Battlestar Galactica DVDs

Okay. I thought I knew what was going on, but now I've been told something contradictory to what I understood so I'll ask again.

The Battlestar Galactica Season One set contains the original miniseries and all of Season One. No questions there. It's what comes next that bugs me.

Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 is available. It was my understanding that this was the first half of the season, and that the new episodes airing on SF Fridays now are the second half of the second season. However, I keep hearing the contradictory information that what's airing now is in fact the third season. So: will the next set be Season 2.5, or will it be 3.0? If it's 2.5, will there also be a complete Season Two set available at some point, so I don't have to buy two boxed sets for one season?

 

Where did you hear that it was going to be season three?

The second season is labled 2.0 but why have the .0 if it's not going to be 2.something? That's my guess.

 

I too have been wondering if they are going to double dip the 2nd season. Are we going to get a 2.5 only to have a complete 2nd season come out a few months later, complete with "extra features" that you can't get if you buy they two seperate pieces?

 

I doubt it. They put all of the podcasts on 2.0.

Also, 2.0 is pretty cheap compsred to most ten episode DVD shows(like Carnival- it costs a hundred dollars for TEN episodes!).

 

None for Flight, huh? That's weird. Maybe they weren't happy with its quality or some such.

 

I'm not terribly thrilled with the podcasts as commentaries. I wish that they'd record a proper one, without all the background noise that you can hear in them.

I'm waiting for a complete season 2 to arrive.

 

^You probably won't get one. It's actually cheaper to buy both halves of Season 2 than it is to buy one full set.

 

Chances are that the Region 2 dvd will be a complete set. It would be ironic if the UK got the better DVD set this time around.

 

But they probably won't get the extended Pegasus.

 

I don't know... I could see SkyOne showing the full version to begin with. There's got to be some kind of payoff for having to wait so fracking long.

 

That was my major complaint when the first announced the season 2.0 box set.

Bottom line I don't think anyone knows what we'll end up getting. I'm sure they will do a 2.5 box set (this isn't season 3) but I'd be willing to bet that there is a full season 2 release at one point.

It then comes down to that age old question of money. I wasn't that thrilled at the price of the 2.0 box set. Any other TV show you literally get twice the episodes for the same price. If there is a full season 2 set at some point whats it going to cost? Twice as much or just the standard going rate? Am I going to feel twice as stupid paying that much for a full season of a TV show?

 

I don't know, seems steep to me. $30 something is what I paid for 22 episodes of Buffy, Angel, and TV on DVD shows I have. $60 is way steep for a cable TV show. Premium cable maybe (I paid that much for Carnivale) but nothing else. For half a season I'd expect to pay $20 something (ala Buffy season 1 or the upcoming Grey's Anatomy box set).

 

But the 24 and Seinfeld sets are sometimes over 50 bucks. At least Seinfeld usually packages two seasons in a special set with extra junk you usually throw away.

 

Don't know. Don't own 24 or Seinfeld.

I went and dug up my Target.com recept from when I bought Season "2.0". I bought SG:A and Veronica Mars at the same time. SG:A and Mars clocked in @ $41 for 20 and 22 episodes respectively and 2.0 was $32 for 10 episodes (which as mention comes out to $64 for the whole 20 episodes). So its not absolutely outragious (obviously or I wouldn't of purchased it) but its a bit steep.

 

The Buffy and SG-1 sets, comparatively, are a real bargain. Different companies play the supply and demand game differently:

1. If you've got a pretty big following, but mostly among younger people with less disposable income, you can price an item lower and make more profit thanks to the increased sales volume.



2. If you're aiming at a really huge fanbase with more older viewers and more disposable income, with a high proportion of fanatical collects who buy any piece of merchandise with the show's name on it, you can charge very high prices and still sell huge numbers -- and thereby generate even higher profits.

Buffy and Stargate are examples of the former. The Paramount Trek sets are examples of the latter. Up until a couple weeks ago, many of them retailed for over $100 US, based on a studio pre-retail price of $130 (for the current season release of a show) or $140 (for the earlier seasons) per set. The X-Files sets are also up there, with a list price of $150 and a typical retail price of just over $100.

Shows like Grey's Anatomy and Lost have their retail priced between $25-$49; Babylon 5 falls somewhere in between, with a list price of $100 and a typical retail price between $70 and $80. Fans of those shows tend to demographically skew older and more affluent, and are very loyal; Buffy and Firefly fans tend to skew younger. OTOH, there hasn't been a lot of B5 merchandise or other spin-offs, and fans of the show tend to be selective rather than completist about this stuff. So we're not so fanatical that WB can soak us and still be assured of us paying what they ask, like Trek fans, but there aren't so many of us who are "on the bubble" or short of cash that cutting the price much lower would increase sales by a lot.

So the studio tries to price the sets where they can make a reasonable profit based on the number of sets they expect to sell, without setting the price so high that large numbers of people refuse to pay. The total pool of, say, possible Babylon 5 DVD buyers is smaller than any of those other shows (but yet having grossed Warner Bros. over half-a-billion dollars in DVD sales alone), but the DVD production cost for similar numbers of episodes and some reasonble extras is not that much lower, so the studio has to strike a balance.

For Galactica, it's simply yet another example of the politics going on right now in Universal's DVD marketing department, having changed regimes this past year...switching over to dual-sided DVD-18s instead of 2-disc releases (à la The Frighteners, Mallrats, the upcoming Dune Extended Edition); humping out these reduced "mid-season" sets, then releasing fully-loaded complete-season collections later. (Suffice to say, I haven't bought the "Season 2.0" incarnation either, awaiting the full "2.5" and its supplements.)

The studios don't set the final in-store retail price. They generally set a "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price" (MSRP) or "list price." For The X-Files, that's $150, for B5 it's $100, for Galactica, it's $60. The retailer buys the sets at

 

Nice breakdown of the marketing of DVD prices. Off topic but since you mentioned the expense of the X-files sets I just thought I'd mention that they are getting a drastic price drop. Down to what I see as the "average" $35-$40 range from the previously outragious $100.00+