Another Mother, and probably other episodes?

Sam Beckett Fan

Re-Writing Life
Jun 3, 2005
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i do not know if this idea has been stressed before or not, but i was curious. i was watching another mother on the sci fi channel last night (yes i found out i get it on my livingroom tv), and they had all different music than the dvd version, and seen as i only recently found out that i acually DO get the sci fi channel, i have not seen enough to know if this is also true of other episodes, but i am sure it is. is there a particular reason they changed the music? just curious. personally i liked the sci fi version music. the intro as well.:)
 
Oh yes, Cyd...they changed the music. If you go to the QL DVD Discussion board (found just below the General QL Discussion board)....you'll see much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over this change on the "official" DVDs.

How I WISH I still had my USA tapes. :disbelief

So....with the storebought DVDs---you get every scene, all the acting, and all the dialogue....but you get Muzak and worse since Universal was too cheap to pay the music rights / the record companies were too greedy (because it's due to both actually). And with what airs on Sci-Fi, you get all the music, but lose some scenes and dialogue due to cuts made to sell more commercial time. (Sci-Fi has cut the episodes even further than how they were already cut for airing on USA in the 90s. :disbelief )

Which is why I TiVo and record the Sci-Fi eps to have the ambience and feel retained, but still get the storebought ones (secondhand after a fashion) to have the entire dialogue and acting. It's a difference between a haircut and a scalping to me. (Scalping being the Universal issue re: music) <g>
 
McDuck said:
It's a difference between a haircut and a scalping to me. (Scalping being the Universal issue re: music) <g>

I like your analogy, Jennie. And unfortunately all too accurate. :disbelief
 
Another Mother is a huge example because it is almost wall-to-wall 80's tunes. On the Sci-Fi channel, you hear it as intended. On the DVD, it's wall-to-wall musak. 50-60% of the music on the Season 2 and 3 DVDs have been replaced with ill-fitting musak. They didn't even try to hire a cover band (or license cover versions which are suprisingly available on virtually every popular tune).

There is no evidence to suggest that Seasons 4 and 5 won't be the same. Thanks, Universal!

Check out the DVD forum here and there are over a dozen topics regarding this travesty. My viewpoint is still that EITHER Universal has the right to use the music and they should use it, or they don't, and they should have to pay for it. They're insisting that their contracts included video release rights and that DVD is a video format, but they won't prove it in a court of law. All it would take is one case. Imagine if every company that had a vested interest in releasing TV shows put together a legal fund and then released something without re-licensing the music and wait for the Cease & Desist letter to arrive. Then once and for all this issue would be resolved.
 
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This is exactly why a lot of us "older" fans have been complaining about the music issues...and why I sounded like I was getting annoyed at some of the "newer" younger fans many months back (which I attempted to apologize for until the Ezboard debacle). It's understandable that there are some fans who didn't care all that much, and that's fine; but what annoyed me is when they told us to stop complaining about it because somehow our unhappiness might affect sales (which was kind of ridiculous in and of itself...I mean, if Universal is wasting their time releasing an obscure series such as Cleopatra 2525 on DVD, why would anything the fans say matter?) :hmm

The way I feel is that the newer, younger fans who are only now discovering this show on DVD are being cheated by Universal and they don't even realize it. Quantum Leap really is the kind of show that utilizes music very well. The songs help convey the mood and era of the time period that Sam has leaped into. It..."pains" fans like myself to know that people who buy the DVDs are not seeing the series the way it was intended to be seen (and often don't know any better). THAT'S why we get frustrated about this whole music problem. These past few months, I've sort of calmed down about these kind of things just for the sake of my own sanity...it's not worth it for me to get all flustered over something I have no control over. All I and other fans like myself ask is that the newer fans let us vent and try to see it from our point of view; at least try to understand why we feel the way we do. This is an issue that is not going to go away anytime soon...not just for QL either...

I would kind of suggest what Jennie was saying too: try to watch each episode on both DVD and Sci-Fi so that you can compare the differences between the two. The problem with Sci-Fi is that all episodes use the exact same opening credit sequence (4th season) and have scenes cut from the original boradcast, but all of the music is intact. The DVD versions are uncut and shown with the correct opening credit sequences (which I will personally love come Season 5 when the "rock" version was used, except for Mirror Image), but the music is replaced with muzak that some idiot put together. It's a Catch-22 situation. Go figure...
 
Dman176 said:
This is exactly why a lot of us "older" fans have been complaining about the music issues...and why I sounded like I was getting annoyed at some of the "newer" younger fans many months back (which I attempted to apologize for until the Ezboard debacle). It's understandable that there are some fans who didn't care all that much, and that's fine; but what annoyed me is when they told us to stop complaining about it because somehow our unhappiness might affect sales (which was kind of ridiculous in and of itself...I mean, if Universal is wasting their time releasing an obscure series such as Cleopatra 2525 on DVD, why would anything the fans say matter?) :hmm

The way I feel is that the newer, younger fans who are only now discovering this show on DVD are being cheated by Universal and they don't even realize it. Quantum Leap really is the kind of show that utilizes music very well. The songs help convey the mood and era of the time period that Sam has leaped into. It..."pains" fans like myself to know that people who buy the DVDs are not seeing the series the way it was intended to be seen (and often don't know any better). THAT'S why we get frustrated about this whole music problem. These past few months, I've sort of calmed down about these kind of things just for the sake of my own sanity...it's not worth it for me to get all flustered over something I have no control over. All I and other fans like myself ask is that the newer fans let us vent and try to see it from our point of view; at least try to understand why we feel the way we do. This is an issue that is not going to go away anytime soon...not just for QL either...

I would kind of suggest what Jennie was saying too: try to watch each episode on both DVD and Sci-Fi so that you can compare the differences between the two. The problem with Sci-Fi is that all episodes use the exact same opening credit sequence (4th season) and have scenes cut from the original boradcast, but all of the music is intact. The DVD versions are uncut and shown with the correct opening credit sequences (which I will personally love come Season 5 when the "rock" version was used, except for Mirror Image), but the music is replaced with muzak that some idiot put together. It's a Catch-22 situation. Go figure...

no at all offense, dman, but you are making me feel even sadder that i did not discover QL when it was new, even if i was only was like around three years old. :cry
 
Hey Cyd....don't feel bad....I didn't discover QL until reruns on USA...by which time it was already "chopped" for syndication. So I've *never* seen it completely intact either. :hug:
 
My humblest apologies...

SamBeckettfann said:
no at all offense, dman, but you are making me feel even sadder that i did not discover QL when it was new, even if i was only was like around three years old. :cry
I swear, I was not trying to make you upset. I wasn't even making a comment to you specifically. It was meant to be a message to some of the other members at the old EZboard who started "ordering" us to quit complaining because they thought it was unfair that WE should be unhappy with the way Universal is treating its customers. I was trying to very nicely and respectfully say to those people who might be lurking and reading these topics to please respect the way we feel about this even if they may think we're making way too big of a deal over it...because to us, it IS a big deal. This is a major problem that is going to need to be addressed if the TV-show-on-DVD industry has any hope of surviving...because it's all across the board, not just with QL. I've read reports online saying that classic shows like WKRP in Cincinnati will likely never be released on DVD (or at least not for a very long time) because of the HUGE royalites that would need to be shelled out to keep songs intact (of which they played a LOT, the sitcom was centered around a radio station after all); even if a song only played on the radio for 2 seconds, it doesn't matter. It's always about money with these big corporations, and I can't stand it. They ruin the experience for all of us. I don't think a lot of younger consumers really get this; all I'm trying to do is "educate" them on the subject and how the industry works.

I have honestly been trying to post my comments in a respectful and calm manner. But every single time I try to express my opinion on something, it blows up in my face. I truly am sorry, Cydney. My intention was not to make you upset...or at least to direct your disappointment to where it belongs, with the movie and music industries, because they are the ones who constantly and consistently walk all over us and treat us like crap. I, for one, have gotten so fed up with it, but in the same sense, I can't let it bother me anymore, for the sake of my own sanity. I just wish that the younger generation could realize the significance of things like my generation and the generation before mine does. That's why the big corporations are allowed to get away with what they do, because they know that a vast majority of teenagers and young 20-something customers don't even know that something may be missing and/or even care all that much. That's not a crack, I swear. I am making a generalized statement based on the way I observe and view the world around me, that's all.

However, as I said, it seems that anytime I do speak up, even when I take the time to make sure that what I say will not be misconstrued as being "offensive" or "upsetting," it somehow comes out the exact opposite of how I wanted it to sound. Brian, MJ, Jennie, and the others keep telling me not to worry about it and to just pay more attention to the way I word my responses, but it's not working. I'm not saying anything anymore, even if I have a simple answer to a legitimate question. I'll just wait for someone else to come along and answer it instead. Jennie seemed to have answered Cyd's question just fine without getting her more upset; I should have just left it alone. But, no, I wanted to add my two cents to the issue (I saw her question as a perfect opportunity to try to clarify why I said many of the things I did many months back to people who got offended). So, all I'm going to do is start topics, comment on stories, respond to questions directed solely at me, etc.

I ask that Brian, Morgan, Jennie, MJ, or whoever else not move this topic...at least, not until Cydney sees my apology. I'm assuming she didn't get to see my apology the last time this happened (the Empirical DVD thread), and I'm still trying to think up an appropriate PM to send her (which I will very likely need to run by the mods before I send it, just to make sure I'm not digging a deeper hole for myself).

And Cydney...please don't apologize. You don't need to. I'm the one who's sorry...okay?

Damon