In
our news last month about the contents of
24 - Season 3, we passed on from Fox that 6th disc in the set would have a "Season 4 Preview".
We imagined - as everyone else did! - that this would consist of some sort of extended trailer, or an interview with the cast and crew about how excited they were to be working on the show again, or some combination of these things. After all, we've seen this sort of thing before.
Earlier this week, industry insider magazine
Video Business reported that this wasn't the case. In editor Scott Hettrick's article,
"DVD Set Teases New 24 Season" (registration required), we are told that the preview consists of an "extra half episode (that) intros new characters"! Here are some highlights of that story:
Fox has set the bar a notch higher for DVD versions of TV series by producing what amounts to about half of an extra episode of 24 exclusively for the seven-disc collection of Season 3.
The 10-minutes of new footage on the Dec. 7 release will serve as a teaser for the delayed debut of the new season of 24 on Jan. 3.
Material offers the first introductions of the many new cast members and their characters...The scenes were all scripted and produced by the 24 creative team during production of the new season.
While the scenes do not play in a fluid storyline, they serve as a bridge to the events that took place from the end of last season and the beginning of the next.
They will not be shown on TV or anywhere else, according to Fox.
Awesome stuff, and a much neater way of cross-promoting the DVD and the fourth year of the show: Fans who get the DVD will get teased into seeing the new season, and fans who want to see the new season in its entirety will have another reason to buy the DVD set and see the lead-in to the next story arc.
