SLIDERS & SEAQUEST complete series on DVD, what is the hold up?

[Captain Craig]

I've been on something of a hunt for shows I enjoyed but never finished or just want. I splurged really during December, hey they were on a great sale, by getting SG-1, Farscape, and B5:Crusade.

I checked on SLIDERS and they only have through season 4 released. I'm not getting shows in single sets anymore, you just spend more, and would like SLIDERS but its not all out.

Same for SEAQUEST. They don't have season 3 out on DVD yet but have the first two seasons.
What is the hold up?

 

[Piper]

Barring rights issues, the only reason not to release further season sets is that the previous ones haven't sold in sufficient numbers to merit their release. In the case of Seaquest, the reason for that might be self-evident, although given it seems to have plenty of fans I'm surprised Sliders haven't seen its final season out.

 

[TemporalFlux]

...although given it seems to have plenty of fans I'm surprised Sliders haven't seen its final season out.

Yep; to give a perspective, TVShowsonDVD has 10,515 shows to vote on; and Sliders is ranked the 63rd most requested release.

As for the release problems, the common denominator is that they're both Universal Studios shows. Universal is pretty bad about releasing their older properties in a timely manner. For instance, there was a three year gap between the release of season three and season four of Sliders. Going by that release schedule, we'll probably see season five sometime between 2011 and 2015.

That said, there are no rights issues on Sliders season five; the budget was cut to the bone, so the fact that they weren't licensing anything anyway cuts out any licensing issues. However, a complete series set may have a problem; the Sliders season one episode "The Weaker Sex" has run into some kind of rights issue on Hulu (most speculate it deals with the songs Rembrandt was singing on the street corner). Of course, it could be that the licensing there is only an internet issue; to my understanding, internet publishing rights are now negotiated separately from the DVD publishing rights (the DVD release that's out there right now has "The Weaker Sex" intact and as originally aired).

 

[Kelso]

The people who are forced to work on the boxed sets keep martyring themselves in protest. They can't bring themselves to inflict such things upon the world.

 

[TemporalFlux]

The people who are forced to work on the boxed sets keep martyring themselves in protest. They can't bring themselves to inflict such things upon the world.

Well, to be honest; I'm always tempted to say treat Sliders season one and two as the complete series and forget the rest. Despite a few gems here and there, the later seasons can get pretty bad; and I believe it really did become a different show after season two (partially because production moved from the atmosphere of Vancouver to bright and sunny Los Angeles).

 

[greelywinger]

Would love to see even season 5 of Sliders on DVD in the USA.
It's been released in Europe, why not USA?
I just want to have the last season on DVD.

Darryl

 

[23skidoo]

As for the release problems, the common denominator is that they're both Universal Studios shows. Universal is pretty bad about releasing their older properties in a timely manner.

Definitely. Kojak - a show with huge cult appeal - never got past Season 1, for example, in its DVD releases and I think Hart to Hart is a Universal show and it stalled out on its DVD after Season 2.

That's why Bionic Woman fans have been on pins and needles. Universal released Season 1 last fall, but there was NO guarantee they'd ever release Season 2. Thankfully there has now been a release announced for that. So now the wait begins for Season 3. Luckily a third party (Time Life) took over the release of The Six Million Dollar Man and put the whole thing out in one shot.

I'm not so interested in Sliders, but I have been waiting for the rest of SeaQuest to show up.

Alex

 

[BlobVanDam]

The people who are forced to work on the boxed sets keep martyring themselves in protest. They can't bring themselves to inflict such things upon the world.

Well, to be honest; I'm always tempted to say treat Sliders season one and two as the complete series and forget the rest. Despite a few gems here and there, the later seasons can get pretty bad; and I believe it really did become a different show after season two (partially because production moved from the atmosphere of Vancouver to bright and sunny Los Angeles).

The first 2 are definitely the important ones, although season 4 isn't too bad overall imo. Season 3 was a steaming pile of garbage, but season 4 and 5 at least tried to rectify that once they moved to SciFi. Unfortunately the cast changes and weaker stories really stopped those later seasons from being anywhere near as good as those first 2.
I have the first 4 seasons on DVD, and am a little disappointed that I couldn't get season 5 to finish off the collection properly.

 

[Brikar99]

If you have Netflix, those seasons are available for online streaming.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Would love to see even season 5 of Sliders on DVD in the USA.
It's been released in Europe, why not USA?
I just want to have the last season on DVD.

You can order season 5 from amazon.de for about 20 Euros + p&p as long as you don't mind the text on the box being in German -- the sound track is available in English or German.

Sliders - Das Tor in eine fremde Dimension: Staffel 5

Obviously, they slid to German world.

It's also available on iTunes in the UK. I can't say that I'm in any hurry.

 

[bigdaddy]

Sliders season 5 is shit and doing us a favor they forgot all about it.

Seaquest is most likely because it's a spinoff and no longer called DSV.

 

[JarodRussell]

I didn't even know Sliders had a 4th season, and you talk about a 5th season?

 

[BlobVanDam]

Sliders season 5 is shit and doing us a favor they forgot all about it.

But to be fair, they did already release season 3, so they've long since past that excuse.

 

[bigdaddy]

Well they had to release half of season 3 at least to get the meanest death possible. I mean a gunshot, brains being sucked out AND the planet being blown to bits? Wow Fox, can you hate on him a little more?

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

I didn't even know Sliders had a 4th season, and you talk about a 5th season?

The first three were on Fox. After Fox dropped it, the SciFi Channel picked it up for the last two seasons. I seem to remember that there was a break of more than a year between the broadcasts of the Season 3 and 4 (the second super-long break over the course of the show), so I'm certain many people thought it was cancelled and over.