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Defying Gravity coming to R1 DVD

2

23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
Good news, bad news for fans of Defying Gravity.

According to TV shows on DVD the series will be released to DVD in North America in mid-January, so folks who wanted to watch the last five or so episodes won't have to wait for ABC to get around to showing them.

http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=12882

Bad news is the site is reporting that creator of the series has been quoted as referring to the series in the past tense, so to speak, suggesting that despite how well it might have gone in Canada or the UK, without ABC it didn't stand much of a chance. The DVD set is currently being promoted as "Season 1" but the site expects this to be changed to "The Complete Series".

Alex
 
No surprise from this corner that the show is defunct. Did it ever get more interesting, or did it remain turgid throughout?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
 
StCoop said:
No Blu-Ray, no sale.
Click to expand...

You guys are really missing out on a lot of stuff by being so discriminatory. Personally I see little difference between the two format unless you're watching a documentary or a live sports event. Anyway, most TV shows will never be released to Blu-Ray so I imagine you're saving yourselves a lot of money this way.

Alex
 
DVD will be around longer than Blu-ray ever will.

Anyways the show has been dead a week when the creator came out and said he saw them knocking the sets down. For some dumb reason no one canceled it officially yet, and it says "First Season" on the box.
 
23skidoo said:
StCoop said:
No Blu-Ray, no sale.
Click to expand...

You guys are really missing out on a lot of stuff by being so discriminatory. Personally I see little difference between the two format unless you're watching a documentary or a live sports event. Anyway, most TV shows will never be released to Blu-Ray so I imagine you're saving yourselves a lot of money this way.

Alex
Click to expand...

For older shows I agree with you, most will not appear on Blu Ray, but there is no excuse to not release a new shot that aired in HD on Blu Ray.
 
Too bad. I thought the series held potential too but ABC is a network and networks hate anything that's not instantly "the next big thing" and crushes the rivals in ratings. It was also double-doomed to being a science fiction series that was trying to be more than space battles.

And Blu-Ray probably is the next laser-disc. I haven't seen it take off like it's supposed to yet despite the promise. Yes, it has superior picture and sound, etc but it means squat if no one buys it or the transferred media is not quality to begin with and most of it is just crappy transfers from what I can tell, barring stuff made post-Blu-Ray, which still doesn't offer a big enough advantage to DVD.

Oh, and this is a season one cancelled series; no one is going to take the effort to put it on Blu-Ray. It's not Firefly.
 
The show is already in HD. There is no remastering needed. Putting it on Blu Ray requires no extra effort.

And Blu Ray has seen a quicker acceptance than DVD. The danger is not being the next laser disc, but having an even shorter life span than DVD with it being replaced by HD downloads.
 
AviTrek said:
And Blu Ray has seen a quicker acceptance than DVD.
Click to expand...

According to an Associated Press article that appeared yesterday, no it hasn't:

http://www.660news.com/entertainmen...-give-consumers-another-reason-to-buy-blu-ray

Reason being the manufacturers haven't made it portable enough. Most computers don't have BR drives and the very popular on-board DVD players in cars are just that - there are no BR. You can't even buy a portable BR player yet.

The danger is not being the next laser disc, but having an even shorter life span than DVD with it being replaced by HD downloads.
Click to expand...
I still think there's a market for permanent media. Not everyone wants art to be disposable. (And no, burning does NOT count. I have about 100 CD-Rs worth of material I burned 10 years ago, including files, writing archives, and music, which is lost forever because it can't be read by my current computer; and I have DVD-R backups of some irreplaceable VHS-recorded material such as home movies that will only play on the machine that recorded them (even after "finalizing"). So I do not recognize the ability to burn as permanent; it's gotta be done professionally by machines none of us can afford.

All that said, I agree with your point that if a show is already filmed in HD there's no excuse not to put it on Blu-Ray, or some sort of combo pack (an option growing in popularity according to that AP article). Especially not a SF series, since the demographic interested in buying such a show is more likely to have Blu-Ray, as opposed to, say, people who might be interested in buying 7th Heaven or something.

However, if a show is perceived as not being popular, apparently studios aren't interested in going through the extra expense, especially as BR is still more expensive to buy than DVD. Besides Defying Gravity, we've now heard the Prisoner remake is only going on DVD, in part because it bombed in the US (OTOH AMC has Mad Men on Blu-Ray, no problem). However something like Doctor Who is super-popular, so not only are they doing BR of the newer episodes, they're even shelling out to up-convert one of the specials to HD.

So what that says to me is if a show scores big in either ratings or critical acclaim - say, Mad Men - then a Blu-Ray release is likely. If a show is cancelled after a few episodes, is not particularly well-liked by critics, and scored low ratings, it doesn't matter how it was shot, it'll show up on DVD (and, probably, download-only eventually).

Alex
 
I find it more funny (in a sad way) that it's labelled "complete first season". I would have thought that the marketeers would have opted for the higher sales inducing "complete series".

Oh, and those that can tune to channel 131 can see what they missed.
 
dru said:
Trent Roman said:
No surprise from this corner that the show is defunct. Did it ever get more interesting, or did it remain turgid throughout?
Click to expand...

No, it was crap all the way. :klingon:
Click to expand...

Glad to know I made the right call in bailing early. And I find that usually is the right call, not because I'm precognitive but because it's exceedingly rare for anything that starts out as crap to turn itself around. ;)

I have no sympathy for crappy shows and no patience to wait for them to "get good." They need to die quickly and open up the timeslot so the network can launch more crappy shows. Only 10% of what they try is worth watching, so there needs to be a high churn rate.
 
You need them to die quickly.

The ones who find something worth sticking around for have no such requirement.
 
One of the things I'm hoping to see is some kind of hardcopy schematics on the Antares herself.
 
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