Sorta OT: RIP Khan/Mr. Roarke and Number Six

It was reported today that Ricardo Montalban, who played Khan on Star Trek and the mysterious Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island, has passed away at age 88. While Trek fans know him best as Khan, yours truly will always remember him in his white suit urging, "Smiles, everyone, smiles!" as the new batch of visitors to Fantasy Island disembarked from the seaplane. It wasn't a real Saturday night without The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, which were once aired back to back. (Give me a break, I was 8 years old.) The other thing that sticks out in my mind about Montalban is his car commercials in the 1980s when he went on about that luxurious "Corinthian leather." There was much more to Montalban's long career than that but for a whole generation of t.v. viewers, he was the guy who hung out with the little fella whose catch phrase was, "De plane, de plane!"

Fandom has lost another t.v. cult favorite today, Patrick McGoohan, perhaps best known for starring as Number Six on the 1960s British drama The Prisoner. Admittedly, it's an odd show...think of it as James Bond meets Lost in an eccentric English-style village...but it remains an influence on high-concept t.v. even to this day (see: Lost).

CW's First 4 Episodes on DVD March 25

Last week TFN posted a rumor that the first set of CW Season One DVDs will hit stores in March. starwars.com confirmed it for reals today, except that instead of putting out a volume of say 10 episodes, it will only be four: "Ambush" and the "Malevolence" arc. With 22 episodes slated for Season One, it'll take a while before you have it all in your private collection!

I figured that unlike most other t.v. DVD sets, they would break up Season One because folks are more willing to buy two sets for $49.99 six months apart than $90 in one fell swoop. It looks like some of that reasoning went into the low price of $19.95 for this set, and that's the full MSRP. Buy it at Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, or some other discounter and it'll cost even less than that. A second set of DVDs will come out this summer. With 22 episodes though, it'll take a while to get all of Season One at that rate!

http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/news_galaxydivided_dvd.html