HellTrack

I was never that big of a fan of the Bob Newhart show. Sure, I watched it, but I've always been a huge fan of the Newhart Show, where he ran the inn in Vermont. Really cool that the 2nd season just came out. Hopefully they'll finish the series.

rmw650

Ask and you shall receive...http://www.amazon.com/Newhart-Season...whart+season+3

HellTrack

Sweet. Hopefully, they'll put out the rest as well. I used to watch this with my grandma when I was a kid. Love the theme. Now, if they can just get their hands on WKRP. I couldn't care less, but it would have the original music (hopefully) for the really anal people out there.

Xbox69

The available seasons (1-4) were part of the latest FoxConnect sale last week. 50% off of $12.99

BobO'Link

It's from Shout! so there likely will be separate S5 & S6 releases at some point but I don't expect them anytime soon.
Either you didn't look hard enough or we have *very* different ideas about "cheap enough" - I paid ~$10/season for mine and have seen them as low as $6/season.

Anyway... those Fox releases are on DS discs. I had one set with bad discs and was able to do an exchange but I keep expecting them to go bad on me. Those Fox DS discs haven't been as bad as those from Uni but I've still had issues with several different series. My hope is Shout! puts them on SS discs *and* remasters those first 4 seasons.

BUT I'm somewhat skittish about the release after hearing the final disc count of 19 discs which includes bonus material. Assuming 3 discs for each season that leaves 1 disc for the bonus stuff:

The Original Unaired Pilot
Group Therapy (2014): Bob Newhart sits down with Peter Bonerz, Jack Riley, Bill Daily, and Michael Zinberg
The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary (1991): The entire cast assembles for a one-hour clip show which finds the show's characters in the present day
Gag Reel

A bonus not listed in their press release is the "Making of" featurette which was on S2 & S3. There was also a "Gag Reel" on S4 so will this be the same one?

There's also a "40 page collectable booklet" to be included but that's the kind of thing I look at once and rarely again. Audio commentaries by the cast are included too but it remains to be seen if that's only the original ones on S1-S4 or if new ones were produced for S5 & S6 (or even new ones all around, which I think is unlikely).

With a episode count of 142 on 18 discs that means *8* episodes per disc on all but one or two! Considering it's Shout! I'm farily confident it is SS discs so we're looking at rougly 3 hours, 20 minutes per disc/side for just episode content. That many episodes per disc always makes me worry there will be compression issues. I have other series from Shout! with that many episodes per disc, and they all look very good, so I'm less antsy about it, but it's still a concern.

At least Shout! is making this available directly from them a month before wide release so these questions will all be answered (I hope) well before Amazon ships. If it turns out *good* I can keep my pre-order and if not it'll be a quick cancel.

Trevor

^ $10 per season is generally my upper limit now. I admit I wasn't looking too hard, as I knew it's release schedule wasn't complete; and I've been holding out for complete series sets and/or BD a lot lately anyway.

BobO'Link

^Were I not such a big fan of the work of Bob Newhart I'd not have purchased those when they came out but waited myself. I *hate* when a series gets abandoned and even more so when it's a favorite. It's releases like the original 4 seasons that made me change my purchase patterns from a "purchase seasons early to encourage more releases" to one of "wait and see if they actually complete the series first." Of course doing that has caused me to miss several series I wanted that went OOP before being completed. I'd have liked a few seasons of some of those but overall waiting has been the better path.

Trevor

It really is a crapshoot. And I admit my 'plan' goes to heck depending on my mood and bankroll. You'd think with several hundred unwatched seasons of TV content I'd realize that I'll never watch them all and just switch to streaming/renting; but the collector in me just won't die.

BobO'Link

This exactly - in spite of my overall resolve to only make a purchase when a series is complete! Get out of my head!!!

Every time I manage to watch a bunch of stuff and the pile(s) shrink a sale will come along and I'll wind up adding more to the unwatched pile than I just removed. But I've grown impatient and mostly intolerant of "broadcast" TV and can't bring myself to watch anything with commercials any more. Such "viewings" are now used for background noise or to sample a possible new series with "real" viewings done solely on DVD.

In spite of those piles of unwatched stuff building up I'm excited about re-watching those first 4 seasons of The Bob Newhart Show as it's been a top 10 favorite since the original airings. It's been 10+ years since I've seen seasons 5 & 6 so those will be a *real* treat! I'll probably cut back the challenge viewings a bit until I get all 6 seasons watched!

rmw650

I asked Shout about them releasing Seasons 5 & 6 on DVD separately and they told me they're not planning on it for right now, but never say never as they said the same thing about Barney Miller and now those seasons are coming out one by one. No way am I double-dipping just for the last two seasons. I'll wait it out.