On February 12, I wrote:I rarely venture into this thread because I only like to post about a DVD I got that I'm really excited for. Needless to say, the fact that I'm in this thread must mean I bought a DVD that I'm really excited for. 
Needless to say, yet again, I'm really excited for my DVD purchase...
"Merlin": The Complete First Season $34.99 at Target
If you too would like to purchase this DVD, and support UD as well, click the picture to go to Amazon.com!
I've seen the episodes plenty of times, and it's so nice to finally have them on DVD.  I've probably seen "The Dragon's Call" and "The Moment of Truth" more times than I can count, and after a few more repeat viewings, I've warmed up a bit to some of the "lesser" episodes (well, episodes i considered lesser at first) like "A Remedy to Cure All Ills".  Plus, now I can watch the episodes away from my laptop (where I've downloaded them) and without commercials (on NBC, then SyFy).  And of course, I can finally see Merlin's hat from "The Poisoned Chalice" in perfect DVD quality:
The Hat from my downloaded AVI file:
The Hat from Disc Two of the DVDs:
Of course, as awesome as it is to have the first 13 episodes of "Merlin" in excellent DVD quality, it's even more awesome that I finally have the supplements!  The bonus disc has two hours worth of featurettes and video diaries (2x30 "making-of" documentaries, 1x15 "Black Knight" featurette, 3x15 video diaries), along with a fairly nice photo gallery (78 stills, half of which I've already seen/saved from the BBC website), and wallpapers (which, again, I've got from the BBC website).  On top of that are seven commentaries spread among the thirteen episodes.  I've only heard snippets of the cast commentary for "The Moment of Truth" on youtube, so I'll be excited to finally hear the whole thing!
The second season DVD hasn't yet been scheduled for R1 yet (hopefully it will come in July after it finishes its run on Syfy), but I'm looking forward to it already simply because the R2 set already has great supplements: more commentaries, the 13-episode "Merlin: Secrets and Magic" series, the BBC2 documentary "The Real Merlin and Arthur".  I just hope that the DVD version of episode 10 of "Merlin: Secrets and Magic" includes the "You're the Voice" segment at the end.  It would be a shame if they removed it because of it was too costly to licence for the DVD.  It's hilarious and priceless to watch:
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Finally, I normally don't comment on cover art (because 99.9% of the time, I don't give a damn what it looks like, it's the disc inside that I'm after), but I really wished they used the UK cover art.  I think it looks much nicer than the R1 cover, and I like the book and color scheme they have going for the two seasons out on DVD (third season is filming now).  The one thing I'd change is that horrid BBC logo they started using this year.  The standard b&w one was better.

albert