If the mere sight of Michael Palin striding purposefully towards the camera across some foreign terrain is enough to send you into fits of delight, then Sahara is just for you. Following on from his three pan-global expeditions, Palin is back on the exploration trail. This time it's traversing the Sahara desert; travelling from Gibraltar through Tangiers and the Arab world down through Africa and some of the most inhospitable conditions on the planet. The formula that Palin established in Around The World In Eighty Days has hardly been tampered with, but Sahara is proof that there are few better exponents of the travelogue. Palin is an engaging host, far more attractive than the extreme survival merchants, walking the fine line between experienced traveller and slightly eccentric Englishman abroad. The programme also strikes a perfect balance between grand visual gestures (the camerawork is simply stunning) and focusing on the individual lives that characterise the region, all underpinned by Palin's unique brand of humour. This is one to return to again and again. On the DVD: Sahara comes in at a mere four one-hour episodes and the producers were left with a huge amount of unused footage. Thus the DVD features a large selection of deleted scenes, all linked by Palin. The excellent set of extras also includes a collection of rough video diaries-mainly featuring Palin being pummelled by the elements-and an extensive interview with the presenter. [+]

The ultimate small-screen representation of Loaded-era lad culture-albeit a culture constantly being undermined by its usually sharper female counterpart-there seems little argument that Men Behaving Badly was one of 1990s' definitive sitcoms. Certainly the booze-oriented, birds-obsessed antics of Martin Clunes' Gary and Neil Morrissey's Tony have become every bit as connected to Britain's collective funny bone as Basil Fawlty's inept hostelry or Ernie Wise's short, hairy legs. Yet, the series could easily have been cancelled when ITV viewers failed to respond to the original version, which featured Clunes sharing his flat with someone named Dermot, played by Harry Enfield. Indeed, it was only when the third series moved to the BBC and was then broadcast in a post-watershed slot-allowing writer Simon Nye greater freedom to explore his characters' saucier ruminations-that the show began to gain a significant audience. By then, of course, Morrissey had become firmly ensconced on the collective pizza-stained sofa, while more screen time was allocated to the boys' respective foils, Caroline Quentin and Leslie Ash. Often glibly dismissed as a lame-brained succession of gags about sex and flatulence, the later series not only featured great performances and sharp-as-nails writing but also sported a contemporary attitude that dared to go where angels, and certainly most other sitcoms, feared to tread. Or, as Gary was once moved to comment about soft-porn lesbian epic Love in a Women's Prison: "It's a serious study of repressed sexuality in a pressure-cooker environment. " Series 5 includes: "Hair" in which Tony returns from holiday to discover Dorothy has convinced Gary she should move in. And that Tony should move out; "The Good Pub Guide" in which our heroes are dismayed when The Crown gets a new look and new landlord (The Fast Show's John Thomson). Tony rescues the pub's old condom machine as a present for Deborah ("I thought it was something we could enjoy together. [+]

Like a cross between C. S. I. : Crime Scene Investigation and Darren Aronofsky's indie feature Pi, Numb3rs blends crime-drama with mathematics for a smart and creepy spin on the police-detective genre. Executive produced by Ridley Scott (Alien) and Tony Scott (True Romance), the series centres on a pragmatically minded FBI agent, Don Eppes (Northern Exposure's Rob Morrow), who invites his math-genius younger brother, Charlie (David Krumholz), to help him solve challenging cases using mathematical theories based on equations and probability. Dark and moody with a near-cinematic feel, Numb3rs has won both fans and acclaim for its innovative approach to the conventional crime-drama formula. This collection presents all 24 episodes from the show's second series, which includes guest appearances by Mary Kay Place, Graham Greene, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Colin Hanks.