With everyone buzzing about
tonight's debut for the highly anticipated 5th Season of
Lost, with the first of 17 episodes slated to air this year, it may surprise you to know that Amazon and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment have taken the show's time travel element one step further, with home video release info coming in advance of the premiere. It certainly surprised us this morning when longtime reader Chris Cook (our thanks for the heads-up!) alerted us that Amazon was already taking pre-orders for the DVD and Blu-ray Disc format releases of
Lost - The Complete 5th Season!!!
Neither listing at Amazon contains a release date for these products; the e-tailer simply says in each case that "
This title has not yet been released. You may pre-order it now and we will deliver it to you when it arrives." No other details are provided, either, except for pricing. The
DVD version shows a list price of $59.99 SRP, but as of this writing Amazon will let you lock in a copy for $38.99, after discount. The high-definition
Blu-ray Disc version's listing gives a list price of $96.99 SRP, but as I type out this story the cost Amazon will charge you is discounted to $67.49. Keep in mind, though, that all Amazon pricing is subject to change at their own discretion, without any prior notice. If the price happens to go down by the time the street date arrives, Amazon's policy is to sell it to you at the lower cost (and they won't charge your credit card until the package actually ships).
Both listings display the same 5th Season promo art (shown below) from ABC in the place where the home video package art would normally go. Obviously that is not finalized package art yet, but on the other hand
Lost releases on DVD and Blu-ray usually keep the same key artwork that the network has used to advertise that season, so this may be similar to what we eventually see. Still, keep in mind that the pictures shown at Amazon are not the actual home video box art, and therefore could be subject to all sorts of changes.
So, why the super-early pre-order listings for
Lost - The Complete 5th Season on DVD and Blu-ray? We can only speculate, but our guess is that between tonight's premiere of the season in question, along with creator J.J. Abrams' upcoming May 8th debut of the new
Star Trek theatrical film, Disney is going out of their way to get marketing cross-promotions rolling along. In fact, fans of Abrams' shows might be interested to know that on March 3rd the folks at Disney are releasing re-packaged (and re-priced) season sets of both
Alias and
Felicity, two of Abrams' earlier television efforts. No details yet on what the "repackaging" consists of, but if we find out anything then we'll post stories about it under each of those respective shows. Our thanks to reader John Stanley for reminding us to mention those.
Stay tuned for updates on all of the above, just as soon as we find out more. Bear in mind, though, that it will probably be a long, long wait for a
Lost update. In the meantime, it honestly wouldn't surprise us if Amazon changed their minds at some point and held off taking the pre-orders. Still, I'm getting mine in now, as Amazon will almost certainly keep it on record until the formal studio announcement and release happens (much) later this year.
