Juice boxes lack punch
As biz booms, TV-on-DVD tries to spice up offerings
Repackaging films as "extended" or "unrated" is all the rage for studios looking to edge disc sales upward, so it was just a matter of time before DVD marketers started tarting up TV fare in similar fashion.
One of the biggest growth areas in an overall flat biz, DVD sales of TV shows jumped 21.8% last year to $3.3 billion Stateside and continue to boom this year. Under pressure to grow this sector and ramp up their 'Net ventures, webs and homevid counterparts have started exploring ways to differentiate DVD versions.
Besides the "extra juicy" "Desperate Housewives" and "uncut" "Grey's," Disney issued an "extended experience" "Lost" set, which topped the VideoScan sales chart its first week in stores.
This week, Fox is releasing the first season of "My Name Is Earl" with a bonus "misadventure" and in December will again entice "24" fans with a prequel episode.
This ploy can be even trickier to pull off with TV fare than movies, given the ongoing fealty on which series depend. The last thing a web wants to do is alienate fans with a DVD set that promises more than it delivers (gyp!) or mess too much with characters they love.
The "Grey's Anatomy" set, for example, trumpets four extended episodes, and while they all technically fit the bill, none adds any measurable sexiness or outrageous revelations, as one might expect given the "uncut" label and nature of the show. Indeed, most of the restored cuts seem to have been surgically excised due to time constraints.
Clearly, there's a world of difference between untrimmed TV episodes and films dependent on MPAA ratings then trotted out later in uncut or unrated versions.
A fantasy shower scene aired in a post-Super Bowl episode of "Grey's Anatomy" appears in different form on the DVD set, but it is nothing to get lathered up about. In their commentary, creator Shonda Rhimes, director Peter Horton and editor Edward Ornelas address the scene -- a blatant ploy to lure football fans to the estrogen-fueled show -- and mention almost in passing that the disc version didn't fly with the network, but don't explain why.
Instead, they talk about how they struggled to find the right tone for the high-profile slot, and amusingly relate their terror upon learning the network gave them far more extra time than they lobbied for.
Rhimes and editor Susan Vaill outline at least nine trims, some quite short, on the Thanksgiving episode that add up to five and a half minutes of extra run time. Yet once again avid viewers might be hard pressed to pinpoint what has been restored without pointers from the commentary track.
Throughout, staffers keep saying they added scenes back for fans, but it's not really clear who they're really serving -- themselves? -- given how hard they are to detect.
On the other hand, the commentary does serve as a primer on the rigors of editing episodes to fit the 42-minute mark. And, to be fair, these moments do not appear overly self-indulgent or pandering, which can't always be said of extended versions of films.
The "Desperate Housewives" set also fails to live up to its promised juiciness, though the extras do include a few amusing featurettes, along with two abandoned storylines. Even without creator Marc Cherry's explanation, it's easy to see why they were cut. However, Cherry's reminiscences with his mother are fun, as is another featurette wherein TV moms of the past assess the women of Wisteria Lane.
Far better: the bonus reverse karma mini-episode in the "My Name Is Earl" set. The so-called "lost pilot" turns the skein's original pilot on its head: Instead of being inspired by Carson Daly to make amends for his behavior, Jason Lee's Earl hears "Family Guy's" Stewie Griffin talk about revenge and decides to seek it. In the commentary, creator Greg Garcia, co-star Ethan Suplee and director Marc Buckland split a gut at Lee's fake mustache and cross-dressing turn.
Filled with sight gags and absurd lines like "Can I pee in the oven? I've always wanted to pee in the oven," the episode is flat out funny.
The creators explain that they really didn't want to do it when "Twentieth" asked them to (it was at the end of the season), but they quickly got into the spirit. Shot in three days instead of the usual five, the bonus DVD episode incorporated existing footage from the original pilot with a big assist from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, thanks to Garcia's stint on the show.
It's no surprise Disney has become so aggressive about plumping their TV offerings on disc: Last year, the Mouse House ran into resistance from Wal-Mart over its TV download deal with iTunes, but the two soon resolved their differences.
Creating extras that live up to their billing is another matter entirely.
