More Night Court?? - Page 2

Could be, but then that doesn't make sense because wouldn't they have known that from the release of season 1? I mean that's already out there for people to buy so why couldn't they just go buy those numbers instead of going backwards to release a best of disc? This is a definite curious move.

I will only buy this disc if no season 1 episodes are on it.

I hope the best of senario turns out false. I gotta agree with Drew's post. Give us season box sets or don't bother.

I'm kind of surprised that neither Night Court or Murphy Brown has had a second season release. It isn't even like Night Court has any music rights issues where the cost of putting those out would be higher.


Paul

Okay, Pavan and I were talking, and we think we've figured out the logic of why Warner is doing this particular best-of release for Night Court. Go back to Post #10 in this thread: "Bring on the Markie Post years". We think that they want to collect a few Markie episodes together and bring them out on a "TV Favorites" release to satisfy those fans who mainly remember the MP years. Season 2 means Ellen Foley's "Billie Young" instead of "Christine Sullivan", and so maybe Warner wants to give fans a taste of Markie before bringing out the official Season 2 set. Most of the credit goes to Pavan for this theory, but it makes sense to me.

I'd really like to be wrong, because I love "Night Court" (at least until creator Reinhold Weege left and it started to suck), but my reading of this is that the TV-favorites disc is all we'll get. I wouldn't be surprised if WB wasn't happy with sales of the first season.

It really would have helped if WB had done a "first two seasons" release, combining the rough first season with season 2, which is closer to the cast people are familiar with, and has some of the best episodes. Spilt milk, I guess.

I would buy as many of the "best of" discs that I could afford and give them away as gifts if that's the only way to get season sets.

How about releasing Season 3 first (including the Season 2 episode that introduces Christine) then release Season 2 way down the line? That would not satisfy the Ellen Foley fans but at least we'll get the season sets we wanted.
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If there's concern from WB about S2 not selling as much as later seasons with Christine then why don't they release S2 & S3 in a box set together?

Hearts Afire can have two seasons released on DVD (albeit from Image Entertainment instead of WB) so maybe Markie Post is a selling point. John Ritter is probably another. I am curious to know the demographics of the buyers. But Image's criteria for success is probably different from WB. But obviously sales of HA:S1 were enough to justify a HA:S2 release (Tuesday, Nov. 1).
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Well then if it's the only way to get released, how about WB leasing the rights to Night Court to Image for Season Box Set releases? Heck at this point I'm willing to do a special order thing ala My So-Called Life.

Except that my wife would rather have Billie than Christine. She never much liked Markie Post.

Jason

She must have been jealous of her--like many women probably were/are, lol. Like the great John Ritter said, "she's a nice girl in a bad girl's body." Check her out in the TV movie Tricks of the Trade for the perfect example, lol.

Not really. It was the personality. She always thought that Billie made a better adversary for Dan than Christine did.

In any case, she prefered Harry Anderson over all of them. She had a serious crush on him.

Jason

Ritter was a wise, wise man...couldn't have said it better myself.

"Tricks of the Trade," was that the TV movie that featured Post saying "Tie me up."? I wouldn't mind seeing THAT on DVD!

And as for the season set issue, the "best of" collection idea is stupid, I agree. Warner's needs to get Christine's first season (Season 3) out in a combo box with Season 2, release Season 2 with some decent extras or at least lease the title to Columbia House so those who want all the episodes can get them.

But "Best of" collections are half-measures with most episodic TV. The only shows with which they're practical are soap operas, late-night talk shows, non-linear productions running 20 seasons or more ("60 Minutes," for example), or older, more obscure titles with abbreviated (less than two seasons) runs.

And to prove that Markie Post is a selling point:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=4410

Hearts Afire (Season 3).

So ... Warner. If you release Night Court (Season 2 & 3) together, you think people might not buy it because it will be expensive. Maybe you should just cut some loss and sell it for a lower price just to get people to buy. Then everyone wins.
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I liked Christine better than Billie, too, but there were some absolutely hilarious episodes in Season 2. Maybe I'm being naive, but can't the actual content of the show be a selling point?

According to the Sitcoms Online News Blog, Warner has no plans to release Season 2 of Night Court due to poor sales, that's why it's getting the tv favorites release

http://sitcomsonline.blogspot.com/

I need to get a Season 1 set; I haven't done it yet.

this is was such a classic. i remember staying up really late to watch it

I suppose there's no need to re-state this but the reality is that the version of Night Court that most people know (and some people prefer) is the Markie Post version. In reruns I often skip the early episodes since I personally don't care for them. But some fans feel the exact opposite.

A lot of fans, especially casual ones, probably did not pick up season one because of the no-Markie problem. I certainly understand that but I wonder if that's perhaps what hurt the sales enough to put future releases in jeopardy. Even if season two were to be released perhaps there would still be the same problem. Fans want their Markie. And they want her now.

I do hope this doesn't effect other shows with supposedly "weaker" first seasons such as Different World and possible future releases such as Facts Of Life (whose first season I loved).

I think that's definitely a possibility. I pre-ordered on Amazon, but when it came, I was surprised that Markie wasn't on the cover, because that's the cast as I remembered it. I was pretty young when the series first started, and had no idea that the cast had ever been substantially different from what it was when it ended. I don't remember ever seeing any reruns with a different cast either.

If I had been in the store, I might not have bought it because of that. I still haven't gotten around to watching it yet, so I can't even comment on the comparative quality of the first season to later ones.

So the best chance of their being further releases, given that S1 didn't sell well enough to justify them, is for the "Best of" sampler with Markie to do very well. That would be a reason to buy the upcoming release, instead of pouting about how it isn't another full season set or (like this was going to happen) two full seasons. If Warner Bros. sees potential for making a profit on seasons 3 and up they might consider taking a chance on a 'break-even' release of S2, something that would otherwise probably never happen. Fox changed its mind on NYPD Blue and Mary Tyler Moore when evidence from the marketplace convinced them that the shows still had an audience. The only chance Night Court has to continue is lots of people buying the upcoming release.

Regards,

Joe

I'm not buying a best of. There's no reason Warner can't package S2 together with S3 if they're worried about sales. I've got every episode on VHS if I get desperate enough.

What reason do they have to package together season 2 and 3 if the sales are poor, they have no incentive, but with this best of, it could give them incentive to release more seasons

Plus wouldn't seasons 2 and 3 together be alot of episodes

S2 and S3 together would be 44 episodes. That would be impossible to put a big set like that out. Warner would lose money as they'd have to charge a lot for 44 episodes. If fans would just listen to what they are trying to say, we could get season sets in the future. Their warning has been stated, now it's up to the fans to fix this.

I ain't buying. I've got plenty of movies and tv shows to watch, and if the rest of Night Court never gets a proper release, that'll be a shame, but I can live with it. It is always dangerous to assume what message you are sending when you buy something. If the best-of sells well, you'd like to think that will send the message that they should release more season sets, but frankly, it's just as likely that they'll get the message that fans don't want season sets (which sold poorly), they want best-ofs (which sold well), and so you'll just get more and more best-ofs.

I didn't buy that "best of Friends" dvds that Warner pumped out a few years ago and I'm not doing it with Night court either. That crap is acceptable with SNL, but with a sitcome thats just lame. Reruns are on every night on TVland so i can make my own dvds from that and WB doesn't get a dime from me.

It was generally a bad marketing decision to bring out all those unrelated season 1 sets in one day. It was like survival of the fittest, sitcom style, and only "Fresh Prince" and possibly "Full House" survived.

I think if they'd a) Found a more appropriate launch day for Night Court, and b) Combined seasons 1 and 2 into one set instead of offering only the short first season, they could have gotten better results even with the non-Markie episodes. The show got good enough in season 2 that viewers wouldn't mind the lack of Markie Post; the problem with season 1 is that it's a short season, there are constant cast shake-ups, and some of the characters haven't solidified yet (notably Dan and Bull). Spilt milk, I guess.

I'll buy the best-of disc if it includes the two-part "Hurricane" episode, the ultimate Night Court episode and one of the best sitcom episodes of the '80s. But I have a feeling that the episodes on the best-of will all be from later in the run, after Marsha Warfield joined.