DVD release date

[inuvik]

maggiethecat said:

inuvik said:

It's happening, finally! I can be the first to break the news!

August 19, 2008.

WHAT?!!!!!!
Details, details, we want details. Details and a link and any info you have.

If I have to beg . . . okay I'm begging!!!!!

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!

But my, I wish it was true!

[maggiethecat]

You little stinker, I should smite you for that.

After all the waiting and hoping -- not to mention all the crappy shows that have been released on DVD -- you know what? That just plain isn't funny.

[mlm828]

I long ago gave up any hope of a Blind Justice DVD, but I totally agree. Not funny.

[Chris]

maggiethecat said:

After all the waiting and hoping -- not to mention all the crappy shows that have been released on DVD -- you know what? That just plain isn't funny.

I thought it was very funny - mostly because I fell for it hook, line and sinker. ;D
Usually I don't fall for any weird stories on April 1. but this one?? Ohh, yes!!! I was a bit skeptic, after all it IS April Fools Day but a joke about a DVD release and from Inuvik... Nahhh, better check it out. So I tried googling it and of course found nothing.

- Chris, proud to be a fool

[rducasey]

mlm828 said:

I long ago gave up any hope of a Blind Justice DVD, but I totally agree. Not funny.

Oh I just spent the day with 23 eight year olds who think this is the second best day of the year......so I was pretty wise to April Fool's jokes today. I don't think I would have fallen for the DVD post considering the date, .....However I read the 20 last posts so I read them backwards so I knew it was a joke before even reading the post. So I can't quote Beau Mathison and say, "You got me...you got me good."

Hey but I just heard Ron got a new movie role..........

April Fool Joke gone bad:

[Duchess of Lashes]

I thought that was hilarious! Good for you and an April Fools karma too!

[maggiethecat]

Lest any of you around here think that I’ve suddenly had my sense of humor surgically removed, I assure you I haven’t. (Am I the only one who thinks it eerily amusing that an actor playing a vampire will be the new spokesman for The American Red Cross, known not only for community service and disaster relief but for their blood drives?) And so I feel the need to offer up a word of explanation for my reaction to inuvik’s April Fool’s “joke.”

Okay, maybe I overreacted. What the hell. I’m stressed to the max, I’ve been working flat out plus doing the caregiver thing for my aged mom, and my skin is pretty thin at this point. Plus we’re on week four of mlm828’s re-watch and I’ve not yet been able to contribute (Maggie missed The Pilot? Ouch. ) and it’s the best brain candy we’ve had around here for a long time. Call it Frustration Number One.

Frustration Number Two? I don’t have anything resembling a good set of Blind Justice DVDs. It’s kind of a patchwork affair. I have a Bochco-quality Emmy DVD of the first three, which I bought off eBay back when I seemed to have more money than I do now; I dare not watch it too often lest it degrade. “Up on the Roof” and “Doggone” I have on DVD thanks to Housemouse’s TiVO. ;D rducasey kindly sent me the last two episodes; extras she had from the Asian bootleg set. ;D The rest is on crappy-quality DVD that I bought from that rotten kid who was making them in his basement before eBay (or his mother) shut him down. So I was really looking forward to having professional DVDs that I could play and enjoy whenever the mood struck.

I wasn’t kidding when I said, re the re-watch, that I hadn’t watched the show in years. I am not some obsessed freak, folks — I was looking forward to nostalgically revisiting an old pleasure. I’m on a tight budget and really can’t afford $50 for the Asian bootleg set . . . but since the Blind Justice DVD release was announced for August 19, which is 11 days after my birthday, I immediately thought/fantasized that I’d ask for the set for my birthday. Dammit, I was really excited.

And, admittedly, the networks have started — since this board was formed — putting out all kinds of content on DVD, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that a groundbreaking police procedural-with-a-twist from Steven Bochco would finally be released. I mean, give me a break here: the cheesy remake of The Bionic Woman, which was a early cancellation/casualty of the writers’ strike and mourned by neither critics nor audience, is coming out on DVD. So why not Blind Justice?

Maybe it’s time, once again (just look at the number of posts in this thread) to try to find out just who owns the show that brought us all together: Twentieth Century Fox? Paramount? ABC? We need, as we have always needed, to put our energies, our passion, and our letter-writing skills into getting this show released on DVD. Again I say, why not?

All by way of saying, I guess, that if anyone out there can make me top quality DVDs I’ll pay shipping and send blank DVD-Rs (or whatever format works for you) in a postage-paid mailer.

Next April 1st?: I ain’t even loggin’ on.

[mlm828]

maggiethecat said:

Lest any of you around here think that I’ve suddenly had my sense of humor surgically removed, I assure you I haven’t.

Me neither. I basically agree that almost anything goes on April Fool's Day, but I'm not a big fan of the "gotcha!" brand of humor. Not that a Blind Justice joke would have been off limits. Maybe something like:

ABC today announced the contestants for the next round of Dancing With the Stars. They include Ron Eldard, noted ballroom dancer and star of the ABC series Blind Justice. . .

maggiethecat said:

Next April 1st?: I ain’t even loggin’ on.

Me neither.

[Duchess of Lashes]

Can we please try to keep this in context here? It was April Fool's Day after all and this was a terrific April Fools Joke, exactly how they are meant to be - not hurtful, not mean-spirited, not spiteful, just a really good "gotcha!" Whether you like that kind of humor or not, the thought of suggesting that someone should be smited for having a sense of humor unlike your own - that crosses the line of sensibility and I believe is something an "ordinary" member would no doubt have been chastised for!

We all have stresses in our lives and things we wish were different - perhaps that's why some of us found it to be quite funny - finally some humor at a time when there seems to be so little left to laugh about.

As much as we would like the status to be different, there is a slim to none chance that we will see Blind Justice released to the market - I don't think the 65 members of this Board are a really convincing argument for anyone to change their mind, and having talked to and written everyone I could possibly think of - ABC to 20th Century Fox, to Bocho's office - the answer became quite clear.

But, I have also learned to never say never - there are several things that have been released recently that I didn't think I would ever see again, i.e., Mod Squad! Maybe that's the trick...we have to wait 30 years until someone finally cleans the dust off the archive shelf!

As for April 1st next year...(if I'm still hanging around by then)....I will be logging on if for no other reason than to see what Inuvik has up her sleeve! I love a good "gotcha!"

[bjobsessed]

I have stayed out of this until now. I didn't have a problem with the joke at all. It didn't get me maybe because I figured we would have gotten a google alert or something more. If I had fallen for it, then good for inuvik. I would have laughed. I'm not worried about logging on next year. It kind of brought back memories from childhood really. No one I know plays jokes anymore at all. If it's not your kind of humor, let it slide by because to each his own so well said LL.

I am an eternal optimist. If we can see the Bionic Woman , The Mod Squad, and Love, American Style out on dvd, then BJ will come one day. I may be 65, but it will come.

Maggie, as for dvd's pm me. Maybe we can work something out. I can't stand the thought of someone being 'BJ-Less'

[mlm828]

bjobsessed said:

I am an eternal optimist. If we can see the Bionic Woman , The Mod Squad, and Love, American Style out on dvd, then BJ will come one day. I may be 65, but it will come.

I wish I could share your optimism. But I sincerely hope you're right, and I'm wrong.

Speaking of DVD releases . . . I haven't done a scientific study or statistical analysis, but it sure seems to me that fewer ABC shows are released on DVD than shows from other networks. Does anyone else have that impression? Or is it just because I wish a certain ABC show would be released on DVD?

[maggiethecat]

Oh, good Lord, what have I started here? My proposed smiting for the “joke” was in jest, honestly, and I am “totally cool” with the initiator of same. I admitted, humbly and emotionally, to overreacting and I thought that would be the end of it. ;D

As for whether or not the members of this board can make a difference, there is no evidence to support the supposition that we can’t. Looking back, the on-line petition we all happily signed seemed to do very little other than make us all feel a little better -- maybe we should have taken a leaf from the Jericho folks and sent ABC masses of sunglasses? Be that as it may. We all wrote letters to Steven Bochco and ABC when the show was still running and while Bochco appreciated our efforts, ABC, clearly, did not.

Once upon a time, back in the late 1980s, I was involved with a small but extremely vocal group of film historians and silent film buffs who, quite literally, pestered MGM into releasing on VHS (and subsequently DVD) such classics of the silent era as were languishing in their archives as Flesh & the Devil, The Big Parade, The Wind, and The Thief of Baghdad. This they did, and those who treasure the genre can see them on TCM’s Silent Sundays (the thinking being that anyone who loves silent film is either an insomniac or has no job to report to on Monday morning!) The pre-email thinking used to be that anyone who took the time to write to a network or a film studio represented some 1,000 who thought similarly but couldn’t be bothered.

So. What does this mean, if anything? Simply this. I finally got the chance to join in mlm828’s re-watch, tonight, by popping Housemouse’s TiVo DVD of “Up on the Roof” in my trusty DVD player . . . and it struck me, once again, that this show was like none other. It is unique, and therefore is worthy of consideration. For me it starts -- and, to a certain extent, ends -- with the writing. If it ain’t on the page, fuggedaboudit. And, as [ahem] a writer and editor by trade, I have to state that Blind Justice was better written than any show the networks have put on in the three years since March 8, 2005. Add to that top-flight production values, brilliant casting, and a kick-ass slate of directors . . . and it’s easy to see why, three years later, we are still celebrating this show and chewing over every line. Obsessed freaks? No way! This board was founded by, and has been maintained by, smart women (and Carl!) who include lawyers, writers, teachers, librarians, and grad students. We have lives. And we know great drama when we are lucky enough to come across it.

All by way of saying, once again, that we need to nail down who the hell owns this thing and start bugging them to release the show on DVD. With all the speculation and what if-ing, we still do not have a hard and fast answer: Who owns Blind Justice and who, therefore, could release it on DVD?

Let’s get busy! Dammit.

Mags

[housemouse]

With apologies to everyone who has spoken out in this thread, I think we are all missing the real point here:

Love American Style is available on DVD!!!

I'm gonna buy it just for the theme song, I can still hear "Love American style, truer than the red, white and blue-oh-oh-oh, love American sty-aisle, that's me and you..."

[maggiethecat]

That's our Mouse! LOL!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Duchess of Lashes]

housemouse said:

With apologies to everyone who has spoken out in this thread, I think we are all missing the real point here:

Love American Style is available on DVD!!!

I'm gonna buy it just for the theme song, I can still hear "Love American style, truer than the red, white and blue-oh-oh-oh, love American sty-aisle, that's me and you..."

And that's exactly how I felt the day I opened the mailbox and Season One of the Mod Squad had arrived. Finally getting Blind Justice on DVD may not be impossible....but by the time it is, I may be too old to shuffle off to the mailbox to pick it up. (And of course, by then my middle age son will want to know why it is that I still insist on watching that show.....again and again and again!)