beauty Contest" lead in Season 2 to the brief Joey-Dawson relationship in "The Kiss" and to its aftermath in "His Leading Lady", where Dawson directs Rachael Lee Cook as Devon in a movie script based sufficiently closely on earlier episodes that she reprises Joey's actual lines. Dawson's Creek is essential teen soap, savvy enough in its post-modern edge to play well with self-parody and intertextuality.--Roz Kaveney