Who needs the movies? Some of the hottest sights and sounds on Blu-ray have their origins in the airwaves.

I hate to admit it, but I’m becoming a bit of a TV junky again, after swearing off all but a few essential shows a few years back.

I had been managing fairly well, actually. Honestly, I had.

Then Blu-ray came along.

And now I’m powerless to resist the charms of episodic entertainment yet again. I’m glued to the screen nine, ten, twenty hours in a row sometimes. So I guess it’s a good thing today’s TV shows boast some of the most scrumptious sights and sounds to pass through my home entertainment system in some time. (And no commercials—bonus points for that!)

Tune in... err, pop in some of these gorgeous series on Blu-ray and see if you don’t agree.

Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray)
Best Chapter: 1, from the episode “Pie-lette”

In a television landscape packed to the furthest reaches of the UHF frequencies with copycats, clones, and other wannabes, it’s hard to stand out without running the risk of looking ridiculous.

Few shows bother trying. Few that bother succeed. Which is why a deliciously singular treat like Pushing Daisies deserves attention—lots of it—if only for its one-of-a-kind aesthetic.

The premise of the show is simple. Ned has a gift: his touch restores the dead to life. A second touch returns the reawakened back to their rightfully deceased state. And if that second touch doesn’t come within one minute, another life is taken in its place.

You’ll learn all of this and more in the pilot episode’s first chapter—a beautiful thirteen-minute short film in and of itself (directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, no less) that looks like equal parts classic Technicolor film, vivid dream, and the results of a bit of extracurricular chemical experimentation, if you take my meaning.

The sequence opens with a spectacular shot of an enormous field of daises, cast in the sort of yellow that formerly existed only in Van Gogh’s imagination. Detail is startlingly precise—perhaps too much so; one can actually see the eyes of young Ned’s supposedly deceased canine companion moving behind his eyelids.  

And the palette holds strong through everything that follows: a brilliant little Play-Doh-and-cardboard fantasy sequence that rings with reds so rich you’ll swear they’re ready to rip through your screen; skies the color of blue raspberry Icees; even wallpaper leaps off the screen with a vibrancy that’ll have you pulling your eyelashes out of your eyebrows by the end of the episode.

Afro Samurai: Season 1—Director’s Cut (Blu-ray)
Best Chapter: 2, from the episode “I”

If cotton candy rainbows and puppy dogs aren’t exactly your style, perhaps the dark grit of Afro Samurai will be more to your taste.

This brutal anime miniseries—which originally aired on Spike TV in highly neutered form, only to have its original smut restored for Blu-ray—is the opposite of Pushing Daisies in every way conceivable: Black comedy replaces cheerful irony; Crayola colors give way to a billion and one shades of gray; flirty innuendo and clever dialogue shrivel in the face of sex, violence, and salty expletives delivered in star Samuel L. Jackson’s inimitable style.

Check out the second chapter of the first episode for a perfect taste of everything the series has to offer.

The post-apocalyptic is rendered almost entirely in shadows, pierced only by moonlight that seems positively radiant by comparison. Every detail in every tattered bit of cloth ripples on the screen. Every shimmering blade and burning ember tears through the blackness with a vengeance.

But what really drives the scene is the sound design. In the moments leading up to the battle between Afro and his twenty would-be assassins, every channel of this sumptuous Dolby Digital TrueHD surround sound mix pumps out the sort of multi-layered, textured wind that Sergio Leone could only dream about.

Whispering blades of rustling grass join together with jingling chains and jangling buckles to weave an aural atmosphere so rich, so thick, and so tense that even Hanzo steel would be hard-pressed to penetrate it. When the battle finally does ensue, the soundfield erupts into a swirling mélange of swishing, zinging, thumping, and slicing so intense your speakers will be left bleeding and panting—and begging for more.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles—The Complete First Season (Blu-ray)
Best Chapter: 29, from the episode “What He Beheld”

Of course, post-apocalyptic Japanese animation isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of Joe. How about some apocalypse prevention, mixed with a heaping helping of time travel and smoking hot robots?

As you might imagine, the latest incarnation of the Terminator saga is packed with blazing bullets, rolling heads, plenty of car smashups, and even a dash of World War III action to send your home theater into overdrive. Whereas most series tend to blow the bulk of their budgets on the pilots (first impressions and whatnot), the final episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles’ inaugural season is where the best action lies.

Check out the penultimate chapter of the episode to see what I mean. Nothing good could conceivably come of a truckload of FBI agents storming a ticked-off Terminator’s hotel hideout.

What makes the ensuing beatdown so stunning is the choice of camera angles. The resulting whooping is filmed from the bottom of a swimming pool, which somehow makes the sight of Norwegian Blue FBI agents flying through the air to their final reward somehow beautiful—a graceful sort of ballet of violence, painted in dreamy aquamarines and inky blacks, all set to the thumping riffs of Johnny Cash’s “When the Man Comes Around.”

Sopranos: Season 6, Part II (Blu-ray)
Best Chapter: 3, from the episode “Soprano Home Movies”

And hey, if you’ve had your fill of super-saturated fantasy, hip-hop-drenched anime, and dueling robots from the future, that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck when it comes to finding drop-dead gorgeous TV-on-Blu-ray.

The final season (or half season, as it were) of HBO’s seminal mob drama is proof positive of just how beautifully rendered plain old reality can be—even the ugly reality of “family” life.

The series may not boast wall-to-wall action sequences or a hyperactive sound mix, but it does sport imagery so meticulous you’ll swear you’re looking out your own window... assuming your window looks out onto the seedy underbelly of Jersey organized crime.

This season’s most drool-worthy cinematography hones in on a slice of reality a little further north, though: when Tony and Carmella retreat to his sister’s vacation home early in the first episode, prepare your eyes, and your display, for a veritable visual feast.

The scenes that follow deliver the sorts of vistas that you normally have to suffer through nature documentaries to see: foliage so lush you can nearly smell the freshness; rippling water so vividly depicted you’ll swear you could dive right into the screen. And don’t worry—this being The Sopranos, there’s also a bit of gut-thumping machine gun fire to keep your subwoofer on its toes.