I wish Wonder Woman would be addressed. WB did such a superb job with the first two seasons. But the last season has several sloppy alterations. Maybe they would like to know about them.
Does anyone know if Casey-Werner will re-release the 1st season sets of Roseanne, The Cosby Show and 3rd Rock From The Sun? Or if the second seasons of 3rd Rock From The Sun and Roseanne will include the syndicated ones? -James
Warner is a great studio, but I think they are washing their hands of "Wonder Woman". It's out and over with. With shows like "Roseanne", "The Cosby Show" & "Third Rock", the studios releasing them know the furor over these butchered first seasons can seriously hamper the sales of future sets of these long-running series.
I just received the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly and this was in the Letters section:
[this was in reference to a previous review of Roseanne Season One, which was favorably rated...with an A- if I recall correctly...]
"I have loved your magazine for years, but I am disappointed in your DVD reviews. Your positive review of "Roseanne..."---like your recent review of "The Cosby Show..."---failed to tell readers that these sets use the syndicated versions of the shows, and each episode has been trimmed from its original broadcast. It's inexcusable for you not to let your readers know. Any DVD reviewer worth their words should take a few minutes to visit the wealth of fansites for research; any of those sites would have tipped them off to this essential information.
Cameron McGaughy"
There was no response from the magazine, but they usually only have editorial replies to "the writer stands by his story"-type letters. Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for them to at least include the info in future reviews.
I have yet to encounter a favorite show of mine releasing syndicated episodes, however there are a few I would have bought for sure if they were full length episodes including Alf. Rosseanne and The Cosby Show may have also been bought if they were not syndicated.
This is probably because the magazines don't really "review" DVDs. I'd be surprised if many of the discs actually went into players; they spend a lot of time talking about the show, and usually mention a few special features at the end (likely reading from a press release). The sad thing is the studios care more about those "reviews" than anything we do online. I was talking to a studio about a recently botched set and they said, "Well, Entertainment Weekly gave it an 'A'." I wanted to barf, because the message I got was, "Yeah, we don't really care what your problem with the set is because a magazine said it was perfect and we'll sell DVDs because of it."
I'd say 90% of the reviews are based on the initial run of the show, not on the DVD set. Of course sometimes those two ratings are the same ("Lost" for example).
If initial reports are accurate, you can add Carsey/Werner's "A Different World" to the list of hacked shows. I guess no one there wants to bother to learn how to thread a 1" VTR.