Is your life too hectic to schedule weekly viewings of even your most cherished TV shows? Does it frustrate you to have to wait a whole week to find out what’s going to happen next to your favorite characters? Now with full seasons of shows conveniently streamed or packaged in one DVD set, you can conveniently watch an entire season or even an entire series at your leisure or in a binge viewing over several days or weeks.

A case in point is Murdoch Mysteries Season Six, the excellent Canadian TV series set in Toronto, initially in the 1890s, and latterly in the early days of the Twentieth Century. The series is an intriguing one as it often solves murders with the advances in technology then becoming available such as finger-prints or finger marks as they were called when first introduced. The show periodically features episodes in which well-known figures passing through Toronto are involved in the crime at hand or the solving of it. These featured often recurring characters include Arthur Conan Doyle; H.G. Wells; Alexander Graham Bell; Harry Houdini; Buffalo Bill and the Prince of Whales. Season six includes an episode in which a young Winston Churchill is the initial suspect in the death of his friend and another in which a psychiatric patient who believes he is Sherlock Holmes helps solve a murder as Sherlock, inspiring Arthur Conan Doyle to revive the character he had killed off in his last book several years earlier. Another has a detective going undercover, or perhaps I should say without cover, in order to solve a murder in a nudist colony. A very poignant episode explores both reincarnation and dementia.

The source of the Murdoch Mysteries is a series of novels written by British born, Canadian author Maureen Jennings, born 1939. Jennings, who is also the creative consultant on the series, has thus far written seven Murdoch novels published between 1997 and 2007.

Jennings’ first three novels were adapted for Canadian TV in 2004 with Peter Outerbridge as forward thinking Detective William Murdoch; Keeley Hawes as enterprising coroner Doctor Julia Ogden; Michael MacFadzean as amiable Constable George Crabtree and Colm Meaney as Murdoch’s alcoholic boss, Inspector Thomas Brackenreid. That series also had a major fifth character in brothel madam Ettie Weston played by Flora Montgomery.

The new series, which began in 2008, stars Yannick Bisson as Murdoch; Helene Joy as Julia; Jonny Harris as Crabtree and Thomas Craig as Brackenreid. It drops the madam and adds several interesting characters of its own including Georgina Reilly as feisty Dr. Emily Grace who becomes the new coroner after Julia moves on to other things in the medical profession and Lachlan Murdoch as stalwart Constable Henry Higgins. Lighter in tone than the original series, the new series is now in its seventh season with no signs of slowing down. It remains fresh and invigorating as it finds new ways of keeping Murdoch and true love Julia apart.

The original series of The Murdoch Mysteries is available on standard DVD. The first six seasons of the new Murdoch Mystries are available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Damages, a five year series which started out as a must see event in 2007, then became more difficult to find, has now been released in a single set containing all five seasons, only the first four of which were broadcast on cable TV. The fifth season was available only on Netflix.

The series starred six time Oscar nominee Glenn Close as a duplicitous, manipulative attorney who may also be a murderer. Rose Byrne had the second lead as her protégée. Tate Donovan as Close’s second in command and Zachary Booth as her rebellious son also had prominent roles in the series. Guest stars who made their mark in the series include Ted Danson, William Hurt, Zeljko Ivanek, Timothy Olyphant, Campbell Scott, Martin Short, Lily Tomlin, Michael Nouri, Chris Messina and Victor Garber. Close won a Golden Globe the first season of the show while Danson and Byrne were nominated. Close, Hurt and Byrne were nominated the second season. Close and Ivanek won Emmys the first season while Danson was nominated. She won another Emmy the second season while Hurt and Danson were nominated. Close, Short, Tomlin and Danson were all nominated for their third season performances. Close received a fourth Emmy nod two years later. She was also nominated four times for a SAG award during the series’ run.

All five seasons are a compulsive watch with only the fourth season, which takes place partially in Afghanistan, falling off the mark in quality. The series, however, does suffer from the recent trend in dramatic TV series to kill off major characters the audiences has come to like if not love. One such murder is telegraphed throughout season three. A similar murder is seemingly telegraphed in season five but it’s a red herring. Instead, it’s another key character who is murdered in the last episode.

All five seasons are available separately or in the nicely compressed five season collection on standard DVD.

Also newly released, Mad Men Season Six is a bit of a letdown for those who were engrossed by the fascinating turn of events during the first five seasons. Season six offers more of the same conflicts without really giving us anything new. Still, the series remains one of the most watchable on TV with strong performances from the entire cast including Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Kristina Hendricks and John Slattery among others.

The series has won the Golden Globe for Best Drama Series three times while Hamm won during the show’s first season. The show, which has won several Emmys, has never won for Best Drama Series or for any of its performers.

All six seasons of Mad Men are available on Blu-ray or standard DVD.

Among last year’s most honored foreign films were Barbara; No and Pieta. All three have now been released on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Christian Petzold’s Barbara, which was among the five films named as the best foreign film releases of the year by the National Board of Review, is an affecting study of the hardships faced by an intelligent female doctor under the repressive regime of Communist East Germany in the 1980s. Nina Voss makes a strong impression as the woman who must choose between escaping her dilemma and staying to fight the good fight for her patients.

Pablo Larrain’s No is a fascinating slice of South American history which also takes place in the 1980s. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the Chilean film was shown at the 2012 New York Film Festival but did not have a theatrical screening in the U.S. until earlier this year.

The film recounts the amazing “no” campaign that brought an end to the brutal dictator ship of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet. Gael Garcia Bernal gives another riveting performance as the ad executive who devised the campaign.

Ki-duk Kim’s Pieta won last year’s Satellite Award for Best Foreign Film in a tie with France’s Incendiaries. The South Korean film also received a Satellite nomination for Best Director.

The often brutal morality tale about guilt and redemption, may not appeal to everyone but the haunting final scene is impossible to forget.

This week’s new DVD releases include Blu-ray upgrades of Nashville and Serpico.