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AbFab/Keeping Up Appearances remastered--no Blu? (1 Viewer)

Andrew Budgell

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TVShowsOnDVD.com has announced that both Absolutely Fabulous and Keeping Up Appearances will be remastered (the former only the first three series) and re-released as complete series sets on DVD. Why, if they went to the trouble of remastering these shows, are they not being released on Blu-ray as well?What a missed opportunity.
 

classicmovieguy

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The first three series of "AbFab" were done on videotape (as was the whole of "Keeping Up Appearances", I believe), so those wouldn't look as optimal on Blu-ray.
 

classicmovieguy

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Extras according to TVShowsonDVD:

[*]Outtakes
[*]Classic interviews with Patricia Routledge and Judy Cornwall
[*]Retrospective pieces: "Comedy Connections" and "Funny Women: Patricia Routledge"
[*]"Kitty Monologues" - Clips of Patricia Routledge as "Kitty," another brilliant character
[*]A newly commissioned featurette about eccentric British style
[*]A newly recorded interview with Patricia Routledge
[*]

[*]

[*][color=rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, Swiss, 'SunSans-Regular';font-size:12px;]Taken from:http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Keeping-Appearances-Collectors-Edition/18824#ixzz2bc8hRqO0[/color]
[/list]
 

MatthewA

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Hopefully season 2 of AbFab will keep "Wheels on Fire" as the theme; seasons 1 and 3 did, but season 2, inexplicably, did not. I think there were other minor music-related cuts I hope will be restored.
 

AndyMcKinney

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MatthewA said:
Hopefully season 2 of AbFab will keep "Wheels on Fire" as the theme; seasons 1 and 3 did, but season 2, inexplicably, did not. I think there were other minor music-related cuts I hope will be restored.
Although possible, if the BBC make music-related cuts or substitutions, they don't usually reverse them.

Even though the shows were shot-on-tape, it's possible they're having actual restoration to make them look better. After multiple releases, the BBC did so some actual restoration work on the most recent sets of Fawlty Towers and Blackadder, and those shows have never looked better (I think in the case of Fawlty, some or all of the original film inserts still existes and were cleaned up and re-inserted, as I recall, as has been done with some of the Doctor Who DVDs).
 

Andrew Budgell

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classicmovieguy said:
The first three series of "AbFab" were done on videotape (as was the whole of "Keeping Up Appearances", I believe), so those wouldn't look as optimal on Blu-ray.
But in the case of AbFab, the recent reunion specials were shot in HD, so it would be nice to view them in the highest possible quality and an SD downgrade.

If Poirot could be released on Blu (I know, different studio) surely these two could be as well.
 

JMFabianoRPL

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MatthewA said:
Hopefully season 2 of AbFab will keep "Wheels on Fire" as the theme; seasons 1 and 3 did, but season 2, inexplicably, did not. I think there were other minor music-related cuts I hope will be restored.
Yes, most infamously, the cut of Edina quoting "Like a Prayer" and the "new" theme song obscuring end credits dialogue. Later, in Season 5, they lose a segment where the cast spoofs Chicago. And weren't the musical performances featuring Marianne Faithfull edited out of Last Shout?

Yeah, why was it OK for S1 and S3 to have the original theme and well-known songs (You Don't Have To Say You Love Me and Jackie appear in episodes, for instance), but not S2? Never got that.

I won't replace the "white" set of S1-3 until someone comes up with an unaltered version (and didn't WB release the original Ab Fab sets, actually?) Plus the original series is the one I care about the most...the others were never the same, and Saffy...I wish someone would throttle her because of how she acted from Series 4 and up!

As for KUA...I wish someone would have done a tribute to Mary Millar, who MADE the Rose character and is one of the few replacement Scrappies who were not actually Scrappies.
 

classicmovieguy

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All those edits aren't an issue in the UK and Australian sets... I've always wondered why the "Chicago" spoof was cut from the American release. Is it because the Broadway revival of "Chicago", which is still running, prevents any other televised performance?
 

Ethan Riley

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I don't think they cut any music from KUA...they did a lot of show tunes which seem intact on the old dvd.
 

David Weicker

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classicmovieguy said:
All those edits aren't an issue in the UK and Australian sets... I've always wondered why the "Chicago" spoof was cut from the American release. Is it because the Broadway revival of "Chicago", which is still running, prevents any other televised performance?
I don't think it has anything to do with any current production. It's just that the legalities in America are different from Europe. The same thing happened to a Doctor Who episode where Ticket To Ride was on the UK release, but cut from the US release.If I recall correctly, in Europe, they negotiate an all-encompassing usage right, while in America, each and every song has to be negotiated individually
 

Ethan Riley

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AndyMcKinney said:
Maybe he was referring to AbFab instead?
I wasn't responding to another post; I was chiming in on KUA because nobody'd brought up its music as of yet.
 

AndyMcKinney

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David Weicker said:
I don't think it has anything to do with any current production. It's just that the legalities in America are different from Europe. The same thing happened to a Doctor Who episode where Ticket To Ride was on the UK release, but cut from the US release.

If I recall correctly, in Europe, they negotiate an all-encompassing usage right, while in America, each and every song has to be negotiated individually
This is even true of DVD releases of American shows. The edits/substitutions of '50s pop songs that plagued the US releases of Happy Days had no effect on the UK releases, which were able to keep them.
 

Brian Himes

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Yes, most infamously, the cut of Edina quoting "Like a Prayer" and the "new" theme song obscuring end credits dialogue. Later, in Season 5, they lose a segment where the cast spoofs Chicago. And weren't the musical performances featuring Marianne Faithfull edited out of Last Shout?
The musical performances with Marianne Faithfull from The Last Shout have not been edited from the American release of those episodes. However, the theme song was replaced with the instramental version. Also there is a song that is edited out of The Last Shout. It's the scene where P.P. Arnold is signing The First Cut Is The Deepest.Also there is a minor edit in the episode Gay (the New York Special). The Gay episode, season 5 and White Box all had the original opening theme replaced with the instramental version of Wheels on Fire. The anniversary specials (when released in America) completley replaced Wheels on Fire with Sweet Dreams by the EurythmicsI have all of the edited pieces from Absolutley Fabulous and have managed to re-insert them in the appropriate episodes. I just haven't gotten around to assembling my 100% complete and uncut version of the series.
 

AndyMcKinney

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The editing for AbFab sounds about as bad as Only Fools and Horses. Glad I'm not a fan of the former. Still holding onto my VHS tapes of the latter given the sorry state of the show's edit history on DVD (all regions having somewhat differering bits left out and/or changed).
 

Brian Himes

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Yeah, the editing is bad. Not terrible. I certainly have seen worse. What confuses me is the editing of the theme song. Especially for season 2. It's the EXACT same version that was used for seasons 1 and 3 and those seasons have the theme song. For seasons 1-3 Julie Driscoll and Adrian Edmonson sang the song.For the Last Shout episodes, P.P. Arnold and Marianne Faithful sang the theme song, so the reason for it missing there might have to do with those artists performance of the song. The same thing for the episode, Gay. Debbie Harry sang the theme and it was edited out and in fact the scene where Debbie is on screen singing the theme is slightly edited.Season 4 Julie Driscoll and Adrain Edmondson once again sang the theme song but it was a newly recorded version. It appears on all of the season 4 episodes.Season 5 (including the two specials that followed the 5th season), Debbie Harry's version (the one used for the episode Gay which was the Christmas special following the 4th season) is once again used and it has been edited out and the instramental version is used instead.For the special White Box, once again Julie Driscoll and Adrian Edmondson's season 4 version is used but it is edited out and the instramental version is used instead.For the 20th Anniversay episodes, the season 4 version of the theme is used but instead of the instramental version being used, the US release has Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics.Why? If they could clear the EXACT same version of the theme for other seasons why was season 2, White Box and the 20th Anniversary Specials all edited to exclude the theme? The whole mess just gives me a headache.I sort of understand The Last Shout, Gay and season 5 (and the specials that followed) not having the theme. Those versions were performed by guest artists and may have only included US broadcast rights. However, I don't think so. It just seems really screwy the way the theme has been handled.
 

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