Six-Million Dollar Man DVD Season One? (1 Viewer)

[Tony J Case]

Hey - dont get me wrong. I loved both shows and eagerly await the release of season 2 in the UK (if they ever release it). I just hold no misconcpetions that it's high art. Knight Rider, The A-Team, The Six Million Dollar Man - theyre all fluffy bubble gum television. But sometimes, you just the hankering to chew a big hunk of Juicy Fruit.

 

[TimT]

I was reading on a yahoo bionic woman forum that it was made quite clear at the Bionic Con last week that R1 releases are still being held up due to the rights conflict between Universal and Dimension. I am well aware that there has been a rights issue tying up the R1 releases of both SMDM and Bionic Woman, but I thought it was primarily related to the Lee Majors fight over more residuals. I am also aware of Universal and their role in these series, but what is Dimensions connection to the shows?

 

[Jeff Willis]

Matt knows the details better than me, but I think it's like this:
Dimension owns the rights to the novel "Cyborg" (with which the 6M$M series was based) but Universal owns the actual footage of both bionic series. Universal allowed (oversight) their rights lapse to the novel a few years ago and Dimension grabbed them. Now both parties are in the "standoff" mode with lawyers, negotiations, etc. I think that Dimension has the distribution rights to the series (ie, releasing to DVD, etc). "Now we wait" for the R1's. Most feel that the earliest we'd see tbe bionic series in R1 would be next year. As for R2 S2's, we've been hearing that the S2's are coming soon. Not sure yet, but PLAY.COM (UK) has a "coming soon" page posted for both 6M$M & BW S2's. Here's the link for BW:
http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/10940...t/Product.html

6M$M: http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/10940...t/Product.html

These may just be similar to the pages that we see in the states at Amazon.com etc, that are just avenues to sign up for an e-mail notification when a particular series becomes available, but there have been rumors that they're coming in R2 later this year.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

Universal has got to get their butts moving or whoever owns the rights because fans aren't going to wait forever. They'll either start buying them off eBay, where you can get unauthorized sets or buy the Region 2 sets.

 

[Richard_Gregory]

It's really a nobrainer when you consider the question: "Shall we release the series onto DVD and make money, or have a row about the rights ensuring that the material stays locked in the archive, earning nothing for anyone?".

Beats me how the rights holders get into these massive wrangles, that end up with everyone involved earning nothing at all because the stuff never gets a release.

 

[Jeff Willis]

You said it, Richard. There's several popular titles that are mired in this legal issue. I still think that the 2 bionic series will get to R1 someday, although it may take Col Austin's and Jaime's bionic leaps combined to jump across the Atlantic from R2-land

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

Not me, because I need Closed Captions or English subtitles, and that'll only come with a big studio R1 release.

 

[Jeff Willis]

6M$M & BW S2 (Region 2/PAL) sets are up for pre-order at play.com .

Release coming Oct 23, '06. I don't see the pages up yet at Universal-Playback or Amazon UK but it should be any time for them. Season 2's coming in R2 but still nothing for R1. There's nothing like being a TV/DVD collector in the states Well, it keeps us guessing &
waiting anyway.

 

[RickER]

So hard to ever read past the banana.
I have a friend who bought an unauthorized SMDM DVD set. I kid you not when i say i would rather not own ANY of my favorite shows then watch edited, and duped from tape to DVD, crap like he bought. It will come, i have faith, it will be mine. But it wont be from a bootleger

 

[Jeff Willis]

I agree completely about any "bootlegged" sets. The R2's that I mentioned are the real thing from Universal Playback, the "Universal" Co in the U.K. The "Bionic" series, along with 1 mini-series, are my only R2 buys in my TV/DVD collection. I would wait for the R1's for any other series except for my one "Holy Grail" series (as other HTF'ers put it so well ) is the Bionic Woman, followed by the 6M$M. Maybe we'll see these in R1 one of these days. I sure hope that's the case. If they get released in R1, I'd probably get those as well, if they have extras or crossover eps in the sets. The S1 R2's didn't have any extras and no crossovers to speak of (except for the BW S1 "Welcome Home, Jaime" Pt 1 which was originally a 6M$M ep). I noticed that the BW S2 set will have 1 6M$M crossover which is the 2nd part of the "Kill Oscar" trilogy eps.

It ain't easy getting past that blasted

, is it?

(seems like we are on the same thread "wavelength", Rick. Perry Mason's one of my all-time'rs )

 

[MattHR]

Here's hoping the R2 BW:S2 set is of the same high quality as S1. And here's hoping the R2 SMDM:S2 set is a huge improvement over the S1 set, with acceptable transfers and no edits! (That's a lot of acronyms!)

And while they're at it... how about some decent cover designs? Without question, the R2 sets are the fugliest in my collection, with their lousy graphics and numerous photo/liner note errors.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

Matt, first, this is not a Bewitched topic.

Second, the Six Million Dollar Man is not available nor has it ever been available on a Region 1 DVD.

 

[Aryn Leroux]

Mark: if you re-read what Matt said nowhere did he say their was a Region 1 DVD. What he said was he hoped the R2 S2 set was better than the R2 S1 set.

 

[Nick Zbu]

Sadly enough, the only way we may get an answer on the series is if a movie was being made. Hollywood loves to use movies as an excuse to put out the original series. Granted that's not always the case--since the third Mission Impossible movie only got the series into release in September--but that would be the best time to toss it out to get the best sales. Or so that train of thought goes.

 

[Mark Talmadge]

I'd be very excited to be able to buy the series on Region 1 DVD if they'd ever announce it but I doubt it'll be coming this way anytime soon. With the movie postponed, it's doubtful that the television series will be released. For starters, they'd want to release it in conjunction with the movie but since the movie has been put on the backburner indefinately so the SMDM series is, well, KAPUT? ehehe ...

 

[Nick Zbu]

Well, it's not always that way. Notice how the Wild Wild West show came out this year when the blockbuster failure came out circa 1999. It's not a solid theory, but most of the times if there's a movie coming out companies will try to piggyback the marketing by putting out anything that can be linked to it (ie Kill Bill and the glut of David Carradine and Sonny Chiba merch that came with it).

 

[Jeff Willis]

The movie tie-in issue sometimes is the reason for delays in releasing TV/DVD sets but that isn't the case with the 2 bionic series. They are delayed by legal litigation/rights issues (R1). Apparently, the distribution rights issues don't apply in Region 2.

 

[Nick Zbu]

More reason to buy a multiregion player, I guess. Well, until Murphy's Law kicks in and then the problems end up being solved.

 

[LCD22]

This doesn't have to do with "The Six Million Dollar Man", but what's happening with Lee Majors' other series, "The Fall Guy"? Anyone know when that remake is coming? Or is Fox just siting on this series?

It hasn't been on in years, and I can't tell you when the last time I saw this series. I hope I'll see it again on television (or on DVD unedited with no music substitution) in the future.

 

[Bill>Moore]

I wait and I wait and I wait for SMDM to come to region 1. One of these days, maybe...just maybe...