DVD Releases
Beginning in the summer of 2001, Columbia House Television began releasing I Love Lucy on DVD in chronological order. They began that summer with the pilot and the first three episodes on a single DVD. Every six weeks, another volume of four episodes would be released on DVD in chronological order. During the summer of 2002, each DVD would contain between five and seven episodes on a single DVD. They continued to release the series very slowly and would not even begin to release any season 2 episodes until the middle of 2002. By the spring of 2003, the third season on DVD began to be released with about six episodes released every six weeks to mail order subscribers. All these DVDs have the identical features as the DVDs eventually released in the season box sets in retail.
By the fall of 2003, season four episodes began to be offered by mail. By the spring of 2004 season five DVDs with about six episodes each began to be released gradually. Columbia House ended the distribution of these mail order DVDs in the Winter of 2005. They began releasing complete season sets in the Summer of 2004 every few months. They stated that Columbia House Subscribers would get these episodes through mail before releasing any box sets with the same episodes. They finally ended gradual subscriptions in 2005, several months before season 5 became available in retail. Columbia House then began to make season box sets available instead of these single volumes.
CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) has released all six seasons of I Love Lucy on DVD in Region 1, as well as all 13 episodes of The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour (as I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons – 7, 8, & 9). Bonus features include rare on-set color footage and the "Desilu/Westinghouse" promotional film, as well as deleted scenes, original openings and interstitials (before they were altered or replaced for syndication) and on-air flubs. These DVDs offered identical features and identical content to the mail order single sets formerly available until 2005.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| The Complete 1st Season | 35 | September 23, 2003 (re-released June 7, 2005) (re-released October 9, 2012) |
| The Complete 2nd Season | 31 | August 31, 2004 (re-released October 9, 2012) |
| The Complete 3rd Season | 31 | February 1, 2005 (re-released October 9, 2012) |
| The Complete 4th Season | 30 | May 3, 2005 (re-released October 9, 2012) |
| The Complete 5th Season | 26 | August 16, 2005 (re-released November 6, 2012) |
| The Complete 6th Season | 27 | May 2, 2006 (re-released November 6, 2012) |
| The Final Seasons 7, 8 & 9 | 13 | March 13, 2007 (re-released November 6, 2012) |
| The Complete Series | 194 | October 23, 2007 |
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“We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)