Pre-2000s Television on Blu-ray

[Ribs]

Mill Creek will be putting out I Dream of Jeannie this July.

[FrauBlucher]

[Monterey Jack]

Been rolling through the Blu release of Knight Rider on Blu (major childhood favorite that holds up better than I would have expected), and for a Mill Creek release, it looks pretty great.

[Ribs]

A Trek fansite is reporting that CBS is going ahead with doing a proper HD remaster of Deep Space 9.

[Big Ben]

A Trek fansite is reporting that CBS is going ahead with doing a proper HD remaster of Deep Space 9.

If this is indeed true this is great news. The remastered TNG episodes look great and I'm looking forward to seeing this happen to Voyager was well.

[Dr Amicus]

Original series Doctor Who has continued being released, after some Covid related delays (you can see various measures being taken in some of the newly produced extras). Series 8 (aka Jon Pertwee series 2) came out recently and, from what I watched (the first serial, Terror of the Autons) looks considerably better than I have ever seen. What's notable especially in this series (of the ones released so far this is the earliest) is that original broadcast masters do not exist for many of the episodes and magic / advanced technology has been used to colour black and white prints with the colour from an NTSC source. This particular story has always looked a little rough (to put it mildly!), but this time seems almost indistinguishable from the other stories. Anyway, this is definitely a fan favourite season (it introduces both the Master as a recurring villain and the frankly bonkers Katy Manning as Jo Grant and the season ends with The Daemons, a much loved story) - unlike the next release, Season 24, the first Sylvester McCoy series, which is one of the weakest seasons of the run and co-stars a miscast and ill-used Bonnie Langford.

As noted earlier, the UK releases are limited editions - it seems earlier OOP release are now being reissued in standard packaging, same on-disc extras and losing much of the background information / production details from the booklet. The plan is still, seemingly, to releast the entire run of 26 seasons - not noted previously is stories that do not exist apart from audio recordings are being recreated in animation. Previously this had been used to complete stories where the majority of episodes were held - but it seems now the intention is to animate every remaining story, about half a dozen so far with more to come. These have been released as stand-alones to date - presumably when tackling the box sets of these seasons they will end up in there as well.

[Orlac]

The Daemons was my first story - specifically the 1992 repeat. And it's likely the only show to ever feature Matthew Corbert as a Satanist.

[colinr0380]

The Daemons was my first story - specifically the 1992 repeat. And it's likely the only show to ever feature Matthew Corbett as a Satanist.

"What's that Sooty?... Izzy Wizzy, let's all hail Satan?.... And you want to get to the ceremony in which the High Priest Sweep is going to be sacrificing Sue on the blood altar? I suppose it does sound fun!"

I have never been the biggest Doctor Who fan but I do remember Sylvester McCoy being my childhood introduction to the show. Does series 24 have the storyline set inside a futuristic tower block involving Bertie Bassett-type (though legally distinct I am sure!) monsters feeding various tenants down the disposal chutes to some thing waiting to eat them in the basement? I remember the cliffhangers from that sticking with me as a kid! I think that was a Bonnie Langford storyline, though didn't they replace her with the tomboy-ish Ace quite soon into the McCoy run?

[Orlac]

The Daemons was my first story - specifically the 1992 repeat. And it's likely the only show to ever feature Matthew Corbett as a Satanist.

"What's that Sooty?... Izzy Wizzy, let's all hail Satan?.... And you want to get to the ceremony in which the High Priest Sweep sacrificing Sue on the blood altar? I suppose it does sound fun!"

I have never been the biggest Doctor Who fan but I do remember Sylvester McCoy being my childhood introduction to the show. Does series 24 have the storyline set inside a futuristic tower block involving Bertie Bassett-type (though legally distinct I am sure!) monsters feeding various tenants down the disposal chutes to some thing waiting to eat them in the basement? I remember the cliffhangers from that sticking with me as a kid! I think that was a Bonnie Langford storyline, though didn't they replace her with the tomboy-ish Ace quite soon into the McCoy run?

Bertie Bas - I mean, The Kandyman, was in the Season 25 story "The Happiness Patrol."

Ace took over from Mel at the end of McCoy's first season, 24.

[Adam X]

A Trek fansite is reporting that CBS is going ahead with doing a proper HD remaster of Deep Space 9.

If only Warner Bros. cared as much (or even just a little) about Babylon 5...

[Big Ben]

A Trek fansite is reporting that CBS is going ahead with doing a proper HD remaster of Deep Space 9.

If only Warner Bros. cared as much (or even just a little) about Babylon 5...

They literally remastered it and released an HD version this year. It took six years!

[Adam X]

Well, kinda. It’s really just more of the “better than nothing” approach that WB have had with the show for it’s entire hone video history. The scenes involving CG & compositing (which is a lot of the show) are an upscale of 4:3 broadcast masters (so it mostly gets rid of the issues with the DVD release). To top it off, they uploaded the episodes with numerous errors and essentially crowd-sourced the QC.

Not quite the same as Paramount’s HD remasters of Star Trek. But, you know, it’s better than nothing...
Hopefully a BD release eventuates.

[Ovader]

Not really a surprise, Kino is releasing the Kolchak series on Blu-ray in October.

Tim Lucas posted on Facebook he was assigned some episodes for audio commentaries in reference to someone who sent him copies of the scripts of the KOLCHAK episodes.

[Dr Amicus]

ColinR is thinking of Paradise Towers, a season 24 story inspired by Ballard's High Rise - it's not great but has its moments (Elizabeth Spriggs and Brenda Bruce as cannibalistic old ladies!). The not-at-all-honest Bertie Bassett look-a-like Kandyman is indeed from The Happiness Patrol from the yet-to-be released season 25. I screened this latter story as part of my SF course at university - it's an interesting, quirky dystopia with Sheila Hancock going full Thatcher and the never-reused (thanks to the threat of legal action IIRC) Kandyman is a great creation. Season 24 is not great - one of the weaker seasons on the whole (Bonnie Langford works best in the audio adventures paired with Colin Baker) but with its moments - Dragonfire concludes with one of the goriest effects in classic Who and introduces Ace, the VFX in the season opener were a highpoint for the series to date. Seasons 25 and the already out 26 are much better as script-editor Andrew Cartmel sought to bring greater mystery to the central character, the stories tend to be rather more interesting and the Sylvester McCoy / Sophie Aldred relationship is one the best Doctor / Companion pairings.

[Orlac]

I prefer McCoy's Season 24 persona to how he is later on. And funnily enough, Colin Baker's coat looks pretty good on him!

[Ribs]

There is a Kickstarter for an HD restoration and eventual Blu-ray of the Abbott and Costello show.

[domino harvey]

Sex and the City coming from WB in November

[lethallyfab]

Are there any stats regarding SATC’s aspect ratio? HBO recently “remastered” the entire series into 16x9 for HBO Max despite it being shot in 1.33:1.

[Never Cursed]

It's probably gonna be 16x9 unless there's an older HD master of the episodes (which I doubt there is). Is the 16x9 version just cropped, or did they do the same thing as The Wire where they used the full frame and did VFX work and whatnot?

[Ribs]

The Incredible Hulk and original MacGyver will be coming this Fall from Universal, which to me definitely seems to suggest Columbo might very well be on the horizon.

[domino harvey]

Shockingly, Paramount will be releasing the complete series for the Andy Griffith Show next month, which was long ago abandoned after only the first season was released

[domino harvey]

Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers

[EddieLarkin]

Ken Burns' Baseball, newly restored, coming out April 23rd.

Turns out they cropped this terribly to 1.78:1, so it should go on the list of shame. A strange choice considering they didn't do this with The Civil War.

[Ribs]

Frasier Complete Series coming out in November!

[domino harvey]

Wow, nice. I’ve been wanting to revisit it lately— could Cheers be next?