The Fugitive: Season Four, Volume 1 (1 Viewer)

Harry-N · Aug 23, 2010

TV Shows on DVD has announced November 2nd for the release of Season Four, Volume One of THE FUGITIVE. In honor of the new season and new release, let's start a new thread.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Fugitive-Season-4-Volume-1/14309

Jack P · Aug 23, 2010

Well when they have a featurette devoted to Dominic Frontiere, that tells us right off the bat that we don't have to worry about the Outer Limits cues they switched to in S4 being replaced for this one!

Harry-N · Aug 23, 2010

Originally Posted by Jack P

Well when they have a featurette devoted to Dominic Frontiere, that tells us right off the bat that we don't have to worry about the Outer Limits cues they switched to in S4 being replaced for this one!

Agreed. Much of the fourth season used OUTER LIMITS cues - all Dom Frontiere stuff - so with a featurette, it seems likely that they'll leave THAT music alone.

Can't wait!

Harry

Doug Wallen · Aug 23, 2010

Well, it appears that there may be another season I can pick up. Looking forward to this.

Doug

shadyguy · Aug 23, 2010

Thanks for starting a new thread Harry !

I still have not finished watching S3V2, but am anxious for season 4 !

Harry-N · Aug 23, 2010

I'm looking forward to nice clean color prints.

shadyguy · Aug 23, 2010

OK, if there is a lot of Outer Limits music, does that mean there will be no Twilight Zone music that can be replaced ??

Jack P · Aug 23, 2010

For the first four episodes of S4, TZ cues are still predominately used. Then a new producer came on, and decided to use a new music library and that was when the switch to OL music began (along with Frontiere music for "Stoney Burke"). TZ music mixed in is still listed for episodes #12, 13 and 15 of this set.

Gary OS · Aug 24, 2010

And remember, technically it's not even the Twilight Zone cues (part of the larger "CBS Library" cues) that has ever been the problem. CBS/Paramount owns all those cues. The problem has always been a very, very minor one - the now defunct Capitol Music Library. The reason I say it's minor is that very little background/mood music was used from this library. In most episodes I bet these cues were used less than 60 seconds total. But because CBS/P won't go to the minor trouble of having someone, living right there in LA (and there are several people who could and would do this - probably for free), come in and go through the audio tracks for each episode we have the monstracity we do. It would have been so easy to have someone familiar with all the cues come in and pick out the Capitol cues for them. This person could have told them "this score can stay because it's one of your own CBS Library cues" and "this little, short one may have to be changed because it's from the Capitol Library." That's all it would have taken and 99% of the fans would have been happy with the Seasons 2 & 3 releases. It was such an easy fix, but CBS/P couldn't be bothered to do it even though there are people right there in LA that are familiar enough with the cues to have done this for them very easily.

I've maintained for some time that this last Season set, because it made use of Outer Limits cues, would be much more free from substitutions. The little blurb about the extra included on this set confirms this for me. I'll be absolutely shocked if these Season 4 sets aren't much better in that regard.

Gary "I still feel like vomiting when I think how easy it would have been for CBS to do this series correctly" O.

Sam Favate · Aug 24, 2010

Glad to hear this is on it's way, although I kinda hoped we'd get the whole season together. But I guess it makes sense to end the series in the fashion in which it was put out all along. Hopefully, we will see the last volume early next year.

Harry-N · Aug 24, 2010

I'm wondering if the featurette on Dominic Frontiere is, in fact, CBS/Paramount's way of giving credit to Mr. Frontiere. As most people know, the only composer credit given in ANY original episode of THE FUGITIVE is Peter Rugolo's. All of the other composers, Herrmann, Goldsmith, Steiner, etc, never got any credit, despite fairly heavy use of some of their cues.

With Mr. Frontiere's work under its own copyright, this little featurette deal may have been part of CBS/Paramount's effort to secure this music for use on the fourth season sets. It's a win-win-win as I see it.

Harry

Neil Brock · Aug 24, 2010

Originally Posted by Gary OS

And remember, technically it's not even the Twilight Zone cues (part of the larger "CBS Library" cues) that has ever been the problem. CBS/Paramount owns all those cues. The problem has always been a very, very minor one - the now defunct Capitol Music Library. The reason I say it's minor is that very little background/mood music was used from this library. In most episodes I bet these cues were used less than 60 seconds total. But because CBS/P won't go to the minor trouble of having someone, living right there in LA (and there are several people who could and would do this - probably for free), come in and go through the audio tracks for each episode we have the monstracity we do. It would have been so easy to have someone familiar with all the cues come in and pick out the Capitol cues for them. This person could have told them "this score can stay because it's one of your own CBS Library cues" and "this little, short one may have to be changed because it's from the Capitol Library." That's all it would have taken and 99% of the fans would have been happy with the Seasons 2 & 3 releases. It was such an easy fix, but CBS/P couldn't be bothered to do it even though there are people right there in LA that are familiar enough with the cues to have done this for them very easily.

I've maintained for some time that this last Season set, because it made use of Outer Limits cues, would be much more free from substitutions. The little blurb about the extra included on this set confirms this for me. I'll be absolutely shocked if these Season 4 sets aren't much better in that regard.

Gary "I still feel like vomiting when I think how easy it would have been for CBS to do this series correctly" O.

Agree 100% and feel just as sick about it. CBS preferred to put out the bastardized version of seasons 2 and 3 rather than get help from a non-TV civilian. And I still can't help but wondering, if they were so worried about getting sued, then why is season 1 still on the market with those same cues from the same Capitol Library? That makes no sense. They are still selling a product with the offending cues and have had no issues whatsoever yet they felt the need to remove the same cues from subsequent releases. I would love for someone to explain that logic to me.

Jack P · Aug 24, 2010

I'd also note that at the time of S2 the excuse was also that they didn't know who owned the Capitol Library. But now, it's worth noting that a number of Capitol LPs devoted to TV shows are being or are about to be reissued on CD so *someone* at least knows who to contact as far as that goes.

To me "bastardized" is too strong a word to describe S2 and S3 in their final forms. In the end, S3 V2 is the one of the four that IMO has the most problems and lucky for me the best episodes in that weaker part of the run were intact. I'm at least glad that the debacle of the original S2 V1 was rectified for the most part and that with a fully intact S1 and S4 and the main "sound" still there for S2 and S3 I can live with the end results (a lot more than I can live with what was done with "The Odd Couple"), especially knowing that "The Judgment" will be intact.

Aug 24, 2010

Its about time season 4 vol. 1 going to be released now if they can get a move on if season 3 of

cannon that would be great

Harry-N · Aug 24, 2010

I think a lot of people confuse "Capitol Music Library" with "Capitol Records" - and if I'm not mistaken, those are two very different business entities. It's a natural mistake given the similarity in the names. Perhaps way back when, these two were related, but I'll bet that they aren't anymore - resulting in the initial problem. If Capitol Records owned the music library in question, it would have been easy for CBS/P to investigate licensing.

If you'll recall, CBS/P's story all along was they COULDN'T FIND the current owners of the library, not that the music wasn't available. I'm pretty sure that any corporate lawyer in Los Angeles could have looked in the phone book for the offices of Capitol Records. But they didn't know who the current owner of that music was. It's a good chance they still don't.

A lot of corporate wheelings and dealings have taken place over the years resulting in some odd ownerships. I still look twice when I see the CBS eye logo all over STAR TREK items - I grew up in the STAR TREK on NBC era. The same with THE FUGITIVE. It was always an ABC series, but now falls under the auspices of CBS/Paramount. Part of the history of the show's music involves John Elizalde negotiating for the TWILIGHT ZONE music rights to air on an ABC show. Now, both of those entities are co-owned.

And with this fourth season, we're dealing with a music library that was, in the day, from the same network as THE FUGITIVE. Today, that OUTER LIMITS music is published by EMI Unart Catalog under license from Dominic Frontiere himself.

Harry

Gary OS · Aug 24, 2010

Right Harry. Of course my position, as well as many Fugitive experts who really know the situation in depth, is that even though CBS/P might not be able to find out who owned the rights to what, they excised much of their own properties right along with those few Capitol cues that were in question when it wasn't necessary. They did that because The Fugitive used a different method of writing on their cue sheets than most shows did, and since it wasn't a super easy thing for the people at CBS to know which cues were and were not their own vs. Capitol, they ended up excising a bunch of stuff. The problem is there were many people at that time that would and could have come in, probably at zero cost (just because they know and love the show), and pointed out to CBS which cues were from their own library and which weren't. The sad thing is the Capitol Music Library cues were used very, very sparingly in this series and if the studio would have brought someone in to tell them, by ear, what was what we could have had 95% of the music stay intact. We would have only needed a few seconds of replacement music here and there - and even then probably not in every episode. So I still have to blame CBS for this mess. It could have been avoided and we'd have a great, great set. Instead we have one that some people find acceptable and others do not. It's just a shame all the way around in my book.

Gary "hope S4 is unmolested" O.

Harry-N · Aug 24, 2010

Absolutely Gary, you're 100% correct. The mess could have been largely averted.

I just wanted to set the record straight on just what a Capitol Music Library was.

Harry

shoeshineboy · Aug 24, 2010

Does anyone else find that it's strange that, through this whole great series (and the immense controversy of its dvd release) that the only 'so-far' extra to be announced is about a scorer who isn't even known as the series' main music supplier? If you were to do a minifeature on the Fugitive, and it had to be about the music, wouldn't 5-10 minutes on Rugolo be the most obvious feature?

I don't want to overly gripe, we all have kicked this can before and it appears that the series will receive an honourable release for the final season; however, the powers that be just seem to be not in synch with the real world here... They know i'll buy but c'mon... if you are gonna do a featurette, why isn't it on janssen or huggins or rugolo?

JoshuaB. · Aug 24, 2010

I'm very happy about the announcement (Hey CBC, how about releasing the final season of The Untouchables?) and the inclusion of a featurette that puts us at ease about the question of music replacements. I own all the previous seasons (including the replaced S2 V2) and though the Heyes music didn't bother too much, it still marred my memories of watching this grand drama series on A&E in the 90s. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to see "The Judgment" on DVD! I hope the visual quality of the episodes remains high--I remember the colour episodes on TV looked muddy and washed out compared to their gorgeous BW counterparts.

Regulus · Aug 24, 2010

Originally Posted by JoshuaB.

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