We have gotten mail from a significant number of you, our helpful readers, telling us that we've overlooked something! You're finding around the internet at a few sites, such as our friends at
Sitcoms Online, a full press release for
The New Adventures of Old Christine - The Complete 2nd Season on DVD. It's a legit Warner Home Video press release, stating that the set is due on May 6th. To verify it, you point to online retailer listings like
this one at Movies Unlimited. Yet you can find no such info at TVShowsOnDVD, and so you tell us that we seem to have overlooked it.
Thanks! But we haven't. We, like the others, saw the press release - dated January 21st - when it was first posted at Warner's password-protected press site. TVShowsOnDVD posted that immediately, and some of you saw it here. However, as soon as Warner's management saw that we had the press release up, they quickly asked us to take it back down, and they removed it from their own press site. Why? Because the availability of that press release was an error; it wasn't meant to be made public. The release date and other information in there was not finalized when it was accidently made public (it was a draft in progress), and should not be considered factual. Although that word hasn't apparently made it to everybody, the second season set will NOT be available in May, the studio has told us.
In fact, Warner tells us that one of the decisions the studio has to follow through on is this: whether to release the second season DVDs at all. Apparently the first season DVD set did not sell anywhere near the expectations. Now they must consider the established fact that first season sets always sell better than second season sets. As a result, the studio must decide whether there is going to be enough consumer demand for further DVD releases right now. If "yes", at all, then they need to figure out what the correct number of sets would be to produce, in order to not lose money on the project.
EDITORIAL: And that's the plain, brutal reality of the business world, in DVDs and elsewhere. We know a lot of fans tend to express the opinion that this sort of thing is somehow the studio's fault, and it's terrible that they want to actually make a profit on selling these sets. Honestly, that is the sort of nonsense we tend to hear over the years in these situations! The first rule to remember is that all businesses are in business to make money, and no company is going to move forward with a project that they feel is guaranteed to lose money. There's a word for managers who decide to do that: "fired". Since we don't want to lose the fine people at Warner who do a really great job of bringing us TV-DVDs, the best thing we can do is to figure out how we can each help. Our suggestion? Go buy
the 1st Season set, and encourage your friends to do so. Tell them how great the sitcom is that they've been missing while they were off watching
24, Prison Break, Heroes, Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, House, Samantha Who?, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles and/or
Deal or No Deal.
The 5th episode of the third season airs tonight, a season that was strike-shortened from the original 13-episode order down to just 9. For now, though, put your plans for the 22 episodes of
The New Adventures of Old Christine - The Complete 2nd Season DVDs on hold. If something changes, we'll certainly update you, so stay tuned.
