Wild Wild West Reunion Telefilms Coming to DVD on 6/13/17 (1 Viewer)

[Darby67]

The Wild Wild West Revisited and More Wild Wild West coming to DVD on 6/13/17: http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Wild-Wild-West-Double-Feature/23207

Those of us who bought the individual season sets as they were released will now be able to own two reunion telefilms which were previously only available with the complete series release!

 

[Doug Wallen]

Fine, I can now have a complete set after only having the four season sets. Great news.

 

[jcroy]

Wonder if CBS/Paramount will also do the same for the post-series telefilm discs from The Brady Bunch and Walker Texas Ranger complete series sets.

 

[jcroy]

At times I wonder why CBS/Paramount is releasing all this stuff at this time (ie. low-budget complete series sets, telefilms, etc ...).

 

[Ethan Riley]

Because they can't be bothered remastering shows we haven't seen yet. They're just repacking stuff they've already released.

 

[Brian Himes]

Glad that this is finally happening. I will be picking this up to finish off my season sets.

 

[jcroy]

Because they can't be bothered remastering shows we haven't seen yet. They're just repacking stuff they've already released.

(In addition).

Even if they don't release all the seasons of a particular show, CBS/Paramount will probably release some multiseason sets using those large 24-disc cases, such as seasons 1-6 of Happy Days.

Another one I suspect which they might also do, would be a 23-disc seasons 1-3 set of Love Boat.

 

[JohnHopper]

I used to watch these two latter telefilms but there are inferior to the 60's episodes. Believe me.
Instead of releasing these two mavericks, I would prefer a Blu-Ray edition of season 1.

 

[Darby67]

Walmart currently lists the telefilms double feature for $9.37 but also as "out of stock":
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wild-Wild-Revisited-More-Wild-Wild-West/55765785

I will buy it at that price once they start taking pre-orders.

 

[Pathfiner]

I was rather disappointed with these later TV movies - the scripts were rather too weakly OTT and were played for very obvious laughs particularly in the second TV movie

a pity as both Robert Conrad and Ross Martin still looked fine and slipped effortlessly back into their characters of West and Gordon - even the Train was there too - but the weaker 'play it as a big joke' scripts rather let them down and compared to the original more adventurous and often quite violent TV show it was a wasted opportunity

the key to the TV show was that it somehow always managed to remain 'credible' as a Western set show no matter how offbeat, surreal, futuristic, even sci fi angled it was at times - and a few ideas resurfaced in Star Trek tales ! (one re people speeding up and moving in a fraction of a second...) - whatever occurred it normally managed to retain a sense of actually happening back in the 1800s.....

but when played too obviously for a joke as in these two TV movies (more so the second movie) it lost that vital sense of credibility.....

 

[Ethan Riley]

I was rather disappointed with these later TV movies - the scripts were rather too weakly OTT and were played for very obvious laughs particularly in the second TV movie

a pity as both Robert Conrad and Ross Martin still looked fine and slipped effortlessly back into their characters of West and Gordon - even the Train was there too - but the weaker 'play it as a big joke' scripts rather let them down and compared to the original more adventurous and often quite violent TV show it was a wasted opportunity

the key to the TV show was that it somehow always managed to remain 'credible' as a Western set show no matter how offbeat, surreal, futuristic, even sci fi angled it was at times - and a few ideas resurfaced in Star Trek tales ! (one re people speeding up and moving in a fraction of a second...) - whatever occurred it normally managed to retain a sense of actually happening back in the 1800s.....

but when played too obviously for a joke as in these two TV movies (more so the second movie) it lost that vital sense of credibility.....

Sounds like the same problem as that horrible Will Smith version. But no way they're just as bad. There's no...way...

 

[Darby67]

Amazon now has it for $9.99: https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Revisit...-1&keywords=the+wild+wild+west+double+feature

 

[Darby67]

I finished watching both telefilms and, as noted by other posters, they were pure schmaltz...and I loved them for that! So glad that my Wild Wild West collection is now officially complete.

 

[BobO'Link]

My pre-order dropped to $7.68 ($8.33 after tax) and is "preparing to ship." I don't recall ever seeing these before and fully expect "pure schmaltz" as most TV Reunion telefilms are just that (if not pure dreck) and, as such, I rarely waste time on them. However, WWW is a long time favorite and for the entry price I'll gladly give them a viewing! Even if I groan regularly while doing do... Not only that, it'd be somewhat hypocritical of me to not get them as I complained in an Amazon review of the full set that those weren't available separately and by having them only in the set was a slap in the face to those of us who'd purchased the season sets as they came out.

 

[Brian Himes]

I was rather disappointed with these later TV movies - the scripts were rather too weakly OTT and were played for very obvious laughs particularly in the second TV movie

a pity as both Robert Conrad and Ross Martin still looked fine and slipped effortlessly back into their characters of West and Gordon - even the Train was there too - but the weaker 'play it as a big joke' scripts rather let them down and compared to the original more adventurous and often quite violent TV show it was a wasted opportunity

the key to the TV show was that it somehow always managed to remain 'credible' as a Western set show no matter how offbeat, surreal, futuristic, even sci fi angled it was at times - and a few ideas resurfaced in Star Trek tales ! (one re people speeding up and moving in a fraction of a second...) - whatever occurred it normally managed to retain a sense of actually happening back in the 1800s.....

but when played too obviously for a joke as in these two TV movies (more so the second movie) it lost that vital sense of credibility.....

That was how I took these two films once I finally got to see them. Conrad and Martin were great and still had it as West and Gordon, but the 'play it for laughs' scripts were really disappointing. I'm not sorry that I have the DVD of these but I certainly won't watch these films much. The show at least took things seriously with a bit of humor and tongue in cheek. These films were almost a parity of the series instead of a genuine continuation. Bummer to say the least.

 

[BobO'Link]

My copy arrived a week or so back and I watched the two films immediately.

Wow... I had to take some time to fully digest these... Both were first-time-viewings as I generally avoid telefilms based on TV series, especially a series I like.

First, I didn't care for Harry Morgan in either of these films as his style just didn't fit that well. He did a good job, and I like him as an actor, but it just felt "off" to me. I think that's because he's more of a comic actor and, at least to me, this series is not comedy but drama/action/adventure with some comic moments. Rene Auberjonois was a surprise fit. His character and performance style were very good in both of these films.

The Wild Wild Revisited is absolutely the best of the two telefilms. Had it been edited to remove the bits necessary to stretch its running length to that of a movie it could have been a quite acceptable hour length entry in the series. But those filler pieces were just horrible and tended to take you out of the film. Paul Williams was passable as Dr. Miguelito Loveless, Jr., although the "short" jokes were terrible, as were most of the other attempts at injecting humor into the story. In spite of the negatives, it's watchable enough to merit repeat viewings every couple of years.

More Wild Wild West should've stayed an idea and never made it to production. It didn't help that it guest stars Jonathan Winters. I've never been much of a fan of his style (a reason I never much cared for Robin Williams as he patterned himself after Winters). At first I thought it might be OK as he didn't do his schtick but actually acted, but then the schtick made its appearance. Bummer. At least he wasn't as over-the-top as he normally is. The filler material was even worse here than in the first film, but I can see where a minor recasting of some roles (primarily Winters) and trimming/reworking of the script might have yielded a suitable weekly episode. But it also borrows from the first telefilm a bit too much, especially the reuse of the "atomic bomb" footage and overall theme. It just felt like I'd already seen it done better - and I had with the first film. As it is, it's a film to watch every 10 or so years "just because" and ignore otherwise.

I'm glad I have these, as much for "completeness sake" as anything. The second one is a case for never producing this type of film, ever. I have the two McHale's Navy telefilms coming very soon, again for "completeness." I hope they're better, but I don't have very high expectations.

 

[Doug Wallen]

At one point I had these on preorder. I then began to remember these and found that I didn't want them even for the sake of completeness. I am glad they are available, I just don't need a copy.

 

[Blimpoy06]

Just read on a Film Score Monthly thread that La-La Land Records is releasing a 4 disc soundtrack to The Wild, Wild West on July 11th.

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=6&threadID=120204&archive=0