Any Inside Info on Gunsmoke? (1 Viewer)

Season 6, Volume 1 in August! http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Gunsmoke-Season-6-Volume-1/16940
Season 6 is the rarest season of Gunsmoke to find complete and unedited. I'm happy to see them do it.
I hope these episodes are digitized from new digitally-created transfers. When the majority of them aired on Encore Westerns, it seemed they had been digitized from slightly rough 16mm prints. All except the last 10 episodes of the season, that is. Those last 10 episodes looked like they were digitized from new transfers, the same standard they had on all the episodes from seasons 1-5.

Glad its coming but dissapointed its still split seasons both for the cost and the time to complete the series. So if we get volume two before the end of the year we only have 14 more years to go to complete the series. 2026 will be here in no time right

Yes. I want to watch every episode on dvd, before I die. But at this rate.....I may not be up to task.
Good news. I guess.

Or perhaps... just perhaps... CBS will surprise us and release Season 7, V1 of Gunsmoke before the end of this year! And maybe they'll release S7, V2 within the first couple of months of next year. Could it be that my crystal ball sees such provocative things?


Gary "I think Gunsmoke is in reasonably good shape for releases in the immediate future" O.

Thank you o great and mighty swami!

Gary OS said:

Or perhaps... just perhaps... CBS will surprise us and release Season 7, V1 of Gunsmoke before the end of this year!  And maybe they'll release S7, V2 within the first couple of months of next year.  Could it be that my crystal ball sees such provocative things? 
Gary "I think Gunsmoke is in reasonably good shape for releases in the immediate future" O.

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I hope you are right Gary but with Season 6 Vol. 1 just announced for August and Season 6 vol 2 not yet annouced it seems hard to believe Season 7 vol 1 is coming before the end of the year unless we get a gunsmoke release every 2 months which I wouldn't mind but would be very surprising.

I hope you're right, Gary! I never saw much of Gunsmoke during the original network run, but I'm enjoying the heck out of the DVDs. That core cast had some of the greatest chemistry I've ever seen!

Well so we are getting , Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Streets of San Francisco Releases by Year's End, where oh where is HGWT Season 6 ? ...Hello are you out there ..... and more Rawhide please.

Watch all of them in HD on youtube. They have all of the 30 minute episodes from season 1 thru 6. All 1 hour episodes from 7 thru 20.

But unfortunately those youtube episodes are all old copies from TV land and similar tv channels. The hour long episodes are edited from 50 minutes to 42 minutes and have really bad faded colors. They look nothing like the remastered in HD and unedited versions from the CBS DVD's.

Any definitive word if the color seasons are being released or is this line dead?

I agree. I was just giving the person who was talking about all the seasons taking so long to come out an option.

CBS has no archive releases scheduled for the immediate future. Who knows when or if they may change.

Seasons 1 to 11 are out in the USA, while seasons 13 to 20 can be obtained from Germany (in Region 2) - as volumes '1 to 8'


season 7 (the first 50 min episodes) is also out in Europe as 'Box 1 & 2' in region 2


However currently absent anywhere is season 12 from 1966 - the first color season & very often most frequently repeated season - it's currently just begun again here once more (in the UK) with 'Snap Decision' on ITV 4 channel yesterday - season 12 having been on both TCM & CBS Action cable channels recently too - 'The Gold Takers' is on today


season 12 appears to have been missed out between the two sets of releases with the USA releases currently stalled at season 11

The German releases are very confusing. I completely missed that they were actually seasons 13 through 20 with the odd numbering scheme and the fact that the covers are misleading, especially when showing Chester in the color seasons. They appear to receive average reviews, but that isn't surprising since the prints appear to be faded matching what is in syndication. The German Bonanza releases appear to have better reviews so whatever was used must have been in better shape.


Maybe Encore will air the color seasons one of these days.

So, Season 11 was released in December 2014. I was hoping that we would've at least heard some rumblings about Season 12 by now. I hope they eventually finish this one as it's become one of my favorites. I was a huge Chester fan, but I've grown to love Festus just as much.

Earlier this year Season 12 was reported to be on the schedule for a December 2015 release. However, a few months back it was said to have been removed from this years schedule. This isn't all that uncommon with CBS to remove items as the year goes on. However, titles like Gunsmoke aren't traditionally the tier of show to be removed. That with the licensing of titles to VEI does not make future releases look as promising. You would think the remastering of the color seasons would be the most marketable of the series moving forward. But then again if they were to break off the releases doing it between syndication packages (like this) would be the time. I still have hope that CBS hasn't called it quits. The first half of 2016 will tell a lot about where CBS is and isn't going with respect to more classic TV releases.

I thought the first color season of Gunsmoke would have been an automatic release seeing how they finished up all the b/w seasons. I don't recall ever having seen the color seasons looking remastered, so I was hoping to see a DVD release for season 12 and on. You would think Encore would be as interested in the color seasons as the b/w seasons and maybe provide some incentive for CBS to continue work on the color seasons. At one point, Encore was running all 5 seasons of the hour long b/w episodes. If they were to get 5 color seasons remastered, we would be down to 4 seasons of Gunsmoke left to go.


CBS seems to have stalled about everything and handed off to VEI. If that is the way it's going to be, I'm glad to at least get the shows via VEI, but I will truly miss those beautifully remastered CBS DVDs.

So I took a shot on a few of the German releases of Gunsmoke. Based on reviews related to the German releases I decided to give a try on seasons 18, 19, and 20 (or volumes 6, 7, and 8 according to the company releasing the series). I also took into consideration the little chance that US releases would ever get that far along. The quality was about as good as could be expected given they haven't been remastered from the original film elements. They are on par with the US releases on Bonanza season 2, and Rawhide seasons 1 and 4. In other words, standard quality to be expected from older video elements (about average, definitely watchable). These releases are said to be complete. Looking at reviews for seasons 13 and 14 (volumes 1 and 2), they are reported to be subpar in video quality, and season 16 (volume 4) uses edited prints. One of the complications is that the German dubbing was only available for the edited versions, so they had to make a choice and either release complete with the original English inserted where no dubbing was available or just release them edited. Apparently, some complained after the first few complete releases, so they tried it the other way around and took a bigger hit from those wanting it complete. Seasons 17 - 20 (volumes 5 - 8) fared better in that they went back to complete seasons. Once loaded the user is given the option of English or German. When selecting English the menus are also in English.


So for those wanting more Gunsmoke, it looks like we have no choice but to hope CBS release season 12 in the US since it is not available anywhere. The German reviews seem to indicate it is best to stay away from seasons 13, 14, and 16 (volumes 1, 2, and 4). However, for a fan that wants more seasons and either can't wait or CBS US won't deliver, the best bets seems to be volumes 3 and 5 through 8).

Thanks for the info, Brad.

I'm not to the point of being ready to go the German release route yet, mainly because my first goal was to get the b/w seasons and I'm less familiar with the color seasons. I'm still hoping CBS will eventually release a season 12, but one does have to wonder about that.

If CBS ends up abandoning Gunsmoke, I will do whatever I can to complete the series. What a shame - I can handle less than stellar video, but I really hate incomplete episodes.

Hello VEI - can you lend us a hand here?