I just discovered The Donna Reed Show, having been a longtime fan of Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best. I would like to get some of the episodes on DVD, and was wondering if anyone could tell me which season was the best. I see there is a single DVD "best of" collection containing 7 episodes from various seasons. Does anyone know if this is worth getting, or should I go for a whole season set?

If you don't want to go for all five seasons that are available, I would go for the later seasons. 4 and 5 are the "lost" episodes, and I generally like the newer episodes better. I think the "Johnny Angel" episode is on the season 4 set.

I don't have the best of set so I can't comment on it. If you go for the earlier seasons be sure to avoid ebay or anyplace else trying to sell the Virgil Films versions. The MPI DVDs were redone and avoided stuff like cutting off the credits right before the Screen Gems logo comes in. IIRC the MPI reissues do have a few syndicated versions scattered among them, but the 4 and 5 sets, originally issued by MPI, are all complete episodes.

If you have Decades you can view a few season 6 episodes and all but 2 or 3 season 8 episodes, at some point.

That's very helpful - thanks for your reply. I did watch an episode from Season 4 online - it was about Alex getting a watch - and was quite impressed by it.

Yes, I remember one about an older doctor, and she drives an old beat up jalopy. I don't remember the details, but they ended up awarding her a new sports car, for her service to the community.

In another one the Stones take a disjointed vacation in an RV, and Alex gets stuck in his sleeping bag, among many other problems. Yet another trip has the Stones shadowing Mary on a boat outing, and they try (unsuccessfully) to hide from her as she comes by in another boat. I think in the same episode Donna snags a gigantic fish, but it eventually gets away.

Some of this could be in Season 3, though. Just remember they're later episodes, but not which season.