For the R1 release, I am wondering if the "Podcast" commentaries that Ronald Moore did at the SciFi website will be included. It would be a nice bonus....
Joseph, If what I said was false. Then I apologize. I still think she is making a mistake when it comes to the movies they do. I think they should produce movies that resolve the cliffhangers that were created when shows were cancelled. For example Space:Above & Beyond, Earth 2, Now & Again, etc. These shows and others air on Scifi. So they are perfect for them. Granted I know their is other factors involved (rights,etc). But, I think it could be done and could be big for them.
While all of those shows may be doing adequate ratings business for their cost, I seriously doubt if the numbers would justify spending millions of dollars on "wrap up" movies for these ancient series. "Some fans want it" is never enough of a reason for doing something like that. "Millions of fans are crying out for this and we'll make tons of money" would be - but if that were the case, these films would already have been made.
If the original studios and networks didn't care enough about these shows to wrap them up, why should the little cable channel that's filling up some dead air with their reruns do so? The studios are lucky that a channel like Sci-Fi exists to run some of these short-lived cult shows, which otherwise would never return a dime of revenue to the studio since they generally didn't produce enough episodes to make up a worthwhile syndication package.
The fact is if Fox wanted to do a S,A&B movie on Sci-Fi they could make it happen tomorrow by offering Sci-Fi a cheap enough license fee to run it and either eating the cost or making it up in DVD sales.
Actually, the DVD thing brings up another issue. Like almost every other network, broadcast and cable, Sci-Fi is affliated with a studio. Like all of them it is under intense pressure to concentrate on projects that maximize profits for the parent company by keeping all the revenue streams in the hands of its own units.
So when Sci-Fi decided to do an original arc-based SF space series, they didn't go with some version of Warner Bros.'s Babylon 5, despite how well the reruns had done for them, they went with a re-invented Battlestar Galactica - because Universal already owned the property. Universal sells the show to Sci-Fi, whoever is airing it in the UK and various other places around the world. Sci-Fi's share of the first run cost is made reasonable, and covered by advertising sales, Universal more than covers its production cost and it keeps the profits on eventual second-run syndication sales and the inevitable DVDs.
With B5 (or S,A&B or the other shows you've mentioned) Sci-Fi would have to put up more of the original production costs in the form of its license fee, and in exchange for that get only "x" number of airings and whatever revenue the ads during those runs. Universal would get its piece of SFC's business, and that would be it. No foreign sales, no DVDs, no reruns.
Under those circumstances it would make no sense for them to lose millions of dollars providing "closure" to the handful of people who still care about these shows. (Most of which, remember, were cancelled because they couldn't attract enough viewers in the first place.)
I guess we are too close to the start of S2 airing to get the S1 DVD's but it would have been nice. I know a couple of people who missed S1 who were interested in seeing the whole season before S2 aired.
In this case it's not really music replacement - both themes were done by the same person and the only reason the UK got a different theme than the US was that the "real" theme wasn't finished when the show started airing in the UK.
Best Buy doesn't ship overseas (I think) - so I would have to wait anyway.
The bonus discs for DS9 (which had some extras that every other region got on the normal boxsets) were bad enough - but now they're making people who can't or don't want to buy at Best Buy wait two months?
Thanks for posting the information. It's great to know that the set will be coming out soon.
What we seeing here is a classic case of a studio taking advantage of the soaring sales of TV shows on DVD. As much as I love this show I refuse to pander to this sort of mentality...this is designed to make as much money as possible off fans of the show.
As fans we should be rewarded and NOT penalized by getting a discount by ordering early...this type of promotion gets a giant thumbs down!
I've read there was a bit of backlash from music retailers over the Starbucks exclusivity for Alannis Morissette's latest album, including a few retailers refusing to carry it at all.
I can't help but wonder if we'll see similar reactions from other retailers over this and any other exclusive retail windows.