Probably of no concern to anyone else, but I was perusing through the new TV Guide (the one with the Housewives on the cover and Dana Delany looking so goddamn adorable) when I saw a 1/3-page ad for the Complete Series set of "Beauty and the Beast" that's being released this coming Tuesday.
Even though TVShowsonDVD posted about it months ago, details about the extras have never been officially announced (to my knowledge) and have been extremely hard to come by. However, once the TV Guide ad appeared and I did some searching on google, I found more details about what's on Disc 16 (the bonus disc):
- Disc #16 -- Beauty and the Beast: Bonus Disc (listing from Amazon.ca)
* Vincent's Quest (Interactive Trivia) - - Take an interactive journey with Vincent as he navigates the tunnels below Central Park in his quest to rescue Catherine. (description from DVDEmpire)
* Original Love Letters
o Masques
o The Beast Within
o Nor Iron Bars a Cage
o Song of Orpheus
* Newly Reconstructed Love Letters
o Once Upon a Time in the City of New York
o Terrible Savior
o Siege
o No Way Down
o Masques
o The Beast Within
o Nor Iron Bars a Cage
o Song of Orpheus
* Episodic Promos
I'm especially looking forward to the love letters - even though I don't know how they'll be presented - and of course I'm eager to see the vintage promos. But while these do sound great and all, I can't believe that's all that we're getting. I don't know exactly what the "Vincent's Quest" will really be. Will it be a great interactive feature that provides now-and-then featurettes about the New York locations used in the series, mixed with retrospective interviews? Or will it be some really tacky DVD tame that simply uses clips from the episodes and stupid trivia questions?
Either way I feel that the pay-off for the fans is not worth it. So much more could have been done with this release (for starters, restore/remaster Season 1's episodes, and include DVD subtitles instead of a television's Closed-Captioning). This is a HUGE cult show and fans would easily pay through the nose for something more akin to the "Twin Peaks": Definitive Gold Box Edition. Of course, given that less people know about "Beauty and the Beast" than they do "Twin Peaks", it was already obvious from the start that what the show would get on DVD would not be as great. But come on, they couldn't even scrounge up enough new interviews (or even throw in vintage ones) for an hourlong documentary? Still, I have to at least be grateful it's getting a bonus disc of material. This is Paramount, after all.
What would have been most interesting to have been included would be "20 Years of Remembering" videos that were done by FANS and easily available online (here's the
Main Site for the 9 videos). They provided the fan's perspective of what the show was to them (and one, I believe, is a "now and then" look at the locations used in the series, while another includes Ellen Geer, who was a recurring character on the series). Clearances may have been an issue, but I'm sure it could have been worked out.
albert
