Tuesday, July 20, 2010

News: BIONIC WOMAN (1976) coming to DVD in October

I missed the announcement last week, but according to TV Shows on DVD, Universal has confirmed that the first season of the original Bionic Woman series from 1976 will be released on DVD on October 19, 2010.

A convoluted rights battle kept Universal from releasing both this series and its progenitor, The Six Million Dollar Man, on home video for years, but apparently it's all been cleared up now. This means that the Seventies' two most popular science fiction series will soon be on their way.

The four-disc set will contain all the episodes from the first season, plus the Six Million Dollar Man crossover episodes, "The Bionic Woman, Parts 1 and 2", "The Return of the Bionic Woman, Parts 1 and 2", and "Welcome Home, Jaime, Part 1" (almost always syndicated as a BW episode, but originally aired as a SMDM episode with "Part 2" originally airing as a BW episode).

In addition, there will be at a retrospective featurette and an audio commentary by producer Kenneth Johnson on at least one episode.

Universal still hasn't given a release date for The Six Million Dollar Man DVDs, and there are rumors that the discs will be issued as one of those Time-Life exclusives - which sucks, frankly, because while I can usually manage to buy shows one reasonably-priced season at a time, I never have enough cash on hand to buy one of those "complete series" sets.

I was a fan of both shows as a kid, and I'm looking forward to the DVDs (providing I'll be able to afford to get them). I saw a few episodes on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the 90s, and although they were a little dated, I still enjoyed watching them.

4 comments:

  1. This is great news. However, I'd like to point out that seasons 1 of BOTH Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man have been available in England and Latin America for some time now. I know because I live in Mexico and bought both shows just last week at my local Wal-Mart (yes, there are Wal-Marts in Mexico).
    Right now I'm in the process of seeing The Six Million Dollar Man set which is comprised of just the episodes, no special features at all. The sets can be bought online at England's Amazon.co.uk or Mexico's sanborns.com.mx or mixup.com, all of these sites ship to the US. You'll have to understand Spanish for the Mexican sites, however.

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  3. It looks like The Six Million Dollar Man *will* be a Time-Life "Complete Series" set and waaay to pricey for my wallet after all:

    http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Six-Million-Dollar-Man-The-Complete-Series/14119

    I guess it'll be a few years - if ever - before that particular childhood favorite graces my shelves....

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  4. FINALLY!! I hope it comes to Canada. It was my favorite show.

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