It must be a tough week to be a "secondary" DVD. Some pretty major niche titles - The Ruins, Shutter, The Bank Job - have hit the market last week or this one (all three are the kind of flick that does well on DVD) and TV is finally getting interesting again with the returns of Weeds, The Closer, Monk, Burn Notice, Mad Men, Big Brother, and Project Runway all happening this month (we're finally getting out of that writer's strike nightmare). Don't even get me started on how many people are probably waiting in line right now for The Dark Knight. But for some people, a major movie, cool TV, and new release DVDs aren't enough. They're looking for something different. You want different? Check out the box cover for Voice at the bottom of this piece. Or just read about the unusual indie, Never Forever. And there's an amazing television trifecta of classic comedy, classic soap opera, and cult classic in Play All. Like the rest of the entertainment world seems to be doing this week, we're turning up the heat. Put on your shades and hit Play All.

Birds of Prey: The Complete Series
Studio: Warner Brothers
Starring: Ashley Scott, Dina Meyer, Rachel Skarsten, Shemar Moore, Ian Abercrombie, and Mia Sara
Features: Bonus Unaired Pilot Episode, Gotham Girls: The Complete Series

This one's a cult classic in the making. Fans have been clamoring for Birds of Prey, the short-lived WB Batman-related series to finally be released on DVD, and this week they'll get their wish. Birds of Prey was a weird case. Someone approved it, knowing that it would be an expensive show, but I don't think they were fully prepared to keep it on the struggling network. How else can you explain the fact that Birds of Prey rocked the prime demographics (including reportedly scoring the highest ratings on the network for 18-34-year-olds) but still got the axe? The WB frequently made bad decisions with what they canceled and what they kept on the air. If Birds of Prey had been given even a full-season, I suspect it would still be on the air. This really should have been like Charmed or Smallville, two niche shows with loyal followings for many years, but The WB cut bait and kicked the birds out of the nest. And to add pain to the expulsion, it's taken years for the gals - Ashley Scott, Dina Meyer, and Rachel Skarsten - to find their way to DVD. Wait no more. Go see Dark Knight and then dive into the quality product that Warner Brothers has released this month to tie into it, including last week's The Batman: Season Five, Gotham Knight, Batman Begins: Limited Edition Gift Set, and, finally, Birds of Prey.

Dallas: Season Nine
Studio: Warner Brothers
Starring: Barbara Bel Geddes, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, Larry Hagman, Susan Howard, Steve Kanaly, Howard Keel, Ken Kercheval, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, Victoria Principal, and Charlene Tilton
Features: "Seasons of Change"

For many fans, this was when Dallas turned. It's funny because the show is so closely associated with two major events in soap opera history - the shooting of J.R. Ewing and the shot of a should-be-dead Bobby Ewing in the shower. We realized the next year that the entire previous season had been a dream. It's the most insane deus ex machina in the history of television. (Can we try the same thing with the last season of Heroes?) Warner Brothers even advertises this entire season set as the most famous dream sequence in history. It grabbed huge headlines and still makes lists of the biggest TV moments of all time, but some fans felt cheated. And ratings really turned here, never to go back to the peak of the show. This was the top of the Dallas rollercoaster, when it was still a top ten show and just before it began its slide. Don't start with Season Nine, but don't stop if you've been collecting the previous eight.

Voice
Studio: Genius Products
Starring: Kim Ok-Bin, Seo Ji-Hye, and Cha Ye-Ryun
Features: Behind-the-scenes featurette, Theatrical Trailer

With a frontrunner for the most disturbing DVD cover of the year (a bloody hand breaking out of a person's mouth), Voice is this week's Asian horror entry. A 2005 film from South Korea, Voice is technically the fourth official entry in a series of horror films that started with Whispering Corridors in 1998. The film tells the story of a singer who dies at a school and haunts the students and teachers there. Possession, revenge, grudges, and, of course, creepy kids with long black hair surely follow. We don't mean to get bitter here at Play All, but there's at least one title like Voice every single week and they're getting harder and harder to tell apart. However, if Asian horror is your thing, Voice will probably satisfy you. It was well-received on the international circuit and that cover certainly sets the mood.

Never Forever
Studio: Arts Alliance America
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Jung-Woo Ha, and David L. McInnis
Features: Deleted Scenes, Blooper Reel, Making-of Featurette

What's happening with Vera Farmiga? Her work in The Departed should have garnered her an Oscar nomination and people knocking down her door to cast this talented actress, but I worry now that she'll be relegated to hardly-seen arthouse releases and straight-to-DVD fare like Never Forever, a film that started a buzz at Sundance of 2007, but is quietly hitting DVD this week. Critics liked Never Forever and it would the Jury Prize at the Deauville Film Festival ,but it's getting harder and harder to get challenging indie flicks like this one widely released. So, we'll have to settle on DVD. I just Farmiga doesn't have to for the rest of her career. Vera plays a married woman who finds out that she can't get pregnant by her husband, so the pair agree to let her sleep with an illegal Korean immigrant just to have a child. No strings attached. Yeah, that works. Farmiga is talented enough that anything she's in is worth a rental just to watch her work. I just wish she'd make it to the big screen more often. For now, this will have to do.

Evening Shade: Season One
Studio: Paramount
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Marilu Henner, Ossie Davis, Charles Durning, and Hal Holbrook
Features: None

Burt Reynolds is often the subject of derision in recent years (and, really, anyone involved in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale deserves to be), but the fans who only remember his heyday of mustachio-ed cool often forget that he found pretty major success on a sitcom called Evening Shade. The show ran on CBS from 1990 to 1994 and featured one of the more impressive comedy ensembles of the last two decades, including the great Charles Durning and Ossie Davis, along with recent Oscar nominee Hal Holbrook. Watching it now, Evening Shade looks more dated than I thought it would (1990 looks a lot like the mid-'80s in the TV world) but the writing was still pretty strong. Reynolds played an ex-pro football player who returns to the rural Evening Shade and coaches a local high school football team. It was relatively simple "small-town life" comedy made significantly better by the very talented people doing it. If you only vaguely remember it, pick it up, and if you're completely unfamiliar and looking for something funny that never really got a lot of play in syndicated repeats, you'll enjoy your time in Evening Shade.