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My wife and I have started getting seasons of our favorite TV shows on DVD. I want to get things like Farscape, B5, Highlander, and Nikita. She leans more to the Felicity, Party of 5, and Dawson's Creek shows. Can anyone give me a decent reason (besides the fact I'm a walking wallet who will pay those prices) why my shows usually run $40 - $50 more per season than hers? Do the sci-fi style shows not sell as well and have to have higher prices?

Listed below are Amazon Season 1 prices:
Farscape: $130
B5: $86
Highlander: $78
La Femme Nikita: $87

Felicity S1: $49
Party of 5: $37
Dawson's: $32
Gilmore Girls: $41

I can't tell you why, the but the Farscape DVD prices have always been INSANE. They were charging $20 for 2 episodes way back before they boxed up the seasons, which is patently ridiculous.

I notice that the sci-fi shows (with the exception of La Femme Nikita) are all sindicated shows.  Perhaps the fact that they were sindicated means that the target market for the DVDs is more fanboyish, therefore willing to pay more and/or that the show didn't pull in as much scratch when it aired, and they are trying to make up for that lost revinue.

In general though a niche product tends to have a higher price than a mainstream product.  B5 and Farscape are pretty damn niche, and Dawson is as mainstream as you can get.

As far as Highlander goes I'd just suggest getting the "Best Of" set instead.  It would be nice to get all six seasons I"m sure, but really most of them aren't worth watching more than once.

I'd really like to buy the full runs of a lot of shows, but there's no way I'm doling out that kind of bread for it. Friggin' highway robbery imo.

alt.binaries.dvd-r, $11.99 (http://www.giganews.com/)
DVD +/- RW drive, $80.00 (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=27-106-934&depa=0)
Owning every season of every show you've ever cared to watch, priceless.

Why go through Amazon?  I have done all my DVD orders through Deep Discount DVDs. (www.deepdiscountdvds.com)  They are always cheaper as well as shipping being a flat $5 for 2-5 day post.  I have had no problems in the past couple of years that I have ordered from them.

Farscape Season 1 - $90 (http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=ADV000100)
B5 Season 1 - $75 (http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=WBD022855)
Highlander Season 1 - $54 (http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=ABD012367)
La Femme Nikita Season 1 - $75 (http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=WBD023776)

The original "Star Trek" series is the same, $19.99 for two episodes.  Screw that.

Fixed that for you.

I buy my tv shows on dvd from Best Buy when they are carrying sales or a friend is around to get me the discount. I get most sets for under $50. The only 2 I can think of that cost me substantially more are seaons 1 & 2 of XFiles which ran me $100 a piece. But....I'm a slave to the dvd. My spending habits are not that of a normal man.

The same set up broke my poor bank account during my anime fanboi phase.  2-3 poorly dubbed eps on a $20 DVD was considered a good deal by The Community less than 6 years ago.

As sorry as I am to say this, I miss high school.  I actually had money then.

Its very simple: Sci-Fi shows cost 10X more to produce than sappy teen angst psycho-dramas.

Sappy Teen-Angst drama costs about 50x more in terms of music to produce. That's why WB has cut a lot of music from a number of it's releases. The RIAA peoples needs to get their moneyz. That said Farscape and SG-1 (which recently dropped in price, a LOT) have no *real* star attachments compared to say Smallville, Party of Five, or Friends.

The real reason Sci-Fi shows cost more on DVD is because only about 1/4 of the people will buy them (1/4 of the people who buy teen-angst shit).

Not just that fewer people buy them, but the demo is typicall young white  males 18-35.  This is a group that has a lot of cash to spend on entertainment.

Bruce

And has shown a slavish devotion to buying the table scraps from George Lucas, bitching endlessly about them while begging him to give them more, and then buying those SAME table scraps in another, shinier package.

Its the "Milk these sorry nerds of all the cash they can spare" demographic.

People with much disposable income who are easily distracted by shiny things. The marketing drones wet dream.

So you're telling me that a studio musician costs as much as a 15 minute CGI space battle sequence? Rather than be mean, I"ll just stop here.

I'll add that your theories fail when measured against retail sales figures for said shows. I'm fairly sure that Star Trek TNG has outsold Dawson's Creek at Hollywood Video.

For every single cinematic quality CGI scene in a television scifi show you can point to, I can point to a just as costly counterpart in a teen angst drama. No need to hold back. Ya just gotta realize, CGI in television sci-fi shows on the whole sucks.

If you're gonna go ahead and name some, don't bother pointing to miniseries, most of the time they are teen angst dramas with sci-fi threads (i.e. Taken).

Edit: Be warned though, I have Smallville on my side. It's more teen-angst than sci-fi. As well as the Joss Whedon stuff.

I'll tell you why. AD Vision is the people releasing them. For those who don't know, ADV was/is a big player in the North American anime market and are known for milking the fuck out of fans. Their anime DVD's are consistantly the most expensive in the genre yet have some of the worst sound quality and have very few, if any, "extras".  



Bah, USENET is part of basic internet access. If your ISP has shitty completion or retention, switch to a better ISP. Failing that, Easynews is 9.95 per month or 6 gigs(whichever comes first), has a retention period of at least 14 days per group (usually longer), and is THE USENET culture barometer of whether a post is propagated and complete or not as they have a 99.999% completion rate on properly posted stuff.

They're not all bad.  Looks like Firefly, the complete Series is available for $34.99

Did you even read the deals at the site I linked to?  Giganews has 10 GB/month for $11.99 and has 40 days of retention for binary groups (180 days for text newsgroups).  Giganews has been kicking Easynews's ass lately.

No, for a couple of reasons.

1) I was replying to MrHat's changes to your post adding a link to Netflix for whatever reason. I guess you can get TV DvD's there. Eh.

2) I use Newsfeeds, which combined with the way Newsbin handles multiple groups and servers gives me 100% completion with about a month retention and unlimited downloads daily. There's a per server limit, but there's so many servers that I regularly download 10 or 12 gigs a day and never hit enough limits to not download everything I request.

Giganews might be great, but the setup I have now is so good there's no reason for me to even think about looking for anything else. And from what I'm seeing in repost request threads, people are still using Easynews so there's been no reason for me to think anyone's beat them. Go Team Giganews if they've improved since I swore to never put money in their pockets again.

Shhhhh, Usenet is supposed to be a secret.  Could you imagine Usenet flooded with the Kazaa crowd spamming I WANT and GIMMIE msg's in the ten's of thousands per day?  Only way I can think of to break Usenet.

Seriously though Usenet probably won't ever go mainstream (theres that whole adult delayed gratification thing that most people can't fathom) plus if a group ever did go seriously to the dogs the regulars would just pick up and move to a different group with an obscure name.

And then theres always IRC...

Usenet will never hit mainstream because it takes patience and knowledge to use. Americans... hell, human beings aren't known for either of those qualities. The last time I used Usenet I couldn't get over just how much pr0n spam was everywhere.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Bad, good... I'm the one with the data.

Actually, whether it's a bad or good thing depends on whether you are a current Usenet user or not.

Speaking of tv shows on dvd. I just picked up Undergrads S1, Freaks and Geeks complete, Dead Zone S2, West Wind S1 & S2, Star Trek TNG S1, and Smallville S2. Set me back a pretty penny - though I found Star Trek used for $50, about $75 under msrp.

My problem is I don't actually have a tv in my bedroom so I only watch it on DVD. Though, admittedly, the only thing I 'collect' is DVDs, so things could be worse.

Last TV series I picked up was Shogun, the box came around to $35, well spent money for a series I can only understand half of the time.

I need to complete my collections of The West Wing, Buffy, and Angel (even though the last 2 seasons of Buffy sucked goat cock). I believe I will be picking up and or all of the following Britcoms soonish as well-

Red Dwarf (no parenthetical remark needed)
Black Adder (have the  VHS tapes, but I gotta upgrade and get the Millenium special and the Christmas special)
Coupling (this show is fucking hysterical...I can't believe the American version was so reviled)
The Office (American version coming soon...sure it will suck!)

I am a sucker from British sitcoms. Why is that, I wonder?

Then I would recommend Fawlty Towers for your list as well, Way.

I'm not sure how you can like the Coupling and the Office at the same time. One is derivative friends type humor with the nervousness and hormones cranked up and the other is the work of subtle genius. In other words one if rotting ass (I would assume you have a thing for the lead blonde, who wouldn't) and the other is very good.

Anyway yea, normally I like british comedy. Red Dwarf and Coupling however just didn't do much for me.

Apparently the problem is that the script was more or less unchanged, but they used US actors when they filmed the US version...  And tho I've never watched it, my friends claim that it's pretty obvious that none of the actors understood where the humor in their lines was supposed to be.  So most of the humor falls flat, funny lines read by the clueless.

--
Alkiera

I saw the one episode that aired at it's appropriate time. The script was changed, the storylines were the same though. It wasn't the actors, it was the writers. In the entire episode was one funny line. That's pretty much it. Of course, as I mentioned, I think the British one is pretty much crap cept for the blonde lead.

The British version of Coupling is what Friends was originally based on wasn't it? Or am I getting those two reversed? Either way, the British version was funny mostly because it was British and well-written, while I've heard the American version wasn't funny because it tried to adapt the series verbatim except with American actors and it just wasn't funny that way. Delivery has a lot to do with it.

You're not correct, sir.  You are, in fact, utterly wrong.

This show resonates with the same 'Britishness' that permeates Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Blackadder, Red Dwarf and many others.  It has peaks and troughs like any other show, but the first 3 seasons were hilarious.

Shame on your taste, Sir, Shame.

Am I wrong? Sorry, I've seen the first three seasons, they are neither subtle nor dry. They are a string of badly connected sex jokes with a masturbatory joke throne in for good measure every 4 or 5 minutes. The actors were not what I'd call stellar (let's compare their performance to Chandler of Friends), in fact, they weren't better than pretty much any other dramedy. It was just another tv show. The reason America is obsessed with it is A. it's foreign and B. it's more open about sex than many shows in america.

That doesn't make it good.

Oh, and have the audacity to compare it to Monty Python and Black Adder makes my balls shrink to the size of raisins. Those 2 shows are masterpieces. Coupling is not. Comparing it to them makes you look like a pop culture jackass.

While I wouldn't go as far as comparing to some GREAT shows (Black Adder and Red Dwarf in particular), I think Coupling is pretty damned funny. The deadpan delivery of some of the lines is what gets me I think. It light, cheery, titillating, and entertaining. Worth a Season Pass on my TiVo, and probably worth picking up the DVDs so I can share it with other people who don't get BBC America (or haven't caught it yet).