Good news and bad news for people waiting for the long-delayed (as in by decades) home video release of the original Bionic Woman to DVD (last time I wrote a thread about this some anal-retentive gave me grief for not using "The" in the title - I'll just say "get a life 
" in advance).
The good news is TV Shows on DVD reports Universal has officially announced October 19 as the release date for Season 1! As someone who has been waiting for either Bionic Woman or Six Million Dollar Man to be made available over here (legally) since the early 1980s, this is great. Also good news is that unlike other Universal releases that have been bare bones, at least one commentary by Kenneth Johnson has been confirmed and other extras are likely.
The bad news - and this is VERY bad news if true - is according to the announcement they plan to do the same bulls*it they did with Kung Fu and will be cropping the show to a widescreen format. I thought they'd learned their lesson with the negative response to the Kung Fu release and the fact no one else is doing this with older shows. Hell, both Star Trek and the original 1960's Prisoner were kept to their original aspect ratios for Blu-Ray and if any release would have been changed, it would have been TOS Remastered.
Sadly it also seems Universal has decided not to go with the "both series, complete" release that had been mentioned earlier. What that means when they get to the crossover episodes, especially the Kill Oscar trilogy, is anyone's guess. I'm also a little concerned because there's no guarantee we'll get the other seasons (ask anyone who has been waiting for Kojak season 2, for example). Apparently Time-Life is still planning its own release of the Six Million Dollar Man, too. Hopefully they'll have the sense to leave the aspect ratio alone.
TV Shows on DVD has said they'll be looking into the aspect ratio issue. It's a subsidiary of TV Guide so it carries a bit of weight, though with October only a few months away, if Universal has remastered the episodes by cropping I can't see them having the time or budget to undo that. The hope right now is that this was a simple typo and Universal isn't going to be that stupid.
http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=14082
Alex
" in advance).The good news is TV Shows on DVD reports Universal has officially announced October 19 as the release date for Season 1! As someone who has been waiting for either Bionic Woman or Six Million Dollar Man to be made available over here (legally) since the early 1980s, this is great. Also good news is that unlike other Universal releases that have been bare bones, at least one commentary by Kenneth Johnson has been confirmed and other extras are likely.
The bad news - and this is VERY bad news if true - is according to the announcement they plan to do the same bulls*it they did with Kung Fu and will be cropping the show to a widescreen format. I thought they'd learned their lesson with the negative response to the Kung Fu release and the fact no one else is doing this with older shows. Hell, both Star Trek and the original 1960's Prisoner were kept to their original aspect ratios for Blu-Ray and if any release would have been changed, it would have been TOS Remastered.
Sadly it also seems Universal has decided not to go with the "both series, complete" release that had been mentioned earlier. What that means when they get to the crossover episodes, especially the Kill Oscar trilogy, is anyone's guess. I'm also a little concerned because there's no guarantee we'll get the other seasons (ask anyone who has been waiting for Kojak season 2, for example). Apparently Time-Life is still planning its own release of the Six Million Dollar Man, too. Hopefully they'll have the sense to leave the aspect ratio alone.
TV Shows on DVD has said they'll be looking into the aspect ratio issue. It's a subsidiary of TV Guide so it carries a bit of weight, though with October only a few months away, if Universal has remastered the episodes by cropping I can't see them having the time or budget to undo that. The hope right now is that this was a simple typo and Universal isn't going to be that stupid.
http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=14082
Alex
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