Wiseguy-Vol. 4 Question

Has anyone purchased the new set today, titled "Between the Mob and a Hard Place"? I went to my local Best Buy and neither that nor "Gilligan" Season 2 were on the shelves at all!
This worked in my favor, however. The previous "Wiseguy" sets retail around $60, and sell at Best Buy for $46.99. Since they didn't have the new set, I went home to order it from their website, which had the new set for an amazing price of only $26.99. This is an absolutely incredible price, considering Amazon has it for $44.99. Needless to say, I ordered one right away, and am wondering if that price was a mistake and meant to be $46.99.

Looking forward to this set; it includes the first half of season 3. (For some reason, they have skipped the last half of season 2, which was the Music Industry Arc--perhaps they had trouble licensing music rights for that run of shows).

If anyone has further information on the pricing, or the set itself, please share...

Glad to hear they are going to get to ALL of the episodes, minus the reunion movie (which I fortunately managed to record back in 1996, at least).
The pricing issue and the music rights issue have me very curious; as angry as I was with "Nights in White Satin" being replaced in volume 1, I still bought the show, and play a CD of the song during the key scene, which alleviated my anger a little. I don't remember what key songs there are in the music arc, other than a tune or 2 by Debbie Harry, but hopefully these will be intact. I even enjoyed the Ken Wahl-less fourth season somewhat (mainly because of McPike), so I look forward to those as well...

You should cue it up in the moment after Sonny finishes his "Good Love" tirade, smashing the stuff in the lobby with the broom, when he and Vinnie collapse from their exhaustion. The song plays as the camera cuts between the two of them, slowly moving inward, as they stare at each other, no dialogue. Basically, the start and end points are the same as the crappy dubbed-in house music they play over it on the DVDs.



It's been a few years since I watched the 1996 movie, but I remember it briefly, and indirectly, alluded to him having disappeared for a time, more or less as a throway comment. It was not explained further than that. As a long-time fan, I interpreted it to mean that he left the OCB for awhile and let everyone go on believing he was dead while he put his life back together, because prior to his "murder" in season 4, he was a real @#%@$#% mess at the end of season 3. In reality, the writers of the TV movie, including producer Stephen Cannell, ignored the events of the 4th season as if they never occurred. Kinda like in "Star Trek" when the Klingons appeared with bumpy heads, and no one explained why they had smooth heads during the 60s, when the reality was that they simply didn't have the budget back then.

Hope this helps!

The music arc from the end of season 2 started off great, but fizzled, as it seemed to lose focus by the final few episodes.

The opening arc of season 3 (which was also the finale to season 2, and the first arc on the vol. 4 DVD set) featured the mob control of the garbage industry, and was pretty good, but again, it fizzled after a great start.

The second arc of season 3 (and included in vol. 4) is excellent, on par with the first season Mel Profitt shows, and is, in fact, a sequel of sorts to those episodes, as the events of the Mel Profitt arc directly cause the events of this new arc.

Finally, the third and final arc of season 3 was a grand failure. It started off strong, and was very "Twin Peaks"-ish, yet it predated that show by a year. Vinnie investigates a rich lunatic who runs an old mining town called Lynchboro in the Pacific Northwest. He goes undercover as a deputy in the local police force. However, Ken Wahl suffered another injury during filming, and was replaced about 3 or 4 shows in by William Russ as Roger Lococco, while the character of Vinnie is lamely written out. Russ was trapped by a miserable wrap-up to the storyline, but is great in every scene he's in, even though Lococco seems out of character in a few spots. Obviously the character mellowed between appearances.
While the Lynchboro arc with Lococco wraps up, Vinnie ends up in Seattle contemplating suicide after dealing with some low-lifes involved in a medical waste scam. A major event happens to one of the supporting characters in the finale, as well.
With regards to the final 2 DVD sets, I suspect that Vol. 5 will feature the 7 or so Lynchboro/Seattle episodes, and the 2 or so single-parters that remain, along with the opening 4-parter of season 4. Vol. 6 would then feature the Music arc, along with the remaining single part episodes from season 4. Unfortunately, this will confuse the heck out of those who never has seen the show prior to the DVDs, as Vol. 5 will feature
the "murder" of Vinnie, then Vol. 6 will feature him reappearing to investigate the music industry, then back to his replacement.
If Studioworks cares enough, they should consider using the music arc and Lynchboro for vol. 5 instead. The remaining season 3 single-part shows, and the complete, 9 hour 4th season should then comprise Vol. 6., along with the 1996 movie. This would be of greater value to the fans who have never seen the show before...
I'm betting that the movie won't be included on any set, since they may not have licensed the rights to it. The movie never showed up on Court TV when they reran the series a few years back.

I just got my vol. 4 set and sat down to watch it tonight, and I am VERY DISAPPOINTED with Studioworks and Cannell Productions over the quality!!

As mentioned above, disc 4's standalone episodes ONLY have the audio commentary track--there is no option for the episodes without it! This is very upsetting and I am going to call the studio today to see if there will be replacement discs issued that will fix the problem!

Also, on disc 1, the 3rd episode has absolutely horrible video quality--it is constantly jumpy and blurry, almost like the episode has been slightly slowed down in speed; the other 2 episodes are fine. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Finally, the opening song on that same 3rd episode from disc 1 has been replaced with (surprise!) bland generic instrumental garbage...

What a major disappointment--does Studioworks have anybody doing quality control there, or do they just not care? And why would Cannell Productions not get upset over the shoddy product?

Hopefully these are just part of a defective batch; I'll let you know what I find out when I call...

One more problem I noticed, and this is most likely Cannell Productions' fault, who provided Studioworks with the episode masters:

The show credit intros for the 4 Washington, DC episodes features the opening for the Mafia arc set, showing the characters from that particular storyline instead! I remember while watching the series on CBS's original broadcasts that the DC arc had its own special opening featuring that storyline's characters; apparently no one wanted to go through the effort to put the correct opening on! Very disappointing...

Just a follow-up to my last post:

I spoke to a very nice woman at Studioworks/Ventura Distribution's customer service department, and mentioned the audio commentary problem on disc 4, and the video quality of the "Rightful Place" episode on disc 1, and she wasn't aware of these issues, but assured me that she herself would pull one of the sets and take a look. If their sets are good, she said they would issue me a replacement. She indicated she would let me know by the end of the day...

I don't remember offhand, other than it was an old chestnut from the 50s or early 60s that I've heard before. I have an old videotape lying around somewhere that I should attempt to dig up and determine the song. I remember it plays through the whole opening scene with Poochie.




I received my set Thursday from Bestbuy.com and started watching it late Thursday evening. I was so flabbergasted by discs 1 and 4 that I tried them on 2 DVD players to make sure; the CSR I spoke to with Ventura Distribution/Studioworks hasn't called me back yet, but she sounded like she was unaware of the problem. I have a difficult time believing they would have just discovered it today because of my phone call, though, given that there must have been review copies circulating for at least a week already. Hopefully they can repress these discs with the corrections and recall the old ones, but that will cost lots of $$, so who knows? I am still looking forward to the next 2 volumes, so I hope this doesn't diminish the chances of those sets making it to DVD.

Good luck hearing back from them; let us know if you do. The lady I spoke with has yet to call or email me. Having realized they have a serious problem, they are probably trying to decide how to respond to this matter, and may only do so through their publicists with some type of statement to come. What I hope DOESN'T happen is that they receive too few complaints and decide to not do anything about it at all. So if anyone of you have the same problems with this set, I would encourage you to politely call or email Ventura Distribution, of which Studioworks is a subsidiary, the company that releases the "Wiseguy" DVDs. Also, a polite call or email to Cannell Productions may help, too.
Here are the links to their websites:

http://www.venturadistribution.com/c.../contact.phtml
http://www.cannell.com/contactus.htm

To the best of my knowledge, Best Buy will only allow you to exchange open product for the same product, and only with a receipt.
I am beginning to doubt replacement discs will be issued. It's unfortunate that the fans who supported the series and the DVD releases are the ones that end up getting royally screwed by Cannell Productions, whom we keep in business with our money and tv ratings. The poor quality of this set may explain the lower price, with the studio figuring that we got a deal on it, so we shouldn't complain. It's hard to say what the mentality is over there, but one thing is for sure: this doesn't bode well for the DVD release of "Greatest American Hero" and "Hunter".
Unless they fix these discs, I will not support any further releases by the Cannell company, "Wiseguy" or otherwise, which makes me sad and frustrated, but you know the old saying...
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me..."

They made a mistake (surprise!) on the set: it didn't go through THX certification, it went through SUX certification--I'm sure they'll get around to correcting it really soon