Since NBC just launched the remake of the 70s sci-fi drama The Bionic Woman (I still love you Lindsay Wagner), some people are wondering if we'll ever see the original on DVD. TVGuide.com has an interesting story explaining why the original show (and the show it was spun off from, The Six Million Dollar Man) hasn't been released on DVD yet. And, you guessed it, is has to do with licenses and ownership.
The Six Million Dollar Man (based on the Martin Caidin book Cyborg) was owned by Universal for years, and then a few years ago when the license came up for renewal, Universal...forgot, or something. Dimension Films grabbed the rights, but (and here's where it gets complicated) while Dimension owns the rights to Cyborg and the bionic plots, Universal still owns the right to the footage of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.
Perhaps one day the two parties will get together and we'll see the shows on DVD. In the meantime we can perform our own versions of the shows, making that "brrrrrrrrring a ching a ching" sound that used to accompany Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers jumping with our mouths.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-07-2007 @ 12:23PM
KMF said...
That's a bummer. I love the original Bionic Woman and would rather watch that than this new one.
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10-07-2007 @ 1:12PM
Carissa said...
Well, if you need a fix, you can buy cheap versions of copies of the entire series on DVD on various sites. Better than nothing. It was one of my favorite shows ever and still remains so. It was on Sci-Fi about 10 years ago, but has long since been abandoned. :-(
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10-08-2007 @ 10:44AM
Jensen said...
I would think Sci Fi or someone else would run them right now and get a little bang for their buck.
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10-08-2007 @ 1:07PM
bruce said...
Once again, the existence of copyright prevents We The People from enjoying others' creative art. When the Framers put the Copyright and Patent clause in the Constitution, they never intended for copyright to be used to keep art locked away under penalty of law. Copyright is supposed to work to make MORE DVDs to buy, not less. When a DVD is unavailable solely due to copyright law, then copyright is being abused and used contrary to the intent of the Framers. We The People have the right to copy art for our own enjoyment if it is otherwise made unavailable. You have the constitutional right to download and watch (but not sell) all episodes of the Bionic Woman until such time as the copyright owners make it available at market value.
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11-09-2007 @ 5:43PM
Ann said...
Why can the UK get them?
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