All I can say upon hearing the news is AT LAST! I've been waiting for such a release for 30 years -- not a word of exaggeration. And if Time-Life gives them the same treatment as they did Man from UNCLE and Get Smart, we're in for some great releases.
And I'm sure someone will complain if they don't do a Blu-Ray. Right now I'll be happy with what I can get (besides I was watching UNCLE on my 42-inch 720 plasma the other day and it looked fantastic. SMDM/BW will look fine, too).
A silly question/notion, perhaps, but I wonder -- since they'll likely redo the audio -- if they're considering going in and adding the "bionic" sound effects to the earlier seasons? At first I would've been "Yeah, sure, go for it," but thinking on it, I really like "Population: Zero" when Steve is powering up after the cold's affected his bionics, and all you hear is the increasingly rapid heart beat as he shakes off the cold and ramps back up to full bionic cruise mode.
Which is exactly why they should not change a thing. I loved the early episodes that didn't use the sound effects. And in fact I would have preferred the heartbeat used throughout. As others have mentioned, they should present the episodes as originally broadcast. Save the altering B.S. for Star Trek.
Well, This is intresting however in 2006 I came across a complete set of both series for bargain price. So how much will they charge for this, you get extras, uncut quality picture / sound, this is good if not very late to arrive. Q: how will the extras differ from the Region 2 edition. I am alittle skeptical.
I assume that "complete set" was of the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" variety as even Region 2 hasn't seen a complete release. As I understand it they only got the first season or 2 of SMDM and the first year of BW. So there isn't a complete set of extras in the R2 version -- if there were any. I've never heard of there being any extras; I thought the R2 version was vanilla.
Odds are these would be newly made extras anyway, produced for the US company.
As for cost -- assuming the Time-Life connection is made as is being reported, look at the Get Smart and Man from UNCLE sets Time Life did. Cost and format will probably be similar. This falls into the "cost is no object" category. It won't likely be more than $200 and even if it is, $200 amortized over 30 years isn't bad at all. I've been saving up since Jimmy Carter was president and the VCR first started its ascent.
And if they're planning to include the post-series TV movies per the report, there's potential for a bunch of other vintage extras, too. I'm hoping for a set of the Kenner Toy commercials and a PDF-format archive of the Charlton comic books and SMDM magazine.
The only bummer is if they go the Time Life route, that means we'll have TL selling them for a year before they turn up in the stores. But I was impressed with the quality of that UNCLE set, enough that I'd sign up rather than wait another year...
Alex
Ohh, that was hilarious! Interesting... I didn't know the expression "He's the man" dated back that far.