Is there a list somewhere of TV seasons that are in limbo? - Page 5

RobCA · 01-17-08, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlverinefactor

I don't remember seeing The Jetsons on the list and only one season has been released.

If you're talking about the 60's series, I believe it only aired for one season.

Rob

djskyler · 01-18-08, 02:25 AM

If you're going to mention The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, then certainly don't leave out the third partner of the Henning Country Trilogy: Petticoat Junction, which has seen only a S1V1 release of what was 7 seasons.

One of the most glaring examples of bonehead executives banishing a show to limbo is My Favorite Martian. After releasing complete seasons 1 & 2, Rhino Home Video opted to dump this series from their roster. There is only one season remaining, and it was the only season shot in color!

To be fair, Universal Home Video was straightforward about tossing Night Gallery into instant limbo: The S1 boxset had bonus "Best of" episodes from the other two seasons.

dvd-4-life · 01-18-08, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djskyler

If you're going to mention The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, then certainly don't leave out the third partner of the Henning Country Trilogy: Petticoat Junction, which has seen only a S1V1 release of what was 7 seasons.

One of the most glaring examples of bonehead executives banishing a show to limbo is My Favorite Martian. After releasing complete seasons 1 & 2, Rhino Home Video opted to dump this series from their roster. There is only one season remaining, and it was the only season shot in color!

To be fair, Universal Home Video was straightforward about tossing Night Gallery into instant limbo: The S1 boxset had bonus "Best of" episodes from the other two seasons.

My Favorite Martian season 3 is available in New Zealand and its region 0.

wlverinefactor · 01-18-08, 11:09 PM

I always thought Jetsons ran longer than one season. How odd.

Amazing race is another series with only 2 seasons on dvd. Big Brother also came out with season 3 on dvd and a best of season 4.

RickWJ324 · 01-24-08, 11:06 PM

I want my collection of Disney's GARGOYLES (including The Goliath Chronicles) to be completed!!! Such a great cartoon!!

Machinegunrap · 01-25-08, 05:11 PM

I have a feeling this will be rejected, but what about "Even Stevens." I know it hasn't been released here, but the first season was released in Region 4 Australia on 7/26/06 as evidenced here: http://www.madman.com.au/actions/cat...42&method=view

I just picked it up last week. I e-mailed Disney about this and said there were no plans but would relay interest to their marketing department. I just figured this summer would be a great time for it with LeBeouf continuing to blow up with Indy 4 and Eagle Eye poised for release.

In case anybody cares, the Region 4 disc doesn't have anything extra on it. Not even the highly coveted "subtitle" feature. But it looks good. Better than WGN recordings.

Trevor · 01-25-08, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wlverinefactor

I always thought Jetsons ran longer than one season. How odd.

You're sort of right. It ran for one "real" season, 1962-1963. Then they made a couple more seasons in the 80s, and mixed them in with the old ones in syndication.

Also, there were several TV movies and specials.

Cheato · 01-26-08, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Machinegunrap

I have a feeling this will be rejected, but what about "Even Stevens." I know it hasn't been released here, but the first season was released in Region 4 Australia on 7/26/06

I'll be glad to add it to the list, but please provide full info so I don't have to go look it up myself. If you see the format of the list, I also want to be able to include what hasn't been released (as in, how long did the show go--are we just missing Season 2, or more than that).

I will update the list within a couple of weeks. There haven't been many additions recently by people posting here; However, I began a project gathering data from various sources and will add (possibly many) more series to the list once I finish compiling and analyzing that data.

As for alphabetizing or leaving the list the way it is now, only two people have commented that they prefer it alphabetized. As for now, I will leave it as is. But, if you do want to see it alphabetized, it is an easy thing to highlight the text, and copy it into an Excel (or whatever) spreadsheet, and sort it alphabetically. If I alphabetized it, it would not be possible to simply un-sort the list back to its current form. So having the data posted the way it is in the first post in this thread actually provides the information in two ways--the second of those requiring only a simple step by the end-user.

Silverscreenvid · 01-26-08, 11:04 AM

Just in general, many TV shows decline in quality and popularity considerably in their later years. Reasons for this include cast changes, writing changes and a lack of new story ideas. ER is a good current example of this. The reason these shows were cancelled to begin with is that viewers picked up on that when they first ran. Although some shows go out with a great final episode, like the Fugitive, very few maintain their quality level throughout the run.

Personally, I've enjoyed the early season releases of Mission Impossible and Hawaii 5-0, but even if the last couple of seasons of those shows are ever on DVD, I doubt I'd buy them because of the drop in quality that led to their departures.

So, in most cases, DVD producers are aware of this phenomenon and monitor series sales very carefully. They have to assume that later season sales will drop off and won't continue to release them unless early signs are very positive. There are a few cult fans and completists of a lot of series out there, but they, by themselves, are not enough to sustain viable DVD sales.

Cheato · 01-26-08, 01:20 PM

Silverscreenvid, I couldn't disagree with you more about what will sell and what won't and what's "sustainable" and "viable."

If "Galactica 1980" can be distributed on DVD, then anything can. Talk about appealing to "cult fans and completists." That's the *ultimate* example. I'm sure it didn't make the profit that Season 1 of "Lost" made, but it's pretty likely to have made a "small" profit--and if it didn't make a profit on its own, it contributed to the profitability of other season or series sets--even the Battlestar Galactica franchise itself--by getting people into the stores or onto the stores' websites to get that and impulse buy something else. I don't know about you, but I almost never buy just one thing--I wait and submit an order of 2 or more. In addition, releasing it showed a company's willingness to support their own product by actually *releasing it* instead of releasing a single episode or two to "test the waters."

My opinion is that:
(1) the people deciding to release things are shortsighted and operate as if each season set exists in its own private universe and that sales of one don't affect sales of another, and
(2) those same people are merely concerned with one thing: maximizing profit in the short term.

I have no problem with the idea of trying to maximize profit, but doing so only for the short-term at the complete expense of the long-term is the downfall of all businesses, and you can't look at each product you make as independent of each other product.

The end result of this is: because of the tremendous number of series that aren't being "finished" (e.g., the list in this thread), sales of future series are directly being affected (i.e., reduced). In addition, because of the recent trend of releasing "complete series" sets that include exclusives that are available only to those sets, and aren't available for purchase separately, the very fans that actually support the DVD releases all the way through in the first place are the ones getting screwed (way to go! f--- your biggest consumers!). That also directly affects the next series that the companies decide to start releasing with a season 1 to "test the waters." And lastly, the "Best of" DVDs are also, by now (as if ever, in my opinion) completely useless to gauge consumer demand because everybody thinks "why bother--I'll just wait for the full seasons."

So all this brilliant planning by the brilliant minds working for these companies has resulted in a chain of thinking that goes:

1a) "Best of" DVD released:
Many consumers react with: "I'll wait for the season sets..."
or
1b) "Season 1" DVD released:
Many consumers react with: "Nah, I'll wait for the complete series set."
or at least:
"I was screwed before by not getting the final seasons of the last show I shelled out my hard earned money for that I really love, so I'll wait until they're all released."

2a) "Best of" sales are low:
Company reacts with "There's no demand for the series."
or
2b) "Season 1" DVDs are lower than they could have been, resulting in the "sustainable" level being through a shorter run than could have been (e.g., instead of lasting to Season 3 or 4, maybe only 1 or 2 are released).

And the feedback from the cycle repeats ad infinitum, as the companies "learn" from bad data, and the consumers learn more about the companies' unwillingness to support their own products, resulting in fewer and fewer sales each time.

Believe me, as a programmer (computer, not the guy who picks shows for the networks) and engineer, I have been in many meetings with sales people, marketing people, managers, and other higher-ups who initially construct flawed models and then collect flawed data, and then make flawed decisions based on it--and in the end, refuse to take responsibility for a demand that doesn't meet expectations. There's nothing like watching a bunch of non-scientists trying to use scientific method to analyze data. Amusing, if it weren't so sad and frustrating.

Finally, as I mentioned before, I can download almost any episode of any series that I want to find with torrents or from usenet or other file-sharing methods. If the companies aren't willing to release what I want, then I'll do that. If their "small" profit isn't enough for them, then let them have none whatsoever.

Machinegunrap · 01-26-08, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Machinegunrap

I have a feeling this will be rejected, but what about "Even Stevens." I know it hasn't been released here, but the first season was released in Region 4 Australia on 7/26/06 as evidenced here: http://www./actions/catalogue.do?rel...42&method=view

I just picked it up last week. I e-mailed Disney about this and said there were no plans but would relay interest to their marketing department. I just figured this summer would be a great time for it with LeBeouf continuing to blow up with Indy 4 and Eagle Eye poised for release.

In case anybody cares, the Region 4 disc doesn't have anything extra on it. Not even the highly coveted "subtitle" feature. But it looks good. Better than WGN recordings.

I apologize. There are three seasons of the show. Therefore two and three and still awaiting release.

buffmovie · 01-26-08, 02:24 PM

Good vs. Evil. It was on USA network for a season then went to Sci-fi channel for another before it was axed. I miss that show so much.

Lecithin · 01-27-08, 02:40 PM

I'm also waiting to finish my Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, King of the Hill and Rocky and Bullwinkles DVD collections. However, I'm guilty of not even finishing up watching all the episodes of the ones I DO have, so it's not a pressing issue for me at the moment, just a completist desire.

Of course, the one series I want to see all of is St. Elsewhere and having bought the first season, it looks like I appear to be the only one who did (just like I felt like I was the only one watching it on TV when it was constantly in danger of cancellation in the 80s) and that I will now not get to own the later, more interesting seasons after all.

01-18-08, 02:25 AM	#102
djskyler Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Modesto, CA Posts: 245	More Limbo's If you're going to mention The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, then certainly don't leave out the third partner of the Henning Country Trilogy: Petticoat Junction, which has seen only a S1V1 release of what was 7 seasons. One of the most glaring examples of bonehead executives banishing a show to limbo is My Favorite Martian. After releasing complete seasons 1 & 2, Rhino Home Video opted to dump this series from their roster. There is only one season remaining, and it was the only season shot in color! To be fair, Universal Home Video was straightforward about tossing Night Gallery into instant limbo: The S1 boxset had bonus "Best of" episodes from the other two seasons. __________________ My DVD Profiler djskyler.com My Countdown Counting down to: Release of Karloff and Lugosi Horror Classics You'll Find Out! Last edited by djskyler; 01-18-08 at 02:31 AM.

01-18-08, 11:09 PM	#104
wlverinefactor Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Scranton, PA Posts: 167	I always thought Jetsons ran longer than one season. How odd. Amazing race is another series with only 2 seasons on dvd. Big Brother also came out with season 3 on dvd and a best of season 4. __________________ www.myspace.com/wolvy My Movie blog 2008 - http://wolvy08.blogspot.com 2008 Horror Challenge - http://forum.dvdtalk.com/8966154-post79.html

01-24-08, 11:06 PM	#105
RickWJ324 Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Northern VA Posts: 152	Disney's Gargoyles!! I want my collection of Disney's GARGOYLES (including The Goliath Chronicles) to be completed!!! Such a great cartoon!!

01-26-08, 01:20 PM	#110
Cheato DVD Talk Special Edition Join Date: May 2005 Location: closer than you'd like Posts: 1,143	Silverscreenvid, I couldn't disagree with you more about what will sell and what won't and what's "sustainable" and "viable." If "Galactica 1980" can be distributed on DVD, then anything can. Talk about appealing to "cult fans and completists." That's the ultimate example. I'm sure it didn't make the profit that Season 1 of "Lost" made, but it's pretty likely to have made a "small" profit--and if it didn't make a profit on its own, it contributed to the profitability of other season or series sets--even the Battlestar Galactica franchise itself--by getting people into the stores or onto the stores' websites to get that and impulse buy something else. I don't know about you, but I almost never buy just one thing--I wait and submit an order of 2 or more. In addition, releasing it showed a company's willingness to support their own product by actually releasing it instead of releasing a single episode or two to "test the waters." My opinion is that: (1) the people deciding to release things are shortsighted and operate as if each season set exists in its own private universe and that sales of one don't affect sales of another, and (2) those same people are merely concerned with one thing: maximizing profit in the short term. I have no problem with the idea of trying to maximize profit, but doing so only for the short-term at the complete expense of the long-term is the downfall of all businesses, and you can't look at each product you make as independent of each other product. The end result of this is: because of the tremendous number of series that aren't being "finished" (e.g., the list in this thread), sales of future series are directly being affected (i.e., reduced). In addition, because of the recent trend of releasing "complete series" sets that include exclusives that are available only to those sets, and aren't available for purchase separately, the very fans that actually support the DVD releases all the way through in the first place are the ones getting screwed (way to go! f--- your biggest consumers!). That also directly affects the next series that the companies decide to start releasing with a season 1 to "test the waters." And lastly, the "Best of" DVDs are also, by now (as if ever, in my opinion) completely useless to gauge consumer demand because everybody thinks "why bother--I'll just wait for the full seasons." So all this brilliant planning by the brilliant minds working for these companies has resulted in a chain of thinking that goes: 1a) "Best of" DVD released: Many consumers react with: "I'll wait for the season sets..." or 1b) "Season 1" DVD released: Many consumers react with: "Nah, I'll wait for the complete series set." or at least: "I was screwed before by not getting the final seasons of the last show I shelled out my hard earned money for that I really love, so I'll wait until they're all released." 2a) "Best of" sales are low: Company reacts with "There's no demand for the series." or 2b) "Season 1" DVDs are lower than they could have been, resulting in the "sustainable" level being through a shorter run than could have been (e.g., instead of lasting to Season 3 or 4, maybe only 1 or 2 are released). And the feedback from the cycle repeats ad infinitum, as the companies "learn" from bad data, and the consumers learn more about the companies' unwillingness to support their own products, resulting in fewer and fewer sales each time. Believe me, as a programmer (computer, not the guy who picks shows for the networks) and engineer, I have been in many meetings with sales people, marketing people, managers, and other higher-ups who initially construct flawed models and then collect flawed data, and then make flawed decisions based on it--and in the end, refuse to take responsibility for a demand that doesn't meet expectations. There's nothing like watching a bunch of non-scientists trying to use scientific method to analyze data. Amusing, if it weren't so sad and frustrating. Finally, as I mentioned before, I can download almost any episode of any series that I want to find with torrents or from usenet or other file-sharing methods. If the companies aren't willing to release what I want, then I'll do that. If their "small" profit isn't enough for them, then let them have none whatsoever. Last edited by Cheato; 01-26-08 at 01:24 PM.

01-25-08, 05:11 PM	#106
Machinegunrap Cool New Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 23	I have a feeling this will be rejected, but what about "Even Stevens." I know it hasn't been released here, but the first season was released in Region 4 Australia on 7/26/06 as evidenced here: http://www.madman.com.au/actions/cat...42&method=view I just picked it up last week. I e-mailed Disney about this and said there were no plans but would relay interest to their marketing department. I just figured this summer would be a great time for it with LeBeouf continuing to blow up with Indy 4 and Eagle Eye poised for release. In case anybody cares, the Region 4 disc doesn't have anything extra on it. Not even the highly coveted "subtitle" feature. But it looks good. Better than WGN recordings.

01-26-08, 11:04 AM	#109
Silverscreenvid Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 150	Just in general, many TV shows decline in quality and popularity considerably in their later years. Reasons for this include cast changes, writing changes and a lack of new story ideas. ER is a good current example of this. The reason these shows were cancelled to begin with is that viewers picked up on that when they first ran. Although some shows go out with a great final episode, like the Fugitive, very few maintain their quality level throughout the run. Personally, I've enjoyed the early season releases of Mission Impossible and Hawaii 5-0, but even if the last couple of seasons of those shows are ever on DVD, I doubt I'd buy them because of the drop in quality that led to their departures. So, in most cases, DVD producers are aware of this phenomenon and monitor series sales very carefully. They have to assume that later season sales will drop off and won't continue to release them unless early signs are very positive. There are a few cult fans and completists of a lot of series out there, but they, by themselves, are not enough to sustain viable DVD sales.

01-26-08, 02:24 PM	#112
buffmovie New Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Grants Pass, Oregon Posts: 1	Good vs. Evil. It was on USA network for a season then went to Sci-fi channel for another before it was axed. I miss that show so much.

01-27-08, 02:40 PM	#113
Lecithin DVD Talk Special Edition Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 1,098	I'm also waiting to finish my Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, King of the Hill and Rocky and Bullwinkles DVD collections. However, I'm guilty of not even finishing up watching all the episodes of the ones I DO have, so it's not a pressing issue for me at the moment, just a completist desire. Of course, the one series I want to see all of is St. Elsewhere and having bought the first season, it looks like I appear to be the only one who did (just like I felt like I was the only one watching it on TV when it was constantly in danger of cancellation in the 80s) and that I will now not get to own the later, more interesting seasons after all.