Paramount Home Entertainment has released tentative DVD plans for 2005, and it contains lots of good news for TV-on-DVD fans. Ahead of next week's 2nd annual TV-DVD Conference, we have solid info about Par's plans for a lot of shows that have been mentioned on the grapevine for a while. Plus a few true surprises, not to mention the not-so-surprising continuation of many ongoing series on DVD.
The Final Frontier
First, the least surprising news in the group:
Star Trek: Enterprise is coming in 2005. We've had
confirmation from StarTrek.com that
Enterprise was in-the-works, after
months of rumors from our good friends at TheDigitalBits.com told us all to expect this. Now we can tell you that Par's plans go well beyond the first season: while you'll see that release sometime in the first half of the new year, the goal is to space out subsequent season sets in the Summer (think July), early Fall, and pre-Thanksgiving. This means that you'll get all four seasons of
Enterprise in time for the Winter holidays, which will surely give the series a boost should the folks at UPN decide to continue producing new episodes after the current (4th) season is up.
Top Vote-Getters At TSoD
Two of the most popular series here at TVShowsOnDVD which haven't had any DVD releases announced yet are
Charmed and
MacGyver. We've
told you for quite some time that
Charmed should be seen in 2005, and nothing we've heard has changed that. On the other hand, Paramount's not ready today to talk more about that particular property. They could say more about it in the next day, next week, or next month for all we know here at TVShowsOnDVD. We're convinced you'll see it in 2005, but we have nothing to add to that at this time.
MacGyver, on the other hand, is a completely different story! There are some high-speed plans for this show, starring the ever-popular Richard Dean Anderson. Look for that series to not only arrive on DVD in 2005, but to quickly hit a fast track and demand space on your shelves at home. Plans can always change (expect us to repeat that another dozen or so times), but you can potentially look for quarterly releases to arrive in January, April, August, and December.
Classics, Classics, Classics!
Paramount also has plans to release
The Brady Bunch starting in 2005, with ambitious plans to fast-track it, too, and get as far as the 3rd season by late August and perhaps a 4th season in time for Thanksgiving. Lots of us have been wondering where this show was, and it's good to know that we'll be seeing a lot of Marcia, Marcia, Marcia in 2005.
Andy, Barney, and Opie get more attention next year as well. Fans are eagerly awaiting the November 16th release of
The Andy Griffith Show - The Complete 1st Season, and some of you are already asking whether there's more of these sets waiting in the wings. Sure enough, there are! Look for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons of this classic show to arrive on DVD before Summer 2005 is over. Oh, not all at once, of course. But they're a-comin'!
Speaking of accelerated releases, both
Cheers and
Frasier are picking up the pace, too! We've already told you to expect the 4th season of each of these to be released on the same day in early 2005, during the Winter months. There are plans also for Season 5 of each in the Spring, S6 in the Summer, and S7 in the Fall. These two shows have always been released in step with each other, on the same street date - the only exception being
Frasier's "oddball" release of the final (11th) season (arriving 11/16/04) to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the end of the show. Now you can look for
Taxi to fall in step with those two shows: Paramount wants to include this popular sitcom on the same street dates as
Cheers and
Frasier throughout 2005. The 1st season just arrived this past Tuesday, but you'll be able to hail another cab in early 2005 as well. And that 2nd season set will be followed by the 3rd, 4th, and 5th years on the same dates as the follow-ups to
Cheers/Frasier.
Vegas, Miami, The Big Apple
Fans of
C.S.I., we haven't forgotten about you. We've just gotten the 4th season of the original show this week, along with
Taxi, but everyone's already asking "when's the 5th season coming?" The bad news is that you won't get that until October 2005, so you've got a year to wait. But in the meantime, CBS/Paramount's got plenty of
C.S.I. to go around! We've
already told you that
C.S.I.: Miami - Season 2 will hit on January 4th. And you can expect the
Season 3 release to hit in Sept. 2005, if nothing makes those plans change between now and then. The really big news, though, is that you can look forward to a late Summer release of the new series,
C.S.I.: New York, on DVD as well. Wowsers, what a nice surprise!
Not Bored Yet, Are You?
We hope not, because we're not done yet!
7th Heaven looks to get up to the 5th season before 2005 is over; since there's only one season out right now, you can do the math on the rest! UPN's popular show
The Parkers, plus Tia and Tamera Mowry's
Sister, Sister are also in Paramount's sights, with a pair of season set releases for each during next year (one in the Spring and one in the Fall). And don't forget that there are other shows we've already been told to expect in the first part of 2005 as well:
Hogan's Heroes,
Family Ties...we won't bore you with repeating stuff we've already talked about in the past. As far as we know, nothing's changed if we've talked about it prior to today. Let's move on to new stuff for the young-uns.
Kid Stuff
Kids of all ages will be extremely happy to know that Paramount is thinking of them throughout the year. We'll start with a favorite of my own son's:
Transformers. Look for a pair of new
Energon releases on February 22nd:
Omega Supreme and
Shockblast Unleashed. Then around August look for the first DVD for the newest series in the franchise,
Transformers: Cybertron.
If that's not your kid's style, then look for a pair of releases from
Jakers: The Adventures of Piggley Winks in August. PBS shows like
Teletubbies, Boohbah and
Cyberchase get releases in March and August.
Caillou returns to DVD in August and October, if things go well.
If Nautical Nonesense Be Something Ye Wish...
Spongebob fans get a whole paragraph to yourselves! Just in front of next Tuesday's release of
Spongebob Squarepants - The Complete 2nd Season box set, we can tell you that it will be exactly a one-year wait for
The Complete 3rd Season: Paramount has pencilled in a date of October 18, 2005. Single-disc releases are still happening, though, with the 1/4 release of
Home Sweet Pineapple, the 6/7 date for
Plankton's Revenge, and finally 8/2's disc for
Gary's Snail Tales.
You want more Nick Jr.? You got it!
Rugrats see the light of day again in September '05, but along the way you'll get
All Grown Up in January, April, August, and October.
Dora The Explorer is well-represented in Jan, Mar, May, Sep, and early Oct, with her second box set collection planned for October 25th.
Blue's Clues gets similar treatment, if a bit less often: Jan, Apr, Aug, Oct, and a 10/25 release of
Box Set 2. Look for more
Fairly Oddparents in January, June, and August. Plan on more DVDs from
As Told By Ginger in April and July. And look for a pair of
Max & Ruby titles:
Springtime for Max & Ruby on 2/22 and
Max & Ruby's Halloween on 8/30...again, assuming nothing changes between now and then!
More Amanda, Please!
Hot on the heels of the
recent release of
The Amanda Show, starring hot hot actress Amanda Bynes, comes three more titles throughout the new year: 2/22's
Totally Amanda, 7/12's
Penelope's Picks, and 9/20's
Trudy's Duties.
The Fine Print
Paramount's totally rolling in 2005, with high-level plans to get your attention and bring you many of the titles you've been wanting. Again, and we CANNOT repeat this strongly enough, these are long-range, tentative, pencilled-in plans that are in no way set in stone. Paramount is noted for being flexible on their schedules and could move things back...or up, for that matter. We're frankly a bit surprised that they made this info public at this time, but we're very grateful for the look ahead. We encourage our readers not to take any of this as a "promise," nor to blast Paramount or their sister companies, nor to blast us here at TVShowsOnDVD, if things change and any of this gets cancelled. As we all know, the world of DVD in general (TV-on-DVD or otherwise) is full of a lot of challenges, not the least of which is on the legal side of things. Rights shift owners, challenges pop up, licenses for music and extras get in the way, and co-operation gets delayed or yanked. Non-legal issues can also push around the street dates or get a title cancelled outright: original elements could be a problem, participation might not be available, resources (such as manufacturing lines or other production staff) might be tied up, etc. So please, take everything with a grain of salt, and not just in the above-mentioned titles. It's a good rule of thumb whenever you're interested in collecting DVDs.
We hope to have lots more info about these new releases from next week's TV-DVD Conference. Also, a final caution: just because your favorite show wasn't mentioned above, doesn't mean that it's impossible to see it during 2005. The issues we just discussed also sometimes mean that a title is added to the schedule later on, after things get hammered out at the detail level. Because when the studio knows about the obstacle up front, they always clear that hurdle before they plan to release the set. So, is even more coming? As always, stay tuned to find out, and don't touch that dial!
