So... you want to force filler episodes and stretch story arcs instead of getting well paced and good amount of storys in a show?

If the season of the shield is only going to have 13 good episodes, I want them all in top form instead of having the writers create filler episodes to meet some sort of requirement in episode count and pad out another 7 forced episodes which will increase the cost of production and potentially make it so that it doesn't get renewed. That's what you are asking. To make a film less profitable and potentially putting it on the chopping block if it doesn't make its worth with the added filler episodes.

If you guys have a problem with the price of a show, just Netflix it.

Please reread post #25. Thank you. :)

I did, if you don't like the answer then that's your problem

I already said it, you want filler episodes to pad that count to 20 when it's just 13-15? that's on you. If you wont buy something because it's not 20 Quality episodes according to you then that's also your choice and I see no reason why you should be complaining about the price structure or the story structure per season of any given show.

Have you even considered the possibility that the only reason these shows can maintain consistent high quality is BECAUSE they produce fewer episodes? Each episode takes longer to write, longer to rehearse, longer to shoot, longer to edit because they're spending the same amount of time and money to produce 10 or 12 episodes that a typical network series uses to make 22.

RichC

As a member of the DVD community from the very beginning, I have every right to criticize price and quantity when discussing Cable DVD TV season sets. BTW, "quality" means just that, not filler. :)

Irrelevant. These pay cable networks have been aroiund since the 80s, but TV on DVD has only been big for maybe 4-5 years. If this was the case, then how did they survive before DVD? I cant imagine VHS tape sales were that substantial.

The R2 of Six Feet Under (and most HBO shows) are almost half the price of their R1 counter parts. They also come out sooner in R2 - 6'U season 3 has been out in R2 for almost 2 months now.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...9262864-3823240
$70

vs.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...1155540-4137220
minus VAT = 30 pounds = aprox. $55.

What's up with that?

The length that a person has been a "member of the DVD community" is irrelevant. Every person has an equal right to criticize and/or discuss these issues if they so desire.

I think that demand is an important factor. Take two "like" examples...X-Files and 24. Both are hour long network shows with roughly 24 episodes a season. X-Files comes out at $100+ (they since have been reduced) and 24 can be had for at least half the price. The X-Files has had a larger following and has been around longer. There is high demand for this show. The same is true for the Star Trek catalog which Paramount has been using to their advantage for a long time.

The HBO series' like the Sopranos and Six Feet Under are highly regarded (particularly the Sopranos) which creates the demand. That's why I gladly fork over the $60-65 per season for The Sopranos and may take a pass at other shows. Quite frankly, the number of episodes has little to do with it for me. Of course I would rather pay less for a 13 episode season than a 24-26 episode season, but the bottom line is what quality we perceive the show to be and do we feel it's worth the price we pay to own it.

The amount in the quality and the amount put into production have gone up over the years. Showtime's heads have moved away from films and moved towards bringing in film writers and actors which come with a bigger price tag. But in turn, they bring in a better product which can be worth more.

If you want to toss up the cost of a dvd. Lets look five years ago. How much was an average season set? very easily in the 100's. Why? because DVD wasn't in demand at the start of it all. They needed to justify the low sells by the higher price.

Put that forumla to this. These shows aren't the mainstream powerhouses that sell millions of units like most other stuff that is priced lower. So the price has to be a bit more to counter balance the lower amount of units that will be sold.

So was Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show, Mr. Show etc.

But more often than not they are not meant to be syndicated, but they could be if there is enough mass appeal for a non premium network to show it.

Actually Sex and the City ran for 6 seasons (the sixth one was broken up into two different parts) for 6 years: June 1998 to February 2004

First off, anybody who actually pays $100.00 for Six Feet Under or Sopranos are idiots, as you can often find them in the $60.00 range, especially online.

And I would think that the fact that the advertising costs cannot be figured in would be a no brainer, but I guess that was lost on the OP and some others. Also, more than likely you won't see these shows in syndication. Sex and the City got a good deal on TBS, but it will be a while before you see that show on regular TV, if ever.

If you don't subscribe, and you don't want to buy the sets, then rent them. If you really want to see them, you will find a way. I would gladly take a quality season set of any of those shows than three mediocre season sets of network programming.

Incorrect. Not only is "Sex and the City" syndicated, but "The Sopranos" is as well. Not too long ago, A&E bought up rights to "The Sopranos" for $2.5 million dollars an episode, which is actually the highest price ever paid for a syndicated series.

So HBO will have made $187,500,000.00 from syndication of that series alone.

And another thing we have to consider about pay cable series like 6FU and Sopranos is that the DVDs are competing with the pay cable channel.

I'd wager that a number of premium channel subscriptions are from people who want the original programming. The main draw of channels like HBO (which means Home Box Office) at their inception was that they played uncut theatrical movies. At the time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that was really the only way to see complete movies without commercial interruption in the comfort of one's home. Now they're competing with home video (both for rental and purchase), so they still need some kind of draw, and original programming is that draw.

If HBO let their original programming be sold at bargain prices, like $40.00 for complete 12 episode seasons of 6FU, Sopranos, Deadwood, and Carnivale, then people would probably start cancelling their subscriptions in favor of buying the cheaper DVDs.

A season dosen't have to be 22 to 24 episodes. In the UK a season (they call it a series) is 6 episodes, sometimes 7. But the quality of the episodes is 100 times that of any 22 episode season of most shows here. Think of it like a mini-series, and the next "season" is a sequel. Which is why the office is only 6 episodes.

If I'm getting 12 high quality hour long episodes (true hours, no commercials) I'm fine with paying a higher price than paying for 22 episodes of garbage. Get over it dude.

Why has no one answered my previous post?

Why are these sets (specificaly 6 Feet Under) almost half the price in England/R2 as they are in the US/R1?

It's because people aren't reading the posts with an intent on understanding. They only post garbled arguments that don't take into consideration the original post or any post for that matter.

A serious answer to your question is that the studios know Americans have quite a bit more disposable income than others around the world and so they charge a premium here. It's the same reason we get the "right" DVD only after the third "dip" and Europeans usually get it on the first release.

Who would disagree with your point? Nobody wants 12 or 22 episodes of garbage. What I and many others want is a full season, 20 or more quality episodes, from both pay cable and the networks. I don't think that's asking too much.

My favorite part of this thread was when someone's pet peeve that a "season" must be comprised of 20 or more episodes gets turned into "everyone but me is brain-dead and unintelligent" and "the educational system has failed."

Words twisted and taken out of context - you wouldn't happen to be in politics?

Sounds like you just have a hard time accepting what a full season is. These series that are 7, 12, 15 or even 24 episodes long are full seasons. The story for the seasons are tapped out. You want quality yet you aren't willing to sacrifice quantity? Do you really want to push writers to make up something they didn't want to make up in order to fill out a "full season" according to you?

I think that's the real matter of all this. What makes up a full season? One full story or a series of stories told with the restriction of budget, creativity from the writers and time needed to produce these products.

I can tell you this, it gets intense towards the last few weeks of any given production. They get a good head start of about 8 or so weeks before the season starts but throughout the season a show, depending on how complicated it can get, will run down to having the season finale be finished only days before it's shown on the air. So the amount of episodes are planned ahead of time.

I realize the discussion has moved to "Why am I paying so much for cable tv shows" to "why am I not getting more episodes". But I should wonder why is it a requirement to have the specific number of episodes? Some shows work great like that. Look Around you is a BBC series and I loved how it was just a couple of episodes. Anymore and it could have over stayed its welcome. A show like The Shield really can't go 25 episodes because of who picked it up. F/X can't afford to toss around that kind of money to get more episodes made.

Lets take 24 for example. I think the show is great, but the 24 hour time limit sometimes makes a season or two drag on to much where the second half of the day is just so unbelievable and far fetched that it destroys some of the shows aspect all because they need to extend it out. Could it be "better quality" as you put it? Yeah, I'm sure they could have thought of it better, but because of those production time restrictions they work with what they got.

Aside from that. What someone finds good will differ from what someone else finds good. So since the taste very, what's to say that My view of what a quality episode consist of is even on the same page as yours?

By now I can see you are doing this for a good discussion and point/counter point debate which I have no problem with since it's pretty interesting to discuss it with a civil and keep the whole jabs about education level or the systems in any one country off this since that will lead to a flame war and move away from an actual discussion.

Jackskeleton,

Thank you for the lengthy response. I do enjoy many of the shows that are now 12 or 14 episodes. It's just that I *really* enjoyed the extra 6 or 7 episodes we got during the first couple of seasons of certain shows. QAF is my personal pet peeve. 14 episodes just doesn't give me enough of a storyline; I want the characters to *live* longer. The monetary issue is just a irritant. I pay $19.99 for 24 episodes of series "X" and $99 for 12 episodes of series "Y" - gets me mad. :)

As for the brain-dead and education comments, I apologize. It gets frustrating when people seem to be missing the point and typing on the internet isn't a great way to communicate something passionately.

You know, there are shorter seasons from the UK that are crap and longer seasons in the US that are pure gold, so I think the argument about better or worse shows on either side just turns into a circular argument.

Another reason I have suspected that HBO's sets are more expensive is they license ALL the original music from the TV shows for DVD release. Dawson's Creek and Roswell and some others could very well be as high as HBO sets had the respective studios licensed all the original music from the series. Don't underestimate the cost of the music licensing in the final cost of the sets.

Well, to be fair, a lot of the music in shows now a days are worked out before the season starts to make sure you have the deal to carry it to dvd. A lot of those series that have music issues right now were made long before dvd ever became mainstream enough to work in a deal for (I'm looking at you wonder years!)

but it's like we said, many factors. Lack of ads, amount of budget you have for the high scale actors and creative team, budget the studio has and potential amount of buyers from the networks.

Can HBO afford to make them cost that much? yes. Though I'm not sure that every series could even be a flat rate price for number of episodes since there is also a lot of factors that go into it. X-files for example has a lot of royalties paid to the actors from the dvd sales. So they can't make them cheaper.