PoDW official DVD release: links and discussion

The news is definitely making the rounds, and a lot of the major animation/SF/geek news outlets have picked it up. ToonZone, Geekosystem, Topless Robot, and Superheroes-R-Us all have mentioned the DVD release.

By the way, clarification on the price change from $19.95 to $29.95: WBshop.com told TVshowsonDVD.com that it was an error on their part to post the price as $19.95, and they apologize for that. They’ll obviously honor the price for people who ordered the DVDs before it was updated, though.

I also have updated the FAQ, and removed the torrent and streaming links from the right-hand column, in light of this official release. For people not in the US…try Google. That’s all I’ll say. 😉 With any luck, there will be an international release in the near future!

A couple of bigger mentions that are cool to call out:

Yahoo! Kids actually has a trailer for the show (a.k.a. the last couple of minutes of episode 1).

Wired’s “Underwire”* blog has a contest to win two free copies of the DVD set if you can write a compelling post about the show. I actually was on the fence about entering (since anyone who’s looked around this site can guess that I can write a fair amount about the show and its background), but I took some time to ask around and my friends were unanimous in saying I should go for it. So…yeah. 🙂 (Three guesses which comment is mine, ha! By the way, my screen name is meant to be read as “Smitha KP”–my first name and middle/last initials–not “Smith AKP.”)

One thing, though–labeling the series as “mostly unknown” is erroneous. I know I’m biased, obviously, and that it has nothing on, say, The Flintstones or Hanna-Barbera’s other shows. But it played on ABC, it played on Fox, it played in countries around the world–the 30,000 visits this site receives annually from 80+ countries definitely point to it being far from unknown. Still, it’s not like we truly have a solid fan base or “fandom” (if the latter is the mark of a popular show), but there are fans everywhere.

* really? I can’t be the only one to see that and think of a bra. Ladies? Anyone?

In other news, a couple of things…

– I’ve seen a couple of rather indignant comments over this DVD release, saying that people should boycott the DVDs because they’re so hastily made with no remastering or special care. Some people have even said that the money spent on developing the DVD should have gone to develop a continuation of the series instead. What do you all think about that? How do you feel about this DVD release?

– I just stumbled across this TVGuide article from 1991 about the Dark Water miniseries…and it changes some of my notions of how the end of the show was to play out. David Kirschner had originally only planned for 13 extra episodes after the miniseries. From that, it seems like they would have found a new treasure in each episode. Obviously the actual show did not play out in such a pat way. I do like that it didn’t just wrap up so quickly and it gave the characters a chance to grow and be fleshed out. But knowing more about the production side of things, the decision-making and negotiations that dictated how the show played out…that would be incredibly insightful and valuable to know.