The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

While the seventh season of Seinfeld (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$49.95 SRP) marked the departure of Larry David, it was also an incredibly jam-packed outing, loaded with the episodes the shine even within the already-stunning firmament of the show – episodes like “The Soup Nazi,” “The Rye,” “The Maestro,” “The Sponge,” and the darkest way to end a marriage storyline, “The Invitations.” After David’s departure, the show lost a bit of its more gothic touches, to be sure, but not until the final season would there be anything even approaching a clunker. As with previous sets, Volume 6 (remember, the first volume featured seasons 1 & 2) is loaded with bonus features – including commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, TV spots, exclusive Stand-Up footage, and cast & crew interviews. In addition, there’s a spotlight on Elaine Benes and Julie Louis-Dreyfus, reflections on Larry David’s final season, and more “Sein-Imations” (classic scenes reinterpreted through animation).

I love Boston Legal (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP). I think David E. Kelley has finally found a way to meld the sensibility of his past shows – like Picket Fences, The Practice, and Ally McBeal – without falling into the sometimes overbearing, overblown, schizophrenic pitfalls of the previous series. Oh, and it’s got William Shatner, James Spader, Rene Auberjunois, and Candice Bergen. The 7-disc complete second season set features all 27 episodes, plus a pair of behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Its release was delayed due to MGM’s transfer of its home video distribution from Sony to Fox, but the long-awaited special edition of A Fish Called Wanda (MGM/UA, Rated R, DVD-$26.98 SRP) is finally hitting stores, packed with 2-discs of bonus materials in addition to newly-remastered picture and sound. Those bonus materials include an audio commentary with John Cleese, deleted/alternate scenes, a retrospective documentary, a message from John Cleese, and more.

While not the films that many remember as his classics, the 7-film Paul Newman Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated/Rated PG, DVD-$59.98 SRP) is a must-have set for the bonus features alone. In addition to the films themselves – Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Young Philadelphians, Harper, Pocket Money, The Mackintosh Man, & The Drowning Pool – the set features commentaries (from Newman, the late Robert Wise, Martin Scorsese, Robert Loggia, Richard Schickel, William Goldman, Arthur Penn, and Vincent Sherman), vintage featurettes, and trailers. Can you guess what set I’ll be digging my way through over the holidays?

Try as I might, I can’t understand what people love about How I Met Your Mother (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). I’ve watched every episode, and I love the actors involved, but the writing seems flat and clichéd – I honestly wish it was better, because I want to like it. Is this what it was like for all those people who didn’t “get” Friends, or am I living some kind of sitcom version of They Live, where only I can see the non-funny? The 3-disc set features all 22 first season episodes, plus audio commentaries on select episodes, a blooper reel, and a “Video Yearbook” featurette.

You’d think it wouldn’t have taken so long for one of the highest grossing comedies of all time to get a decent special edition, but it’s taken forever to get one for John Hughes & Chris Columbus’s timeless holiday tale of unintentional child abandonment, Home Alone (Fox, Rated PG, DVD-$19.98 SRP). The new edition features a gag reel, over a half-dozen featurettes, deleted scenes, and – best of all – an audio commentary with Columbus and Macaulay Culkin.

With the 3-disc set collecting season 6 & 7, the end of the original run of Columbo (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) on DVD comes to a conclusion with the final 8 tele-movies starring Peter Falk as the memorably rumpled detective famous for his case-solving refrain of “Oh, there’s just one more thing…”.

The fifth and final season of Alias (Buena Vista, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) was a bit of a jumbled affair, with the increasingly onerous Rambaldi mythology sort of reaching some kind of resolution, but I wouldn’t exactly call the last adventures of Sydney Bristow a high water mark in the show’s history. Much like The X-Files before it, they were never able to sustain the passion, energy, and mystery that had propelled better times. The 4-disc set features behind-the-scenes featurettes and a blooper reel.

My little nephew has recently been getting into Blue’s Clues, so I sat him down with the new volume of Blue’s Room – Meet Blue’s Baby Brother (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$16.99 SRP). As the title suggests, this introduces Blue’s new baby brother… and my nephew approves.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

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