TV NEWS ON JULY 28

http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2012/07/digital-digest-more-sony-mod-offerings.html Welcome to Digital Digest! We're back for all of your news and a look ahead at Tuesday's releases, and this week, we have multiple reviews, with our reviews of The Rookies - The Complete Second Season, and we've also got two reviews of movies (with sitcom connections) recently released on DVD: the 1978 movie More Than Friends (starring Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner), and the 1986 movie Kate's Secret (starring Meredith Baxter). Let's get started! DIGITAL NEWS Manufacture-on-demand DVD products have been bringing some of our "lost favorites" to DVD lately, but Sony has been using them for some of their current series. This week, it was revealed that the Rules of Engagement - The Complete Sixth Season will be released as a MOD title on October 2. This is not the first time that the series has been released as a MOD title, as season five was released this way as well. Sony will also bring something much older to DVD (via MOD) on that date as well, with Iron Horse - The Complete First Season. And that isn't all. The same date will also bring two separate volumes of Hart to Hart reunion movies. Sadly, there is no word on actual season sets for Hart to Hart right now, but if that changes, we'll let you know. Sony actually has a bit more coming up, though, that isn't exclusively MOD. One of their biggest announcements in years (believe it or not) for classic TV comes with their announcement of Charlie's Angels - The Complete Series. It comes September 25 at a $65.99 MSRP. It will contain all five seasons of the series, including the never-before-released fifth season. Rumors are already floating about that this will be one of those "black spindle" releases (for those who aren't sure what that means, these are the value priced complete series sets which Sony has been putting out over the past few years with all of the discs stacked up on a very cheap plastic spindle inside of a thin cardboard box), and at that MSRP, that certainly seems likely... but we don't know that for certain. When we know more, we'll let you know! A more minor note from Sony is a repackaging of the season sets Seinfeld, also on September 25. Full details aren't really known about this, but new UPCs have appeared in Sony's upcoming slate of releases for every season of the series, and presumably, the sets will be packaged in smaller standard-sized packages which are more "retailer friendly," just in time for the holiday season (it may be a little early to be looking this far ahead, but I'm predicting we'll be seeing these repackaged versions dirt cheap on Black Friday). The MSRP for each set has already been reduced to $19.99, with prices much lower most places... so this is certainly a great value no matter what! Lucille Ball fans will come a bit closer to completion of their collections on October 9 as CBS releases The Lucy Show - The Sixth and Final Season. With this release, the only things missing as far as TV series for the "queen of comedy" on DVD include the final season of Here's Lucy and the one and only season of Life with Lucy. As for the final season of Here's Lucy, MPI has not announced a release just yet, but they have indicated that they will, in fact, release all six seasons, so it is only a matter of time until we do hear of a release for this set (hopefully by the end of the year). Life with Lucy doesn't seem to be on the radar from any studio for the time being, but we certainly hope that it eventually pops up somewhere. One of the most anticipated releases on DVD in 2011 was The Fugitive - The Complete Series: Most Wanted Edition, which ironically became "most wanted" itself as only a few copies managed to escape from CBS before the set was recalled, just a day before the scheduled release date. The release was supposed to not only include every episode, but also include a nice collection of special features and fix some of the issues that previous releases had where CBS spent a ton of money replacing the score in every episode to avoid paying music royalties, only to be met with frustrated and irate fans not appreciative of the destruction of the episodes. For reasons still unexplained, the set remained unreleased, and the few copies that did make it out there were shamelessly being sold online for hundreds of dollars over the MSRP. But now, there is good news: the release is back on the schedule, set for release on October 23 at a $239.98 MSRP. We don't know what, if anything, will be changed on this set from the previously cancelled release, and don't know if it will be better or worse than that set (although we're hoping for better). We'll let you know when we know! October 23 also brings more Perry Mason to DVD, with Perry Mason - Season 7, Volume 2. Don't forget, though, before that, CBS has Perry Mason - Season 7, Volume 1 coming on August 21!