My bud Mark Evanier has a nice piece on the disappointing incompleteness of some “complete” DVD sets. Of particular sadness to me are the ones that use the syndication edits, rather than the several-minutes-longer versions that originally aired; that’s not due to any real problem but sloppiness or laziness.
Complete shams
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Not much of a DVD buyer yet, but count me in as as voting “Yes” for full disclosure on DVD content/noncontent. Actually, count me in as voting “Yes” for just doing the DVD release right (i.e. truly complete) the first time and doing away with the subsequent expanded releases that trickle out later. I’ve been saying for a while that it’s not worth buying some things when they first come out because there’ll be a more complete version yet to come, followed by a director’s cut, followed by a significant anniversary edition, etc… Ahh, capitalism’s a wonderful thing if you can just get yourself positioned on the right end of it.
P.S. Now if the technology improves such that the product itself improves in quality (as is often the case with music remasters), not quantity, then I can understand having subsequent releases.
Thought I’d place this little item regarding Lost here under the “Complete Shams” entry just because of the potential ramifications if this turns out to have any basis. It does sound kind of familiar.
Oh, that kind of suit is inevitable… and kind of ridiculous, although it can come from an honest emotional spot. I would imagine that there are very few people in ABC programming who were even around in 1977, particularly anyone who has switched from kiddie programming (which is where a Sid & Marty Krofft production would presumably have been) to prime time. “It was about a group of airplane crash survivors who struggle to survive in a jungle where they encounter strange creatures and dangerous characters” — replace “airplane” with “raft” and you have Land Of The Lost. Replace it with “boat”, and you have Gilligan’s Island. “Lost” was the title of a 1955 film, the English title of a 1970 film, the title of a 1983 film, the title of a 1986 shipwreck film, a 1992 film, not one but two short films in 1996, two again in 1999, a short film in 2000, an Emmy-nominated piece and a TV series in 2001, again two short films in 2002, again two short films in 2003, and another film in 2004, and at least seven books in addition to the now-popular TV series. It’s not exactly an uncommon title, nor an unlikely one for a story about those lost at sea.