That's cool, i've never met any of the guys in person. I'm reading things online about Mike. He appeared at a show a few nights ago and sang five songs. The person who went to the show said Mike looked like he had lost about 50 pounds. He was moving slow and didn't look well at all. He said it was obvious (to him anyway) that Mike could have never kept up with the other guys this year on their tour and that's why he didn't participate.
All this is just his own take on the situation and i hope he's wrong about Mike.

Well, it's confirmed. The new releases are just the old Rhino releases, repackaged... http://tvshowsondvd.com/n/15844

Not suprised, I am sure everybody expected it

No surprise, but disappointing news all the same.

But it should be easier to get and a little cheaper, if there's any positive to this news.

Plus the extras from the Rhino releases are all there.

Exactly

Even though it's the same disks the new packaging looks much better. I have S2 from Rhino and the package is awful. It doesn't fit on the shelf with anything else, cardboard sleeves for the disks, overall just a cheap feel. If this is truly slim amaray type cases like it looks in the photos I'll be very happy and might just replace that S2 set to boot considering I should be able to pick up both seasons for only a couple of $$ more than S1 was selling for prior to going OOP.

Really? You felt it was cheap packaging? Stupid packaging if anything, but hardly cheap. It was an incredibly sturdy box, I agree the cardboard sleeves sucked, but it was pretty creative packaging.

I agree, I wish I still had them but it was stolen Oh well, at least I already pre-ordered the Monkees sets to watch them again!

^^I did not say cheap packaging, but that has a cheap *feel*. Yes, it's somewhat sturdy as it's partially double-walled where the disks rest to prevent the lid from wobbling when closed, but the whole thing is a paperboard box with glue and springs with disks in cardboard sleeves inside a faux box-set outer paperboard 2nd sleeve. I realize that this sounds somewhat contradictory but I do feel like the spring hinge on the lid will rip off at some point as it's only on paperboard. Use of cardboard/paper sleeves smacks of cheap. I know they did this for the overall package look to be consistent with the flip-top 45rmp record-player motif but that doesn't make it *feel* less cheap. By comparison, it's less sturdy than the current Mill Creek amaray case with disks in paper sleeves inside. These are called "cheap" by almost everyone because of the sleeves and lack of proper DVD support. That leave this sets packaging being only creative. I can envision many ways in which this product could be easily damaged and I'm fairly certain that it *will* fail before any kind of amaray type packaging even with careful handling. While mine arrived without damage I almost didn't order one as I'd read lots of reports of people getting these in the mail with split/crushed corners, and other damage. Considering the original price on these, and even on sale, the packaging felt like a rip-off. In my book, having "creative/cute/custom" packaging is at least 1 stike against the product. In general I feel *any* "creative" or "collectable" packaging is total crap if it can't sit on a shelf side-by-side with DVDs in amaray type cases. I don't like digi-pak type packaging either.

I just received my sets from Amazon. They are in digipacks. Not the best packaging I've ever seen but not the worse. None of the discs were floaters, at least. This is known as a flaw, but season two does say 25 episodes on the cover, but does actually contain 26. (I haven't watched yet, but the info on the discs look correct). Supposedly, later versions will likely be changed. Who knows, these early versions might become collector's editions! lol!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with these and hope to start watching them soon!