TV MIA

Next time you hear someone say that every TV show seems to have been released on DVD, point them towards this article. Some of these shows are missing in action for rights reasons -- "Batman" is in perpetual rights limbo because Fox owns the show and Warner Brothers owns the character; "WKRP in Cincinnati" is still the number-one victim of music clearance issues -- and some, like "The Rockford Files," are unreleased because the studio is behind the curve in getting out its library. But whatever the reason, the TV-on-DVD boom will never really start booming until some of these shows come out.

The article doesn't mention something else, which is that there are many, many shows that get a first season release and then nothing else. Columbia/Sony has abandoned probably a couple of dozen shows that was; "Barney Miller" is the saddest case of a show that got just the first (not particularly good) season onto DVD before the studio gave up on it.

But if you want some good news amidst the gloom of this post, here's a TV Shows on DVD post announcing the possible release of one of the top ten shows of all time, Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko "either later this year or perhaps early next year."

Now, that will nearly make up for the inexplicable failure to produce a special edition of Mr. T's "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool."