Dynasty (1 Viewer)

[Ben King]

Let's hope so.

 

[Brian Himes]

Incompetent boobs indeed! I just don't understand Fox at all. They've taken years to release MASH and the Simpsons.

Paramount can release all seven season of Star Trek shows in one year and Fox sits on its butt. I have just about given up on the Simpsons. I just don't think that there is ANY excuse for them dragging their feet like they do. And, to top off their snail's pace releasing practises, they do NOTHING to promote their product and then complain about low sales. Well, as in the case of Mary Tyler Moore, if I had known that the damn thing was coming out I'd have bought the minute it hit the stores. As it was, I found out by pure accident. Fox really needs to get their collective heads out of their butts and start really hitting the TV on DVD market.

Fox, it's not low sales that are the problem, people don't want to wait 10 years to collect an 11 season show. As my mother used to say, either crap or get off the pot.

 

[Charles Ellis]

Exactly. I wonder if they even read this forum......

 

[Ethan Riley]

Well I can't complain about Fox really. I do think Mash and the Simpsons come out at an adequate clip. You can't really have these long-running shows coming out once a month, now can you. People have to save up money. 2 or 3 seasons a year is more than adequate. Simpsons used to come out every 12-13 months, now it's less than every 6 months. Every time I turn around it seems there's another M*A*S*H to buy. Angel and Buffy both came out every 5 months or so; so there'd be 4 boxed sets a year of those guys.

I think it'd be decent if Dynasty were released once every 4-6 months. I think that's what we're going to see with Dallas, now that that series is cooking...

 

[Michael Alden]

Well, nice to hear someone else express that viewpoint. I still cannot fathom how people on this forum actually rave about Fox. Maybe they do a good job with modern shows, i.e., things that any collector worth a damn could have recorded in perfect quality themselves. But when it comes to shows from the 50s, 60s and 70s, they appear to be clueless. They put out Lost in Space, which is great, but they did a slipshod job on the transfers and did virtually no restoration work nor did they even monitor the authoring as evidenced by the line running down the screen all through the second episode. What else? First season White Shadow has one episode cut by a full 4 and a half minutes. Now they are finally getting around to the other Irwin Allen series and some MTM shows. But how much more is there that they aren't even looking at? Besides those shows mentioned above, what about Paper Chase, Nanny and the Professor, The Monroes, The Loner, Julia, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Judd for the Defense, Felony Squad, Adventures in Paradise, Twelve O'Clock High? Will they even do anything with any Four Star show? I highly doubt it.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I assume I must fall into the not worth a d* category because I have no way of recording TV in high quality due to the quality of the "cable" system in my building, which I cannot control. Nor can I get DirectTV. Even if I could record in high quality on, say D-VHS and somehow transfer that to a convenient DVD format, that's a lot of work over the course of a season. I think it's more work than most folks are willing to invest. I think people who praise Fox are just as valid in their opinions as you are in your opinion. People who've been around a long time know that Fox all but created the TV on DVD model that has become so successful. Before that, all you could expect was maybe a couple of episodes here and a best of there. No company does everything right, but Fox has done a lot for DVD.

 

[Charles Ellis]

Not where releasing classic TV on DVD is concerned!!! Warner, Universal, Paramount and even Sony has got Fox beat in the sheer number of releases per year. To sit on a back catalog of great TV shows and do practically nothing is corporate suicide. Time for a few heads to roll at Fox and let the vault doors open!

 

[Ben King]

Here's the latest news re. Dynasty on DVD.

It doesn't really reflect well on Fox.

 

[David Rain]

I can't imagine anyone expecting the first season to do well despite the nearly false advertising by having an Alexis-type photo on the cover. They aren't going to know how well this series will truly do until the 2nd and later seasons come out.

Enter Alexis.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Normally I wouldn't agree David, but you're right about Alexis being the point when many people began liking the series fully. I think this is one of the cases where people would have skipped season 1 entirely. I still got it, but I hear comment after comment about people unwilling to buy until season 2+.

Hopefully Paramount does something with this in in the final quarter or early 2007...

 

[Ben King]

Oh, the first season was/is great - like a mini-series in its own right. And IMO, the packaging was cheeky and amusing - the spectre of the first "Mrs. Carrington" does hang over the first season, with the world of the Carringtons slowly being established before Alexis arrives to tear it all apart.

I had heard that Paramount were getting the rights to most of Aaron Spelling's shows (I believe that releases of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place are on the way) so it's no surprise to me that they'll own Dynasty by the end of the year.

I suppose the good news is that Paramount do seem to get their season sets out promptly (every 2-3 months). Not just the Star Treks but also shows like MacGyver and The Brady Bunch. So I think we can look forward to plenty of Dynasty on DVD in 2007, and hopefully they'll bring out The Colbys too.

 

[Aryn Leroux]

I hope your right

 

[Ben King]

Well, I think it's best to be optimistic. In the meantime, there are plenty of other shows to enjoy.

Warners look like they're stepping up their release schedule for Dallas for example. So by the time we see more Dynasty, there'll be a definite market for the soaps on DVD, with season sets of Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and perhaps some of the more short-lived shows such as Flamingo Road, Paper Dolls - cashing in on the Nicolette Sheridan/Desperate Housewives connection - and Emerald Point N.A.S.

 

[Charles Ellis]

This latest Fox flap proves once again that they're the worst studio when it comes to TV-on-DVD releases. Considering how they screwed up with Dynasty, I'm heartsick with what they might do with Peyton Place- if they get around to releasing it at all!

 

[Jay_B!]

you never know, may happen. SoapNet resurrected it from the vaults recently just because of Nicollette.

 

[Ben King]

I don't have SoapNet but I recently was able to see the title sequence for this show. Hilarious - probably the most quintessentially '80's series ever!

 

[Charles Ellis]

Ben, Peyton Place was produced by Fox, so it owns that. MPI Home Video releases Dark Shadows. However, some shows that were made by Fox have been leased thru Anchor Bay on DVD, like Doogie Howser, M.D. and I think Sledge Hammer. Maybe Anchor Bay can release Peyton Place and some other vintage Fox-owned shows of the 50s and 60s.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Okay well that article changes my whole opinion of the situation. I guess now we are being told that Paramount will receive the rights in the fall. It makes sense now that Fox doesn't want to pay for the transferring and engineering of 22 eps of season two, just to lose their rights to make any money off it a few months later (or however these transference of rights issues work). It does beg the question, however; if Fox knew they'd soon lose the rights to Dynasty, why'd they put out season one in the first place? I don't get it.

I remember posts from 2-3 years ago talking about how Paramount was going to get control of some of Spelling's shows. So when Dynasty came out last year I figured it was already a Paramount product and that all would be well in terms of future releases. The sales of season one may have been disappointing but that's understandable considering the show wasn't very good at first, and the fans know it. The entire delay of a season two release seems to me, now, more about Fox not wanting to do a bunch of engineering work on a series they'll not soon own.

Couple of related questions: who now owns 90210 & Melrose? Is Paramount going to pick them up too? Is that why dvds of those two shows have been rumored, but haven't actually been produced?

 

[Robin W.]

Why would Paramount buy the rights for Dynasty and not doing anything with it? I think we will hear more about sesaon 2 in 2007...

 

[David Lambert]

Paramount didn't "buy" Dynasty, not as such.

Spelling Productions has, over the years, made various deals with various studios on various Spelling properties. As the rights that those other studios have come to reach their expiration date, the rights revert back to Spelling.

Since Paramount has picked up Spelling Productions, those rights now revert back to them. That's why, for example, "Beverly Hills 90210" had the pilot episode put out by Artisan (a studio now owned by Lionsgate), but Artisan never had time to put out season sets: they knew their rights would expire before they could put out enough seasons to make it worthwhile. So Artisan just sat on the property while waiting for their rights to expire and it would revert back to Paramount.

Although Twin Peaks is not a Spelling item, it was in the same situation where Artisan's rights were expiring after they put out Season 1, and then the rights were close to reverting to the new owner (coincidentally, also Paramount).


So Dynasty, which is also a Spelling item (co-owned by them, actually) will revert to Paramount soon without them spending any new dimes on aquiring it. Once it is offcially theirs, they can get to work on producing new season sets for it. Don't know exactly how long that will take, or on what date that the rights revert to them, but it may take a while (a la Twin Peaks Season 2). Fox is just in a bad spot with Dynasty, that's all.


Just another "business as usual" day in Hollywood, I'm afraid!