The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

And why couldn't those 8 simple, to-the-point words be used on the DVD packaging?

Too much honesty I guess. And that would never do.

Well, whether it was on the box cover in such a blatant fashion or not, it'd still be the same result -- Fuge Agony.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Gee......

And I was so looking forward to adding this set to my collection as a birthday present this coming weekend.

Forget it!

So, I guess it's on to The Boondocks now....

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Hank, why do you even post here?...No one here seems to meet your criteria of a collector so why waste your time?

TravisR, Hank posts here because his Paragraph 1 sheds a flicker of light on this musical mess. Sorry if Paragraph 2 steps on a few toes. Sobeit. With all due respect, may it please the Court.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

DVP, when you get your DVDs, you'll notice this "disclaimer" on the back of the case:

"TRANSFERRED FROM THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVE WITH RESTORED AUDIO"

What a crock! The 'negative' is REPLACED audio.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I was the one who originally pointed those alterations out to Gary in the following thread.

THE FUGITIVE - On DVD! - BLAMMO! Message Board - All - Collected Editions Discussion Forums - Message Board - Yuku

You can find a partial list of other alterations I first published there as well.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Regarding the "Outer Limits" theory, there's Frontiere "OL" music in "The Invaders" that survived intact on the DVDs, as far as I've heard.

Thanks for the info on the first season cuts.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Yes. The two S.1 volumes say the same identical thing....which, of course, would no doubt, quite naturally, lead most people to believe that we'd only be seeing (hearing) a few small music cuts hither & yon in the S2, V1 release too (just like with the first-year sets).

But noooooo!

(I'm completely out of Bayer now! Completely! Oh, the humanities!)

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

As far as replacement discs go, I'm still waiting for the replacement disc program for Gunsmoke, Season 2, Volume 1. Unfortunately, I don't think Gunsmoke or The Fugitive has a big enough fan base where they can demand and get recalls and repressings.

Sadly, this is probably how the Fugitive Season 2 will always be on DVD, barring the miracle of "an ultimate edition." I'd rather they had never released it. Or if they did, I'd rather see them charge double, or divide the season into 3 sets, anything; just release the original episodes with the original score. The score was one of the best parts of the Fugitive, capturing the mood beautifully. For CBS/Paramount to do this, to one of the greatest programs ever, shows that they really are clueless. A really dark day.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I'm just a very casual "Fugitive" fan -- but I really admired the syndicated versions of the show that I had been able to catch, and had this on my "must purchase at some point" list. (In fact, I was on the verge of ordering all three of the released sets when I stumbled onto this thread.)

I have to say that I have never, ever, heard of an entire score being replaced for every episode of a set before! This makes the "Moonlighting" snafu that occurred a few years ago seem entirely inconsequential. (One episode was released with a different score. After some research it was discovered that it was an honest mistake: The score on the DVD was the one originally prepared for the ep, but was replaced very late in the post-production process. Hey, it seemed like a big deal at the time!)

This is a very dangerous precipice that Paramount has stepped out on. They should have either not released the series at all *or* raised public awareness about the issues they were facing prior to the release. That they did neither is dumbfounding!!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

It's not only dumbfounding, it's shameless and arrogant. I only hope people speak by keeping their wallets in their pockets enough to affect the bottom line.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Like everyone else, I'm totally appalled..and disappointed. In fact, I just cancelled my order with Amazon. Hopefully, this will be corrected; otherwise, I suspect sales of this series will plummet. Man, what a hell of a note.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Problem is, unless the right people over at Paramount receive hundreds of angry letters from diehard Fugitive Fans explaining their outrage and rationale in refusing to buy, they're not going to do anything -- except possibly cancel the whole series because they figure "it just isn't selling".

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Wow, this thing is taking the music subsitution issue to a new, absurd level. Extremely disappointed to hear about these changes. My copy of S2, V1 is still on its way. I will have a day or so to decide if I want to open it.

If, in fact, the reason is the integrated Outer Limits cues, does anyone know if these same pieces are used throughout the rest of the series? In other words, is this what we can expect for the remaining season 2, season 3 and season 4 sets? That could go a long way to deciding whether to open S2, v1 or not.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

So, I brought season 2 volume 1 home to watch with my son. We started watching "Man in a Chariot", and I noticed that the music seemed really different. I hadnt seen this episode in awhile, so I just figured that this was the original music, as sometimes they stuck in music cues that were different (not very often though.) I continued to watch, waiting for any familiar music cues to show up, especially at the act lead-ins. I didnt hear any familiar music in that episode.

Ok. This is somewhat distressing. I thought well, the other shows will be ok, as I had seen most of them previously and knew what the original music was supposed to be. I went to "Escape into Black". My jaw dropped when it started. I couldnt believe what I was hearing. Some kind of synthesized trying to be close rendition of the music that I loved so much from this show. I started checking the other episodes. They were all the same. I turned to my son and said "They have changed all the music in every episode! This SUCKS!" The music for this show was AT LEAST 50% of the enjoyment for me. It completely set the mood. I demonstrated to him the difference in the music between episodes because I had "Escape into Black" on tape. He had watched the 1st season with me, and agreed that the music was a big part of the show. I told him that I could not watch the rest of the episodes. It is just not the same show.

What happened between season 1 and season 2 to cause them to do this? Maybe season 1 was not selling very well, so they decided to cut costs for season 2. Whatever the reason, I wont be buying any more sets unless they restore the original music. This is not the program that I remember from the 60's. What really sucks is that this is my all time favorite tv show, and I was waiting a long time for it to come to DVD.

Hopefully enough people will hear about this, or notice it themselves and CBS will get a clue. They may not do anything about it, but at least they will know that we wont put up with this crap.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

The same fricking OUTER LIMITS cues were used often in both THE FUGITIVE and THE INVADERS. Fourteen days ago, THE INVADERS SEASON ONE was released by this same company with those same music cues.

Now, two weeks later, we're supposed to buy the fact that they don't own the cues and can't risk using them?

I know that THE OUTER LIMITS music was recently was re-released by La-La Land Records - my copy is ordered and on the way, a subtle irony that'll forever taunt me everytime I attempt to listen to it.

Harry

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Sam, you make an excellent point. My advice is to NOT open the set.

I see no reason why this would be an isolated Season of butchery. S3 and S4 have/will suffer the same musical exorcism.

I stopped buying Married With Children when they chopped Sinatra off the intro and replaced him with an unreasonable facsimile...not even an instrumental version of "Love & Marriage."

Most people will sneer at all of us for getting into a tizzy over this, what with gas heading to $5/gal, tainted tomatoes, and politics down the crapper...but this is like replacing Rod Serling's on-camera cigarette-smoking TZ intros with Ozzie Osbourne chewing on a bat.

All it should take is a little goodwill and some money exchanged between interested parties to restore The Fugitive to normal, which I'm sure would only modestly boost costs...of which CBS would pass along to consumers anyway.

I worked for a bar-owner once who thought he could "save money" by not having the complimentary peanuts/pretzels/snacks on the tables. Within six months, he saved a ton of money...when lack of business forced him to only open on the weekends.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Stephen,

Yes, there are some of Frontiere's cues in the DVD copy of Beachhead that I own. I love it, of course, since I'm a fan of Frontiere (and Lubin).

I won't be purchasing The Fugitive in its current form under any circumstances. Although I don't know the show nearly as well as I do The Outer Limits and TOS, I have to say that I'd be appalled if (e.g.) the music for either were omitted, substituted, or otherwise changed in any noticeable way.

Harry,

Do you happen to know for certain if cues from The Outer Limits were used in The Invaders in any episode beyond Beachhead? I haven't yet noticed any, but I've only gone through the first ten episodes of season one thus far (up until The Innocent). It is possible that I missed them.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Stephen, excellent point about crediting Heyes at the end.

With regard to your second point, I repeat: this is exactly why people sail down the River Styx looking elsewhere for TV shows on DVD.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

The Film Score Monthly Message Board is also discussing the music issue:

FSM Board: Music Replacement-"The Fugitive" S2

This substitute music on season 2 begs the question, if Paramount has to re-press season 1 at some future point in time, will they use the re-score music or will they use the original music score?

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I know this is a no-no, but how is this "official release" less criminal than buying from a bootleg site?

Just curious!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I'm not certain about it for sure. I haven't seen INVADERS episodes in nearly 40 years other than the twelve released on VHS. I'm still wading through that first season set, am about as far as you, and haven't really noticed any other OUTER LIMITS music, but my understanding is that it'll pop up again somewhere, given the Dom Frontiere connection.

I watched "Man In A Chariot" this morning, giving it a try, knowing that the music's been replaced. It was like watching an episode of another show entirely where David Janssen was a guest star. It didn't seem like the old FUGITIVE I knew and loved.

It's sad to see this end this way, but I really can't see myself purposely buying any more FUGITIVE on DVD is CBS/Paramount is going to treat it this way.

Harry

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I see the point you're trying to make, but you know the real answer.

The effort now should be to get a definitive answer from CBS/Paramount to the following question:

"CBS: Are you going to attempt to acquire the rights to the original music or pay royalties, if need be, or are you going to let this series die a slow death?"

Jeezus, we're selling the Chrysler Building in NYC to Abu Dhabi for $800 million...at least let us head to Armageddon watching some unadulterated nostalgic TV shows on the way!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I've been following all this since the thread started yesterday, but have been too shell-shocked to even respond. It all seems like a ghastly joke.

I frankly didn't mind the occasional little musical background snippet replacement now and then, as in the previous sets, but this wholescale alteration is just too mind-boggling for words. It really stings, as I was tremendously looking forward to this set, as there are a good number of 2nd-season episodes I'm not familiar with. The music in the series is so hauntingly evocative, and I just can't imagine it absent. I never thought the horror of seeing those 'faux letterboxed' prints of "Route 66" could be topped, but this might have indeed made it. I still just can't believe it.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

For CBS/Paramount not to make a bigger deal out of the music substitution, with disclaimers on the box, etc, is a disgrace. To act as if nothing was changed, to go to the extent of adding a new credit to the end credits, as if this was the way it was in 1964, is dishonest.

If they couldn't use the music, could they not have at least made available a second audio track where you can run the episode with no music at all and be spared the mediocrity of the new compositions?

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

My wife will love me...I can watch episodes of The Fugitive all night long with the sound OFF and the Closed Captioning ON. GMAFB

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

If anyone who's been watching the show recently can think of a good Fugitive scene where Janssen holds his face in his hands or wears some similarly pained expression, could you send me a PM and let me know the episode? Thanks....

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Maybe somebody could set up some kind of a petition drive to get the original sound track put back in like they did to get the series initially printed on DVD. Ill sign it and get as many people as I can to sign it also.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

It would be interesting to get original Fugitive producers Alan A. Armer and George Eckstein (both still living) to make a statement like, "This isn't The Fugitive we produced. Please remove our names from these DVD prints."

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Please stop with the Frontiere/Outer Limits references. Those music cuts were not used on The Fugitive until the fourth and final season. The first 3 seasons of underscore were from the cues Pete Rugolo composed as well as the CBS music library of cues from Bernard Hermann and Jerry Goldsmith. There was nothing used in the second season that was not used in the first.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Harry,

Okay, thanks. I'll keep my ears open as I move through the first season. If I happen to hear of any other The Outer Limits music used in additional episodes of The Invaders, I'll mention it. If you happen to hear of any of Frontiere's cues used in The Fugitive, please let me know. Thanks.

Buford,

I would be willing to sign such a petition.