Bewitched Season 8? (1 Viewer)

[JohnMor]

Well, Bewitched has been on TV since it went off the network airwaves as well.
I think there's a perception with a lot of people that AITF is very dated and a relic of a bygone era. But, as some of my friends who thought that way found out, that's not really true. Suddenly the references to an unpopular president, a controversial war, race and a falling economy seemed very contemporary (again). But they would never have bought the DVDs, even though they loved the eps I showed them.

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

has been on TV since it went off the network airwaves as well.

On national airwaves, no. I recall the show being off the air as no national network was airing it in between September 2000 and August 2001 and again between May 2006 and September 2008.

 

[Jdcrackers]

Hey guys, If Bewitched Season 8 is coming out this July when do you think we will hear about the release? April? Maybe this month? This is the best news I have heard since we found BW 7 came out

 

[JohnMor]

It seems to run about 2 & 1/2 months ahead of street date, so I would guess the formal announcement would come about on or about the week of 4/27, maybe the week before.

 

[Jdcrackers]

I hope for the package Sony chooses that pic of Liz with the red scarf around her neck... I think she looks better with each season

 

[Jude86]

That will be good if the news turns out to be true....

 

[Jdcrackers]

I have seen some other Bewitched websites with a July 14th release date for S. 8 so I guess in another month we will find out

 

[Jdcrackers]

Does anyone know if Dick York, Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, or any other cast of BW has a star? I know this may sound mean, but it made me a little peeved that people like Britney Spears got a star long before Liz... I even told the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce that when I wrote them...

 

[Garysb]

The problem with AITF's last seasons is that they are not as much revered and iconic as the first few (where they had the magical Archie/Meathead in the same house dynamic). I still want the final seasons but understand why it is on the back burner.

Season 7 of AITF was the last year where Mike and Gloria were regulars and ends with them moving. To me that was the end of All In The Family and a perfect last episode, on par with the last Mary Tyler Moore Show in my opinion. Even though they used the name AITF for an 8th season before changing the name to Archie Bunker's Place after Edith became a semi regular and they needed to explain why she was not there, All In the Family really ended after season 7. It is a shame they didn't release season 7 to complete All In The Family.

 

[Jdcrackers]

Gary, I thought All in the Family ran for 9 Seasons since the first season started in January 1971? But, it seems like Sony would want to release all the seasons since they have came this far...They have released the first 6 seasons with the last being released in 2007... maybe after BW is finished they will release them or a box set?? And didn't they release season 1 of Archie Bunkers Place? It just doesn't make sense that they would just quit releasing them because the show has a huge following.

 

[DeWilson]

But it was in syndication

 

[Garysb]

Gary, I thought All in the Family ran for 9 Seasons since the first season started in January 1971? But, it seems like Sony would want to release all the seasons since they have came this far...They have released the first 6 seasons with the last being released in 2007... maybe after BW is finished they will release them or a box set?? And didn't they release season 1 of Archie Bunkers Place? It just doesn't make sense that they would just quit releasing them because the show has a huge following.

You are correct. I thought Mike and Gloria left the season after Joey was born.
In any case I wish Sony would release all the Mike and Gloria episodes. The episodes Two's a Crowd, where Mike and Archie get locked in the bar basement and Mike finally understands why Archie is the way he is, Edith's 50th Birthday where she is nearly raped, the Christmas show, Edith's Crisis of Faith and The Stivics Go West, the final show are classics from the 8th season. These shows managed to be funny, dramatic, and emotional.
Sorry to be talking about All In The Family on a Bewitched thread.

 

[Jdcrackers]

You are correct. I thought Mike and Gloria left the season after Joey was born.
In any case I wish Sony would release all the Mike and Gloria episodes. The episodes Two's a Crowd, where Mike and Archie get locked in the bar basement and Mike finally understands why Archie is the way he is, Edith's 50th Birthday where she is nearly raped, the Christmas show, Edith's Crisis of Faith and The Stivics Go West, the final show are classics from the 8th season. These shows managed to be funny, dramatic, and emotional.
Sorry to be talking about All In The Family on a Bewitched thread.

Oh thats okay, I am just glad that someone else is wanting the entire show to be on dvd too... I just love sitcoms from the 60s-80s... I am not much into the ones from today, my friends laugh at me cause I watch all the older shows... Gary, do you know why Gloria and Mike left the show aka Sally and Rob?

 

[David*P]

Does anyone know if Dick York, Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, or any other cast of BW has a star? I know this may sound mean, but it made me a little peeved that people like Britney Spears got a star long before Liz... I even told the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce that when I wrote them...

Agnes Moorehead is the only other one out of the principal characters to have a star on the Walk of Fame. In fact, someone used to spray paint the words "Agnes is God" on the wall above it for a long time...but recently that area has gone under construction...I'm not sure what they're building their.

 

[David*P]

Sorry to be talking about All In The Family on a Bewitched thread.

In a way, it's kind of apropos to be speaking of AITF in the BW S.8 thread since it was one of the reasons BW sunk fast in the ratings as BW was put on the schedule directly opposite it

But BW is going to get the last laugh by getting it's full series on DVD LOL

 

[Jdcrackers]

Getting back on the Bewitched Season 8 topic, I do have a question. Actually three
1) Why were there so many remakes? Why didn't they just hire new writers?
And
2) Why were the sets so cheaply built if BW got a budget increase? Was this because Liz and Bill got a raise? Just curious
3) And the last question I have is why didn't Liz want to do the 9th season? I have heard a few rumors one was the marriage wasn't going well and another is that she knew Agnes was very ill...I am guessing she was tired of the show and wanted to move on tired of playing good natured Samantha

 

[Michael Rogers]

Getting back on the Bewitched Season 8 topic, I do have a question. Actually three
1) Why were there so many remakes? Why didn't they just hire new writers?
And
2) Why were the sets so cheaply built if BW got a budget increase? Was this because Liz and Bill got a raise? Just curious
3) And the last question I have is why didn't Liz want to do the 9th season? I have heard a few rumors one was the marriage wasn't going well and another is that she knew Agnes was very ill...I am guessing she was tired of the show and wanted to move on tired of playing good natured Samantha

1. I think that no matter how many writers they had, they just started to run out of gas. There was also the possibility that at the time, the black and white seasons of Bewitched were not being syndicated (as were a lot of early black and white seasons of shows that went to color. Non color programming was discouraged for a while) and that they wanted to remake some of the early episodes in color and with a touch of early 70's sensibilities (swapping the genders of the business owner couple in the truth charm episodes for instance)
2. I think a lot of the stuff looks cheap in retrospect. In the context of the 25" or smaller standard definition TV's (some of the black and white) that the show was made to be shown on most of the effects and sets looked good enough. And about the Loch Ness Monster? It looked cheesy, maybe even in the early 1970's (but not to me as a kid) but I think realism was not the aim so much as making the what is thought to be the dreaded Loch Ness Monster actually a goofy ex boyfriend of Serena that she ended up turning into a goofy creature.
3. I think it was a combo of all three factors and the fact that there was a triangle between Asher, Montgomery and frequent director Richard Michaels.

 

[Jdcrackers]

Thank you Michael... was Asher having an affair too? It was obvious he really loved her as he still speaks highly of her... I can't wait to get the final season then we will have them all... but you know Michael I never knew about the B & W episodes not being shown during that time so that makes more sense now...

 

[Michael Rogers]

Thank you Michael... was Asher having an affair too? It was obvious he really loved her as he still speaks highly of her... I can't wait to get the final season then we will have them all... but you know Michael I never knew about the B & W episodes not being shown during that time so that makes more sense now...

In the 1980's when Nick At Nite got the B&W Bewitched, one of their selling points was that "they haven't been seen in years!". And yup, the only Bewitched shows seen in general syndication for years and years were the color ones. Before that, I only remember seeing B&W Bewitched only for a brief time in the late 1970's (I don't remember the particulars of that but it was promoted as some sort of special event back then. Maybe it was decided to briefly syndicate the B&W shows for a time).
It seems that they are back to the color only shows. At least on WGN which so far have shown only the color Bewitched. It's odd, because when they started to show Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie last year they shows the B and W Jeannies but not the B&W Bewitched. But when they changed time slots they also restarted the shows sequence, and both shows started on the first color episodes.
I don't know if Asher had an affair. I learned about Michaels and Liz on one of those tabloid shows and of course, Liz was the one they were interested in.

 

[JohnMor]

Well, during it's network run, none of the episodes were syndicated. The earlier episodes were show exclusively on ABC daytime, where they were very highly rated. It didn't go into syndication until after it was off ABC completely, even the daytime reruns. But ironically, one could see the earlier episode in the daytime and then see the remake during it's Thursday night network run. Not cool. And it's one of the reasons that people back then began to view the show as "always the same thing", without realizing that in some cases it specifically was.
As far as the sets, as Columbia Screen Gems shows went, BW did have the biggest budget and they really put it into the sets more than other series of the time. Some of the sets on I Dream of Jeannie and The Flying Nun were much cheaper. Of course, sometimes they shared a lot of sets, but the decoration was always much richer on BW than the other Screen Gems shows, and a lot of other shows not produced at Columbia. Check out the sets on That Girl sometimes.
And of course as Michael said, they were really only thought to be seen on a 25 inch tube TV via broadcast. Who woulda thought we'd own the eps and be watching them in high quality digital format on 50" screens?!