If they want us to buy the DVDs, they need to give us extras!

In this day & age of DVRs, in this economy, I can't understand anyone shelling out perfectly good money for something you get for free, legally, by digitally recording it off your TV!

For as much as I love CDs, not so with DVDs! I can burn my own, thank you very much! If you want me to buy your show on DVD, you have to give me more, to quote Britney. Gimme, gimme.. a whole lotta MORE!

I'm not talking idiot "DVD commentaries": those bore the living daylights outta me. Sorry but who wants to ruin the experience of watching a favorite TV episode by, instead of hearing the regular soundtrack, listening to two drunken overfed & overpaid idiots congratulating each other and veering off into WTF tangents that have nothing to do with the show and that always end up embarrassing the talkers and, in the end, are nothing but a waste of my time.

No, thanks! I don't do commentaries, at least not with the current set up. Don't force me to watch the show second by second with two voice overs having a hard time catching up with the screen! I prefer interviews: shove the camera on the discarnate voices' faces and have them talk. Have them watch the show and maybe make a "picture in window" so we see what they're talking about but for the love of Zeus, don't force me to watch the movie/show with these clowns nonstop yapping! BRIEF interviews yes, commentaries hell to the naw! That's one.

Let's go number two here: deleted scenes, dailies and bloopers! Ok, that's 2, 3 and 4. Word to the wise: NO bloopers are a lot better than dumb bloopers.


Dumb bloopers:

1) Forced/fake bloopers done on purpose so they "have bloopers" to share. Don't do this. We can spot them a mile away. They make us cringe. (Us would be me and any intelligent viewers, the idiots don't count here!)

2) Non blooper-bloopers. Don't do this. A blooper is when the actor messes up their lines and they find it funny, others find it funny and laugh or the actor is oblivious and carries on. That's gold bloopers right there.

3) Embarrassing bloopers: when the actor is making a jackass out of himself to be funny to end up on the blooper reel (see #1). Don't. Just... don't! There are some awful bloopers on youtube that have COMPLETELY ruined series for me. It's pretty bad when you realize that the "hero" character you admire is played by a buffoon actor without a shred of self-respect who thinks 'pull my finger' is a funny gag. Just don't here again! You have to maintain a certain 'image' for the duration of the series.

Trust me when I say ^^^this, there are quite a few series actors that I have completely given up on upon seeing those leads act like complete tools; no more support from me, no more mister nice guy; plus it's my thread and I am all powerful here, so never mind those who might say otherwise: they are clueless as to what is good or what they like. In other words, those idiots have zero taste, I'm right and, you guessed it, they're wrong!

Which brings us to deleted scenes and dailies. Anything that meets the cutting room floor that is not a dumb blooper, I wanna see. Definitely not 3 million takes of the same scene but one or two dailies of one scene would be nice. Two dailies of two different scenes, even better. And scenes that for whatever reason never made the show. Sometimes they're right to delete them, sometimes they cut out gold. Give us some, please!

Scripts: some DVDs make the scripts available in digital format.
Show "bible": ditto
Cast photos: Meh! Don't care about those but others might so those are ok but too cheap a cope out if that's all you give so watch it!
Preview clips or promos would be good.
Clips of scenes in several different languages might be very interesting!

But you know what would be even better? A featurette! If you tape a mini movie or a guessing interactive game with actors in character and you get to choose which way the story goes. I realize this might be over budget so back to mini movie: maybe make that a few side scenes not written in the show (goes along the same lines as deleted scenes). Example: what happened when Cassie fainted? Ambulance or no ambulance showed up? I'm using this as an example, not really interested in seeing an ambulance ride, but you get the picture.

In other words, you want me to buy your DVD? Give me an incentive. Sure, there's people who will share all of that on youtube, but it's more rare that people do. Plus if I see the production really put in the effort, put out a cool DVD cover (3-D lenticular anyone?) and some awesome prints (shiny, colorful) on the discs, then you get me to open my wallet and grab my credit card.

Anybody got any ideas of what they like to see on DVDs, feel free to add. If you're going to go on a rant that I should buy the DVD regardless of extras, spare yourself the grief you'll go through when you read my unsavory reply. This is my thread after all and what I say at OP goes! And trust me, I always have a salacious come back for those of you who try it.

Feel free to start your own thread, as for me, again, I don't see the point of paying for what I get for "free": we all pay for cable these days, no more analog TVs with rabbit ears so we already paid for it! If you want me to 'double pay', you gotta work harder than that to earn my dollars in this day & age! Some people are careless with their money, for me it's also about space: after all, a DVD adds clutter to my home. I can keep the original on my HD and burn a copy keep it on a skinny sleeve that takes virtually no space and that I can easily dispose of (because I can burn another say in case of a move: to the trash it goes, and then another safekeeping copy is made!) Not so with a paid for production DVD. If I pay for it, then it's clutter: I'm gonna keep it no matter how many times I move.

Well, hope this finally explains why we, as audiences, won't bother to buy your DVD(s) and the smart producer/studio who cares about sales will heed these suggestions that are sure to solve the dilemma production houses face today when their popular shows/movies just won't sell due to in-home DVR-ing.

And this should now conclude my trinity of TGW posts for tonight.