Encoding MPEG-2 for DVD - obviously quality will vary depending on the compressibility of the source (noisy/grainy sources, or content with lots of action/motion, do not compress so well).

For optimum quality I would use CCE to do a multi-pass VBR encode, an average of 3000kbps would be an absolute minimum, above 4000kbps would be preferred.

How long is each episode? If you decide to fit 2-3 episodes onto a DVD5 then, taking into account size of audio & menus, try and fill the DVD5 to as close to capacity as you can.