Back in October of 1990, Francis Ford Coppola released a special re-cut VHS boxed set of Godfathers I and II (the only Godfather films that truly exist) entitled The Godfather Epic (1902-1959). The three nicely-packaged tapes totaled over seven hours in length and included a handful of extra scenes not found in the originals. I was never a big fan of the disjointed time-jumping in Godfather II, but the Epic solved that problem by beautifully re-cutting the entire story in chronological order, so that Vito Corleone’s escape from Sicily is followed by his immigration, followed by the Little Italy De Niro scenes, etc.

It has become the only way I like to watch the movies.

Alas, we only have one VHS player in the house now, a pint-sized portable TV out in my wife’s studio, and there’s no way in hell I’m re-watching those tapes again on that. Enter HBO, otherwise known as Cable Drama Network of the Gods. This Sunday, beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern and 2 Pacific, they are showing—uninterrupted—all seven hours and ten minutes of The Godfather Saga, which is the same thing as the Epic, except this time in restored high-definition quality with no tape-changing required. It may not have hit my eye like a big pizza pie, but I am over the moon.

Not only is The Godfather story better when you can follow Vito’s journey from penniless orphan to crime boss in its rightful order, but the transition from De Niro’s last scene straight into Brando’s first is a revelation, and makes you realize how amazingly De Niro inhabited Brando’s character. Also, the extra scenes help embellish the story and characters, particularly in Little Italy, and never feel irrelevant like some of the previously-deleted moments Coppola included in his Apocalypse Now Redux.

Of course, there’s playoff football on this Sunday, but this, my friends, is why they invented DVRs. HBO is providing us with a New Year’s gift we really can’t refuse.