Return of Lost

Finally! Well, it really wasn’t that long of a wait, 4 weeks or so, but still! What am I talking about? The television drama “Lost,” on ABC, returned. The writers’ strike threw a wrench into the season’s plans and actually could have ended the season outright if they wouldn’t have agreed to come back to work when they did. Personally, Lost is one of my most favorite shows on television. Heroes is another great one. Don’t get me started on Heroes though, it never came back from the strike and it will be about an entire year between new episodes for that weekly program when it comes back later this year. There are all kinds of avenues I could take for this article, but I’m not going to give you a review of a television program, or be a fan boy and try and promote and convert you to a show I like.

What I am going to do is focus on the monetary side of things and the impending greed from the studios. Greed from a studio, I know, it’s a pretty farfetched idea isn’t it? The way I see it and this is from a purely financial greed point of view (but I bet it is close to the reality we will see), is that when the studios decide to release the current “season” compilations of programming, they will still set pricing comparable to other “full” season compilations. How can they do that you ask? Think of this, Lost was supposed to have 16 episodes this year, but it will end on 12. That’s even down from the 24 per year or so shows they did the first 3 years. Think the retail price for the 4^th (current) season will be half the current list price of season 3? No way. Heroes ran 11 episodes from a scheduled 24! Think the retail price for this new season will be less than half of the first season? No way!

How can they not charge far less than the normal list price of season compilations? Half the show means it should be half as costly right? Wrong. The studios are going to feed us a very long fishing line of marketing “showing” us that they are giving us a huge pool of extra, additional content for the season releases. Prepare to see special behind the scenes footage, special interviews, and special cut scenes. Special, special, special. Never before seen this, not shown on television that. You get the idea. All of this supposed unseen information is going to be used to pack the rest of the compilation release to stuff the package to the gills to justify a nice little purchase price comparable to previous years. There has to be something to pile onto the DVD’s within the nice big box package to justify the manufacturing cost of it. Nobody but the most devout fans would pay $40 for a “box” set containing 2 DVD’s. The studios want to manufacture a nice big box set with 6-8 DVD’s packed with information to make the consumer feel like they are owning more than just a recording of their favorite television shows.

Without the extras, people with TIVO, DVD recorders, or tuner cards on their pc can directly record their shows through the season and have the season set for free. So, the studio has to come up with something to differentiate this product from a homemade one. Make it worth the buck for not only the hardcore fan, but also for the general fan to want and feel a certain need to have to stay in the loop with the additional information. So, when the half content current seasons come up for sale in the coming months (before the next season airs), remember that you should be seeing far cheaper pricing. However, don’t hold your breath expecting that. Should is highly unlikely. What you will more than likely see is comparable pricing from years past and a lot of additional “stuff” that you may not particularly care about anyway.

Is this greed or is this just plain ole good business sense? Greed. If you look at the past seasons, they are filled with this additional, “special” content also. So, if you run across Lost, Season 4 on the shelves in the late summer or early fall this year and see a price tag on it from $40-$60, remember, you are paying more for less. Similar issue with Heroes, its first season was packed with extras. If you see it priced anywhere from $40-$60, you are at the mercy of studio greed. Even if they were priced at $30, I would say Lost would be worth a look, but as for Heroes, not a chance, even at $30. Just think about what you will be purchasing and determine for yourself if you like playing the pawn in the network studio game. Of course, this is hypothetical because the season isn’t even over yet, but when the time comes, we’ll take a look back at this article and see just how close my “theory” is. Leave your comments below!