TV series on DVD for holiday gifts

Each year around this time, complete-series DVD sets hit the shelves as holiday gift possibilities for TV fans, and this collection of new releases leads off with three.

"It's Garry Shandling's Show: The Complete Series" (Shout! 1986-90, 116 discs, $159.99). Shandling was still a fairly unknown writer/standup comic when he developed this zany show — which, along his guest-hosting "The Tonight Show" during the Johnny Carson era, led to the much more popular "The Larry Sanders Show."

But I've always found this one to be superior, much richer and funnier than "Sanders," perhaps because it's not quite so "inside" show-biz, even though it's all about turning sitcom conventions inside-out.

Shandling, starring as himself, speaks directly to the camera, or the TV viewers, much as George Burns did in the 1950s on "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show." But here, there's no pretense of reality, as Shandling also occasionally steps offstage to chat with crew members or involve the studio audience in an episode's plot. He even discusses the show's surreal machinations with the other performers.

All of which makes for a very funny and quite absurd anti-sitcom, if you will, as he and a regular cast of friends and neighbors deal with such everyday situations as condo life and the dating game. And once in a while, big stars show up — Gilda Radner, Jeff Goldblum, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Steve Allen, Red Buttons, Dan Aykroyd, Bob Newhart, Chevy Chase, etc. — usually playing themselves.

And though it's from Showtime, whose current series are replete with exploitative elements, this one is a generally clean show.

Extras: full frame, 72 episodes, audio commentaries, featurettes, outtakes, two skits from Michael Nesmith's "Television Parts" series (1985), trailers; 36-page booklet

"Homicide: Life on the Streets: The Complete Series" (A&E/NBC, 1993-2000, 35 discs, $149.95). This gritty police procedural, which has a strong cult following, was an NBC series in the mid-to-late '90s, and one of its characters — Richard Belzer as Munch — continues today on "Law & Order: SVU."

The show follows Baltimore detectives in a harsher-than-usual TV reality as they investigate murders that are sometimes not resolved and during which cops quarrel among themselves. And the filming style employs shaky-cam and quick-edit techniques before they became commonplace.

The first-rate cast is led by Andre Braugher, Kyle Secor, Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo and the aforementioned Belzer. Guests include James Earl Jones, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Chris Rock, Wilford Brimley, Jay Leno and many more.