'Remington Steele' leads off pack of TV shows

The final seasons of "Remington Steele" lead these TV shows that are new to DVD, scheduled for release on Tuesday.

• "Remington Steele: Seasons Four & Five" (Fox, 1985-87, not rated, 49.98, five discs). This is the final season-and-a-half of the show that made Pierce Brosnan a star, as he and Stephanie Zimbalist banter, jet-set around the globe and solve mysteries. With help from Doris Roberts.

As Brosnan's character investigates his past in the fourth season, the show begins to run out of steam. Season 5 is really just three two-part TV movies to wrap up the series' loose ends.

Still, it's fun to see Brosnan in his pre-James Bond days.

Extras: Full frame, 27 episodes, audio commentaries, featurettes, subtitle options (English, Spanish), chapters.

• "The Jeffersons: The Complete Fifth Season" (Sony, 1978-79, not rated, $29.95, three discs). Five years down the road, this sitcom is still a riot. Check out the very funny episode with Louise (Isabel Sanford), her maid Florence (Marla Gibbs) and neighbor Helen (Roxie Roker) all falling apart when they meet Billy Dee Williams.

Extras: Full frame, 24 episodes, optional English subtitles, chapters.

• "Jericho" (WGBH, 2005, not rated, $29.95, two discs). Another cynical English detective series with a grumpy police inspector (Robert Lindsay) who suffers from repressed memories, in this case a childhood trauma from seeing his police-officer father gunned down by mobsters. This disc has two feature-length episodes of this well-made, dark police procedural, with violence, and some brief nudity and bad language.

Extras: Widescreen, two two-part "Mystery!" episodes, optional English subtitles, chapters. (If you can't find this title in a local store, it can be ordered by phone at 800-949-8670, or on the Web at shop.wgbh.org.)

• "Surface: The Complete Series" (Universal, 2005-06, not rated, $49.98, four discs). Not a bad beneath-the-ocean sci-fi tale of aliens, but it didn't complete its first season. Very "X-Files"-ish, with some interesting characters as a mysterious sea creature is discovered. Friend or foe? Unfortunately, the cliffhanger won't be resolved.

Extras: Widescreen, deleted scenes, featurette, optional English subtitles.