Barney Rosenzweig's "Barney Back 'Atcha" (4)

In comments on Barney’s blog of monday, november 26, 2007 New Beginnings at End of November:

-- nicky wrote
There are quite a few members over at HT software forum who want the remaining seasons released aswell as plently here but oh well... Is there any hope at all for seasons 2+ to be released?

barney answers
There is hope. MGM is contemplating various methods of distributing the series beyond the 22 episodes that they have allowed to be released thus far. I, for one, am hopeful that a successful launch in 2009 of the quartet of reunion films (The Menopause Years) on DVD will encourage the powers that be to revisit the series as a whole and to create a deluxe DVD package of the entire work all in one piece.

That, I have always believed, is what the fans want and that is what I fought for (without success) the last time I did battle with the keepers of the warehouse.

-- ashleigh wrote
HEY BARNEY!! wow thanks for posting a fresh blog. i live in the UK, im 18 and i ABSOLUTELY LOVE cagney and lacey!! i click onto the site EVERYDAY and im really excited about the new book release-im hoping to get it for christmas!! as for future dvd releases...where do i sign to show my support??!!

barney answers
Your “support” is noted and well-taken. I’m hoping you’ve got your book by now, and (if memory serves which these days it rarely does) I believe you do..

At any rate, keep checking the website (every day may be a bit excessive, but whenever you think of us it will be there) and we will keep you and everyone else informed of whatever movements are afoot to get more of the C&L episodes into the hands of our loyal fans. Be patient… remember, there are folks out there who have been waiting for this since before you were even born.

Did I mention that we love our young fans? We do.

-- charzanne wrote
Is the next season coming along or do we need to start a petition :) Please let me know if any more Cagney and Lacey is available and thanks for season one. It made my decade.

barney answers
We are looking forward to making this decade even better for you, long before another decade passes. There are petitions from fans and the Hathor Legacy,but thus far there is no official movement afoot to start petitioning anyone… rather a wait-and-see approach and a fervent hope that the only part of the series that I truly control (The Menopause Years… our four reunion films) will do so well in its 2009 DVD debut that it will inspire those itinerant managers in Hollywood ( who control the original series) to revisit the idea of releasing the show in its entirety on DVD.

-- lisa wrote
Good luck with the negotiations - we NEED a full series release and the films......which part of that don't these people understand???

barney answers
In fairness, the conventional wisdom among the managers who control this vast collection of TV series (old and new) is that the vintage television business is either dead or dying. Their belief system creates a self-fulfilling prophecy so that… sure enough… when they reluctantly get around to finally releasing a vintage show it does fail. These young executives then get to be right. Lord knows, in show business, as in so many other things, being right counts for something… but in this case, I believe, their view is myopic.

It does require a greater effort to sell a show that has been gathering dust for 25 years over a show that is on the air every week and is everyone’s current favorite. The latter is so much easier to identify and it is so much easier to convince the controller of all that shelf space in all those retail stores, that the question all- too-often asked is “why bother?” Why bother with the old when the show in question was made before the new seller was born and usually predates the birth date of the kid who manages the retail outlets as well.

This is a turf war and the territory is valuable shelf space… How can a vintage show compete with “24”, “Lost”, or “Desperate Housewives”?

It can only be done by understanding that some… not all… not even most… but some vintage TV is ICONIC. It is television that has not aged badly and, in fact, stands the test of time.

Cagney & Lacey falls into that category, but it is hard to convince a group of young execs who haven’t the time to even look at the show that these 125 hours are very different than the tens of thousands of hours they have in all those boxes at their vast warehouses.

It takes a passion… usually the kind put forth by an individual (say the guy who made the shows in the first place) to get this done, but now it is all by the numbers and all administered by a group of folks who have come together ostensibly for no other purpose than to do this work, but who (in reality) have come together to protect their asses and not make any decisions that cannot be defended by… you guessed it… “conventional wisdom.”

And that, Lisa, is what they “understand.”

-- stevie wrote
I'm SURE season 2 wont be long, but could they hurry it up a little? I've watched the first season over and over again and am VERY eager to watch more, and the 'Menopause years' I've heard so much about.

barney answers
Well, The Menopause Years is on the way… probably in a store near you no later than mid 2009.

Hopefully season two and what comes after will follow suit. The good news is it is worth the wait. Season two is better than season one and season three is even better than that and so on… We just got better as we learned more and more how to do what it was that we did and got more comfortable in the process.

Frankly… this commitment to quality control… was the thing about the series about which I was most proud. A lot of shows start out strong and fade. That was not our problem. I hope you get to see the rest soon and that you will see for yourself what I mean.

-- jo wrote:
Happy belated birthday! How was the book signing at Books & Books? Re your blog / this site, a few small suggestions:
(1) if it’s not too sensitive, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the WGA strike, in particular the new media issues they are wrangling about. Also, has it affected Sharon and Tyne much? (hope not!)
(2) have you started any new projects / hobbies? Understand that you have just “stopped, not retired” :)
(3) a section for trivia Q&A on C&L episodes would be nice

barney answers
We already have a trivia quiz on the Cagney & Lacey site.

I am going to leave it to the fans to come up with some further trivia suggestions… of course, I will reserve the right to add to them, but I need to have something trigger me in that direction. Puzzles and quizzes are not my natural bent, but I appreciate the fact that they are much appreciated by many.

The WGA strike is now in the past (sorry, we are behind on much of this interactive blogging) but its effects are still being felt in the industry that is now wary of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild.

The Guilds have many legitimate grievances, but this is absolutely the wrong time to put an industry… any industry… in a strike mode. It would be especially devastating for all those workers who have already had to endure one strike by the writers to now have to undergo another. The actors could find themselves very unpopular and without support from any sister unions.

Sharon and Tyne seem to have weathered the WGA strike fairly well, but it did put a damper on their plans to do a play together as the schedules of their other commitments were thrown into a tizzie by the strike.

New projects for me? Nothing too definitive, although I have enjoyed public appearances such as the one you mention at Books & Books and at the library of the University of Southern California.

I would like to find a way for them to at least be a break-even proposition. I am thinking of going into the market for an agent who could book me to do some public speaking. I like it and think I am pretty good at it, but I need a person in the business end of it to show me the money!

-- gordon f. corbett wrote
I just looked at http://www.allmyfavoriteshows.com . It lists a complete series of "the best of Cagney and Lacey." The "regular" price it lists for this series is $389.99, and they are offering it for a slight discount at $68.99. It must be offering it almost world-wide, because its listing says that it is recorded "region-free," meaning that people who use NTSC and PAL can play it. They do not say that people using the French and Russian system, SECAM, can play it, so "region-free" is probably a falsehood.

The fact that the DVDs' boxes' artwork lists the title as "Cagney and Lacey," without the American ampersand, tells me that this series may be a British-licensed version.

Please tell me whether, if I buy this series, I will be purchasing "pirate" or other theft. If we lay out our hard-earned money for something, we do not want to cheat anyone out of his or her due.

Please let me know.

barney answers
Anything that has more than the 22 episodes released by MGM/Fox is pirated and probably a recording made off the air. Good detective work about the ampersand.

There were some episodes released abroad out of the UK, but not anything close to the number of episodes that MGM/Fox put out…

“The best of Cagney and Lacey”…. Not sure who made that determination… Even Sharon, Tyne and I can’t agree on what those episodes might be.

-- heather danette wrote
I was excited to hear about the release of the four "Menopause Years" movies on DVD. Especially since there seems to be little hope of the release of any more seasons for the series. However, I was very disappointed by the latest news reported on tvshowsondvd.com. According to the article, the four movies are going to be released on a new high definition player format. This new format, HDVMD, will require a new player that could cost $200 to $300. This is really frustrating. First, the First Season DVD is only available on Amazon.com which really limited its availability and success. Now, they are only offering the movies on a new format that will also limit its success. Are they still trying to sabatoge the success of this series?

barney answers
My understanding is that our distributor on The Menopause Years will be releasing the package of four in DVD and possibly other formats as well.

-- Kim wrote
Any word on when the 4 "Menopause Years" movies along with the rest of the series will be released? We have enjoyed watching the first season again 25 years later. Looking forward to watching the rest of the series and the 4 movies again. The shows are timeless.

I can not figure out why they would only release the first season instead of the complete series. It seems every other show ever made has been released. Who can we write to (or in more modern times email) to demand the release of the entire series?

barney answers
Hold your fire just a little longer. The Menopause Years will be released in not too many more months (hopefully before Mother’s Day 2009) and I am optimistic that we will learn more from MGM about the remainder of the series not too much longer after that.

If they turn an unreasonable deaf ear to the series (and I do think that is unlikely, but still could be based on just how The Menopause Years performs) then there is always the e-mail equivalent of a march on Hollywood.

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