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ivyficAnd the award for dumbest packaging goes to ... Alliance Atlantis.
I read online that season 4 of due South was available for cheap at Best Buy. I bought all the others seasons through the Canadian amazon for $70 and up, and I then saw them at Best Buy for under $20, so I figured this time I'd save the 70 and just skip to the cheap set.
I go to Best Buy and they have one set. It says in little print on the spine "season 3" so I figure I'm out of luck. Then I spot the first Ray Vecchio, David Marciano on the spine. For those unfamiliar with the show, for the first two seasons it starred Paul Gross and David Marciano. It was cancelled at the end of season 2, then picked up a while later for another season. By this point, DM had moved to California and wasn't willing to move back, so they recast the role of Fraser's partner with the inimitable Callum Keith Rennie.
Try to follow along here.
The photo on the front is a huge one of Paul Gross and David Marciano. The text on the back says, and I quote "Canadian actor Paul Gross stars as RCMP Constable Benton Fraser, with David Marciano as his reluctant partner, Ray Vecchio." Underneath this are a few photos from the show. This images are from the episodes "Victoria's Secret," "The Pilot," "Invitation to Romance," "They Eat Horses Don't They," and "Manhunt." These are all episodes from season 1. Not only are these episodes with the original Vecchio, they're episodes from the first fracking season! It looks like they took the press kit for the original release of the show and didn't update it at all.
Under this are images of the four DVDs, all with a picture of Paul Gross and David Marciano from the pilot. On one DVD is visible a list of episodes: "Good for the Soul;" "Dead Men Don't Throw Rice;" "Say Amen;" "Hunting Season;" "Call of the Wild."
These are episodes from season 4. Not three. Not one. Four. Now I know there's no definitive line between seasons 3 and 4 because of different airing schedules between Canada and America, but one would think that since they'd already released a season 3 set that ended with "Mounty on the Bounty," they'd consider all the episodes after that season 4.
At this point I call over a sales girl and ask her what season this is. It says three; the images are one; the episodes are four. She looks at me baffled and tells me that if it's not what it's labeled to be I still can't return it.
I figure twenty bucks is a good investment, buy it and immediately rip the packaging off to try to find an episode list.
There is no episode list.
In fact, each DVD is completely identical - no episode list, no text, not even disc numbers. There is no insert or, and certainly no special features. When I get home I discover that this covers all of the episodes from season 3 and 4. I watched one ("Call of the Wild" - which is amazing, by the way, but more on that when I'm not ranting) and found that when the action is too quick, it goes all pixelated like a badly encoded .avi file.
Basically, this is a licensed bootleg of the product. I'd get better quality buying pirated tapes off eBay.
And I'd like to reiterate again because it bears repeating:
Nowhere on the box, the inside or the DVDs does the name or the image of Callum Keith Rennie appear although he is the co-star of the show.
Now, I love that I now have season 4 for a mere $20, but this has to be the shoddiest DVD box set that's ever been released. If they'd wrapped the DVDs in brown paper and written "dS" on it with a sharpie they couldn't have created less informative packaging.
I know hardcore fans know enough about the show to see this as a deal, but would anyone in their right minds pick this up if they didn't know the whole complicated history of the show? And if they did, wouldn't they be confused that the guy on the box is only in two episodes? Surely this breaks some law about truth in advertising.
/end rant
I read online that season 4 of due South was available for cheap at Best Buy. I bought all the others seasons through the Canadian amazon for $70 and up, and I then saw them at Best Buy for under $20, so I figured this time I'd save the 70 and just skip to the cheap set.
I go to Best Buy and they have one set. It says in little print on the spine "season 3" so I figure I'm out of luck. Then I spot the first Ray Vecchio, David Marciano on the spine. For those unfamiliar with the show, for the first two seasons it starred Paul Gross and David Marciano. It was cancelled at the end of season 2, then picked up a while later for another season. By this point, DM had moved to California and wasn't willing to move back, so they recast the role of Fraser's partner with the inimitable Callum Keith Rennie.
Try to follow along here.
The photo on the front is a huge one of Paul Gross and David Marciano. The text on the back says, and I quote "Canadian actor Paul Gross stars as RCMP Constable Benton Fraser, with David Marciano as his reluctant partner, Ray Vecchio." Underneath this are a few photos from the show. This images are from the episodes "Victoria's Secret," "The Pilot," "Invitation to Romance," "They Eat Horses Don't They," and "Manhunt." These are all episodes from season 1. Not only are these episodes with the original Vecchio, they're episodes from the first fracking season! It looks like they took the press kit for the original release of the show and didn't update it at all.
Under this are images of the four DVDs, all with a picture of Paul Gross and David Marciano from the pilot. On one DVD is visible a list of episodes: "Good for the Soul;" "Dead Men Don't Throw Rice;" "Say Amen;" "Hunting Season;" "Call of the Wild."
These are episodes from season 4. Not three. Not one. Four. Now I know there's no definitive line between seasons 3 and 4 because of different airing schedules between Canada and America, but one would think that since they'd already released a season 3 set that ended with "Mounty on the Bounty," they'd consider all the episodes after that season 4.
At this point I call over a sales girl and ask her what season this is. It says three; the images are one; the episodes are four. She looks at me baffled and tells me that if it's not what it's labeled to be I still can't return it.
I figure twenty bucks is a good investment, buy it and immediately rip the packaging off to try to find an episode list.
There is no episode list.
In fact, each DVD is completely identical - no episode list, no text, not even disc numbers. There is no insert or, and certainly no special features. When I get home I discover that this covers all of the episodes from season 3 and 4. I watched one ("Call of the Wild" - which is amazing, by the way, but more on that when I'm not ranting) and found that when the action is too quick, it goes all pixelated like a badly encoded .avi file.
Basically, this is a licensed bootleg of the product. I'd get better quality buying pirated tapes off eBay.
And I'd like to reiterate again because it bears repeating:
Nowhere on the box, the inside or the DVDs does the name or the image of Callum Keith Rennie appear although he is the co-star of the show.
Now, I love that I now have season 4 for a mere $20, but this has to be the shoddiest DVD box set that's ever been released. If they'd wrapped the DVDs in brown paper and written "dS" on it with a sharpie they couldn't have created less informative packaging.
I know hardcore fans know enough about the show to see this as a deal, but would anyone in their right minds pick this up if they didn't know the whole complicated history of the show? And if they did, wouldn't they be confused that the guy on the box is only in two episodes? Surely this breaks some law about truth in advertising.
/end rant
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 03:21 pm (UTC)Caveat emptor!
Date: 2006-01-05 06:22 am (UTC)I have seen references to the fact that the Canadian DVDs were produced using the show's masters while the US likely had VHS sources, resulting in poorer quality (along with the fact that they cram a whole season of hour-long episodes on four discs!). Because of the much lower price point, I was considering buying the US releases anyway--they're probably still better than the tapes I made from TNT after all--but your review indicated it may not be worth it. I'd love to own this series for not much money, but it might be worth holding out for the more expensive sets...though I also think their packaging sucked given the overlapping disc trays, which isn't such a big deal.
Right. Hope I cleared things up.
Re: Caveat emptor!
Date: 2006-01-05 03:12 pm (UTC)That's what I figured, which is why I bought it. It makes sense to be aired as one season, with "Mounty on the Bounty" as the sweeps week two-parter, especially since Vecchio says in "Call of the Wild" that he's been gone a year. That explains why the set was labeled season 3, but it still doesn't explain the shocking lack of CKR on the packaging.
I'm not a fan of the Canadian sets either, really, with their double-sided discs in overlapping packaging. One of my season 1 discs started to crack from the force needed to remove it from the packaging (I've now transfered them to other cases). I'm enough of a videophile that I'd like to get the Canadian season 4 at some point, but it wasn't in the budget and I wanted to watch CotW, so I stooped to the American set.
Why can't they package these things better? due South was one of the first shows I remember going to DVD, but it's always had the worst packaging.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 01:41 am (UTC)