MovieChat Forums > Just Good Friends (1983) Discussion > SERIES 3 + XMAS SPECIAL AVAILABLE TO BUY

SERIES 3 + XMAS SPECIAL AVAILABLE TO BUY

posted 14 years ago by catrionalowe84
2 replies | jump to latest

Hi all,

I've just come on this site for the first time & I see that, like me, many of you have been waiting some time for Series 3 & Christmas Special to come out. I think I first placed my order with Amazon in about 2005, it's been frustrating to see it cancelled again & again...

Anyway, last week, while looking for something else, I found Series 3 & Christmas Special available to buy on this website:
http://www.tv-memories.com/catalogGtoL.htm

Prompt delivery - the slip-in DVD cover is a kind of tile-style background of the company, TV Memories (but I made a new one), & there's a few seconds of BBC adverts at the start of each episode. But the quality's great, I highly recommend buying it from these people. Oh yeah, & it's a great series too, lol. Hope those of you who want it can get hold of it! :)

What Glasgow says today, the rest of the world tries to pronounce tomorrow

[–] sonicbloo 14 years ago

Complete series 1/2/3 and xmas special ia available officially at last from 25th October 2010, I've had series 3 and xmas special for a good few years but I'll definitely be buying the proper versions now

[–] duke-verity 14 years ago

Hang on to your original off-air recordings. Yes, series 3 and the long withheld Christmas special are being released, but the Christmas special has copyrighted music in the background of many scenes - everything from the 1976 Rolling Stones rendition of 'As Tears Go By' to the 70's kitsch classic 'Kung Fu Fighting'.

This is why it's taken so long to prepare a commercial release for this episode. The original 1984 broadcast required careful chasing up of music clearances and a lot of royalties paid for just that one transmission. Video or DVD commercial release by the BBC (or by any company that leases their product) was not covered by the original 1984 clearance deals.

John Sullivan always loved using pop songs in the background of his scenes, creating many problems for the BBC when it comes to commercial releases. Rather than paying a fortune in royalty payments to the various musical artistes, they prefer to cut and trim, thereby saving themselves a lot of money and hassle.

Eureka (distributing this box set under licence from the BBC) commit arguably a lesser evil : the episodes play to their full length, but sections featuring copyrighted background music have been newly redubbed with cleared library music, and the original dialogue occuring during these scenes can now be read via subtitles rather than actually heard. You can't hear the actor's talk at these points, but you at least know what's being said. However, the mood and flow of scenes have been completely altered.

If you've got copies of original broadcasts then keep them for posterity.