I would say 9.5 times out of 10 nowadays the answer is no for me now.

I used to purchase a lot of TV on physical media, but after many years, it just took up too much space and most of the time, I would never watch them. I ended up selling a lot a few years ago.

If I get any TV on BD or DVD it would be a classic show I want or some long-running show I already collect for cheap like the CW DC shows.

I know most TV, especially newer shows, has no replay value for most people, so it would be waste of money just to buy them for the sake of buying them. And having stuff available on subscription streaming services or services like Vudu has made any interest in having them for many almost non-existent now, especially this forum.

and if you just finished watching a 22-24 episode season on TV as it aired, do you really need to own it? Are you going to really watch it all over again?

I know a few of you here don't keep up with current TV, so this may be the only way you watch any television, so that's fine.

Wrapping up shows on media, save for anything new that would be released on UHD. I’m almost done getting all the Vikings series on blu. If the price is great in the future, I’ll get Game of Thrones on 4K, and I’m still getting the seasons of Westworld also on 4K. That aside, unless it’s something I really love, or gets a great upgrade to UHD, my buying days of shows on physical media are done.

Currently: zero


In the recent past: Criminal Minds

(The latter was after regular daily reruns ceased on basic cable channels like aetv).


In practice I've found that once a show is cancelled, I have very little to no interest anymore in buying any of the dvd (or bluray) season sets. So to avoid the impulse buying treadmill of too many tv show dvd (or bluray) season sets, I'll wait until after the show is already off the air.

Nope. The last series I bought on BD was X-Files.

I’m done. I bought the last season of GoT to complete the set. But that is it. Definitely would never buy season by season anymore because eventually the show will end up being bad and I’ll have all these seasons of a show I don’t like anymore (The Walking Dead...).

I’ve been selling off some of the DVD seasons.

I still buy some. Looking at what I've picked up year-to-date, it's overwhelmingly DC superhero shows, along with Showa-era Ultraman, Supernatural (catching up after a few years away), and Westworld in UHD. I also picked up The Good Place as a gift for my wife. It doesn't make financial sense to buy most of those since they're on streaming services I already pay for, but I started a collection and figure, eh, might as well see it through.

I'm interested in Game of Thrones in UHD, but I'm not in an enormous rush, especially since it sounds like the packaging is pretty problematic. Seeing too many complaints about playback issues on that other forum.

I will only purchase two "franchises" on physical media

"24" -- Kiefer Sutherland version, not "24 Legacy". I'm not a completist, so I don't care about having the spin-off in my collection. But "24" does have replay value for me, so I wanted it on physical media.


the other franchise is not a TV show, but I might as well mention it since we're discussing physical media and it's decline...

"San Francisco Giants" World Series film -- winning the World Series is very rare, so it's not often that I have to purchase any physical media


Other than that, I will not purchase anymore physical media - movies or TV shows

The last bit of TV I bought on physical media was:

The final season of Game of Thrones on 4K UHD

Charlie's Angels (original series) on BD Because who doesn't want Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Ladd in High Definition.

The Walking Dead season 9 (still need season 7 for cheap) Season 10 is still airing.

Batman Beyond the complete series


I still need the last 3 seasons of Criminal Minds for cheap then I'm done.

I needed the final season of Strike Back, but WB opted to release it on MOD DVD, so that was a hard pass.

I will not be buying anymore HBO shows since the entire calalog is streaming on HBO Max anytime. I also won't be buying the new Star Trek shows on BD either since I have CBS All-Access and see them as they air.


Anything else from now on if I miss it, I'll just wait until it hits Hulu, Netflix, CBS, Peacock or HBO Max. Maybe on a rare occasion, I'll get an entire season on digital for cheap if I miss episodes or really want to see it.

Very, very few. I haven’t bought any of the new Trek stuff and I’d consider buying The Mandalorian if it was a really nice package.

But we have really embraced streaming for TV and I just can’t think of anything that I would need on physical media.

I do need just a few more episodes of Doctor Who for my collection since I have almost all of it already.

I'll buy things that are spread across various streaming services instead of subscribing to them all. A few of the more recent ones:

Young Justice
Mr. Mercedes
Strike Back
Game of Thrones

I still find myself picking up seasons of various shows all the time on DVD/BD. Of course, I don't pay much. I hit several Family Video locations closing over the last couple of months and scored some great deals. Big Lots has been a source of many sets as well. I always have a show (or two or three) that I'm going through and haven't hesitated to loan out seasons to family as well, so I don't feel bad about the money spent.

You need another option: "Never have, never will".

I admit I was tempted a few times, but I never bit on buying TV shows.
As much as I love Six Feet Under and Breaking Bad (for example), I just don't see much replay value beyond the first time while it aired and maybe one more time after that.

It's hard to commit all that time to watching a whole series that I've already seen when I could be watching something else that I've never seen. And it's not like I can just throw in a random episode from time to time. Sitcoms are a little easier since most episodes are self-contained in most aspects - but it's even easier and more convenient to stream them.

The one show which brought this to clarity for me, was the scifi show Helix from 2014-2015. Season 1 was ok, while season 2 was completely different and lousy. I regretted buying the season 1 bluray set.

Later in 2015, I held off on buying any bluray sets of then-first season scifi shows like Dark Matter and The Killjoys. Years later, it turned out to be a wise decision. The Killjoys turned to crap very quickly in season 2. Dark Matter turned out to have three decent seasons, but was cancelled on a cliffhanger at the end of season 3. No point in buying any of the bluray season sets of these two shows.

Since then especially for scifi shows and other highly serialized fare, I wait until the show is cancelled and off the air, before making any bluray (or dvd) purchasing decisions.

I do but only for select TV shows, mostly because I don't have cable.

I've absolutely cooled down a lot.

As a general rule, most of my tv sets are just gathering dust. They take a long time to watch, they tend to be expensive, and replay value is limited. I can stick a two hour movie into the player and watch it, but when I'm looking at a tv series with sixty or one hundred or two hundred episodes spread out over dozens of discs, it becomes a burden.

I already have all of the "old" series I want on disc -- Star Trek (all series), X-Files, Babylon 5, Buffy/Angel -- and many that I liked at the time but will probably never revisit -- early seasons of The Walking Dead, Lost, Dexter, True Blood -- that I am now very selective about what series I buy on disc.

I think the last "new" series I bought on blu-ray was Orphan Black. Loved the series, but I still haven't binged on the whole thing.

And dex14 is right. A lot of shows like Dexter, Lost, and Game of Thrones ending up eating shit in the home stretch, so buying anything season-by-season is off the table.

Another factor is time management. There's so much stuff coming out on streaming that it's kind of overwhelming. So much new content is flooding the landscape that I just don't have the time to go back and watch a complete series of anything. I'd need to spend sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, in front of the damned tv just to keep up with all of the new stuff and revisit all of the old stuff I'd like to.

Yes. But it's slowed considerably as I have almost all of what I'd like to own. There are still a few "grail" shows I'd purchase should they see a release (very, very unlikely), a few classics I've not yet finished (waiting for the "right price" for the last couple of seasons), and a few that are still in production (mostly DC superhero shows). But I could stop today and be perfectly content with what I have as it's more than enough to fill my viewing needs for at least a decade.

Yep.
Just picked up the last two seasons of the Office and the 12th and 13th season of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

That’s another reason why I’ve stopped. Shitty MOD DVD-R versions of shows. I have a 10 season collection of Sunny and can’t finish it because they are shit discs. I might as well just sell them. But, with a show like that, who knows if they’ll pull episodes from streaming for being not PC enough.

Excellent point. They already pulled Dee Day from season 14. The discs don’t have that episode and it’s pulled from streaming services. I have it on my Dvr. I’m gonna try to get it off if there before I cancel my Directv.

Yea, that's not the only episode either. There were others.

Fuck. I better check my discs.

Earlier season DVDs are fine, but the episodes aren’t streaming anymore.

Damn I just saw the list of pulled episodes from Hulu. I agree MOD isn’t ideal, but better than nothing I guess.

A friend and I like having a show going that we can watch together, and we typically pull from my collection for it. Our two most recent picks show the continued need for physical media - and resulted in recent purchases.

We're almost done with Homicide: Life on the Street. I ended up buying the complete series set because I was missing the last season (and it made more financial sense to get the complete series). The show that we've already picked to watch next is Northern Exposure, and I decided to import the complete series from England because they released it on Blu-ray with the original music intact. The music on that show played a key role, so that was a compelling enough reason to upgrade from the American DVD.

What have I discovered about both of these excellent shows? Neither of them is streaming anywhere. In fact, when I went in search of a streaming service, I instead found them listed in articles about the best TV shows not available on any streaming service. So, in some cases, you really don't have much of a choice. Streaming services offer so many choices, but there are a lot of great shows that have been left out.

Haven't bought a series for years and don't plan on buying one now. But, something might pop up I wasn't expecting. Ya never know.