Barney Miller - Shout! Factory to Release 'The Complete Series' 25-DVD Set in October!

Airing on ABC primetime from 1974-1982 and seen by millions, Barney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a NYC police station in Greenwich Village. Captain Barney Miller is the kind of cop we'd all like to meet. He somehow manages to maintain order over a group of inner-city detectives who gamble for a hobby, get hit on by anything in skirts, go to renaissance philosophy conventions for fun, and would really prefer to be writing. These colorful characters worked together to make one of the funniest sitcoms ever and is cemented in classic TV status. Stars: Hal Linden, Abe Vigoda, Jack Soo, Steve Landesberg, Ron Glass, and Max Gail. Sony released the first season in 2004, and followed up in 2008-09 with the second and third seasons. But since then they've been quiet, and fans have gotten to thinking that they would never see the rest of the show's 8-season run on DVD. But now Shout! Factory has picked up the license for this legendary sitcom, and is jumping into it whole-hog with an October 25th release of Barney Miller - The Complete Series! You'll get every episode on 25 discs, with guest stars that include the likes of Jeffery Tambor, Ray Sharkey, Marla Gibbs, Adam Arkin, Charlotte Rae, Linda Lavin, Doris Roberts, Dave Madden, Christopher Lloyd, Joe Regalbuto and Meshach Taylor.

The Emmy- and Golden-Globe-winning show will also be accompanied on DVD by "tons" of newly-produced and never-before-seen bonus features, including a 32-page Commemorative Book, New Interviews with the Cast (Hal Linden, Max Gail, Abe Vigoda), the Original Unaired Pilot, Writers Commentary on Select Episodes, and - whoa! - the First Season of the spin-off show Fish starring Abe Vigoda (note that the spin-off lasted for two seasons and 35 episodes; the 13-episode first season was more closely tied to Barney Miller since Vigoda's "Detective Phil Fish" regularly appeared in BOTH shows during the episodes that aired in 1977; Fish retired from the NYPD at the beginning of the Fall '77 season for each of these sitcoms).

Shout! is timing this title's street date to be on store shelves during the holiday gift-giving season, and the package art (shown below) clearly will appeal to fans. If you already own the individual season sets for the first three broadcast years, then you'll be wondering if SF plans to put out separate packages for Seasons 4 through 8. While the studio hasn't officially said, our experience is that they almost certainly will, and have done so in the past whenever they've started with these "complete season" packages (after all, the episodes are already produced, so there's no reason not to capitalize on that!). If you want the big set, though, then you'll be happy to know that it clocks in at $159.99 SRP (that's like $20 per Barney Miller season, or just $6.40 per DVD!)...and retailers such as Amazon will certainly discount the set from there. Hard to find fault with that! Or this amazing box to hold it all: