What was the first TV series to successfully market multiple episodes for sale on home video? Hint: It was before DVDs.
Answer:
The X Files.
Though other shows released episodes on tape before, The X Files was the first show to sell them at all well. This is what really started the trend of releasing TV shows for sale on home formats, which obviously exploded after the advent of DVDs. I still have several of my X Files VHS tapes. (My wife still has a set of the first season of Friends on VHS.)
This Halloween, I thought I’d remember this seminal series, which doesn’t seem to get quite the respect it used to. I had a couple of random periods to kill a few years ago after some poorly-timed standardized tests, and filled them with what I happened to have handy–my X Files tapes (it was near Halloween, anyway). These teens who had heard of but never seen The X Files loved it. Many of them jumped at the appropriate times, and I even got to explain some of the good storytelling techniques in them.
I wonder how long it will be before this show becomes “corny” to young people. In a rarely optimistic moment, I’ll hope for never.
This series produced an excellent variety and consistently high quality. Episodes were often intense (“Paperclip”/”The Blessing Way”), narratively complex (“Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” starring the late, great Peter Boyle of Everybody Loves Raymond fame, in a hauntingly sensitive role), weird (“War of the Coprophages”), surprisingly funny (“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” and a pretty decent Simpsons parody episode, if you count that), and of course, spectacularly creepy. The series attracted some great guest writers, including William Gibson and Stephen King.
After The Simpsons and Seinfeld, it was the best show of the 90’s, which makes it the decade’s best drama.
Gently Hew Stone 