Music altered - again


Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is official. Music for "The Fugitive" on the Season 3 Volume One DVD release has been altered yet again. The original music has been replaced with a lousy synthesizer score, thus ruining one of the best television series of all time.

CBS, which claims to put classic television on "a pedestal," better come up with a new slogan. How about something like, "CBS places classic television in the toilet?" because that is exactly what this crew of goons has done to "The Fugitive." What a bunch of creeps. I'll never purchase another DVD or Blu-ray or anything released by CBS again.

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You might have spoken too soon. The general consensus so far is that the majority of episodes in the Season 3, Vol. 1 DVD release contain all, or almost all, original music. See below list by knowledgeable fans:

These episodes seem to be complete with original music intact: "Middle Of A Heat Wave," "Crack In A Crystal Ball," "Three Cheers For Little Boy Blue," "All The Scared Rabbits," "An Apple A Day," "Stranger in the Mirror," "End of the Line," and "When the Wind Blows."

"Wings Of An Angel" has several instances of synthesizer music, and "Conspiracy Of Silence" has some instances though not to the degree of "Wings Of An Angel."

"Landscape with Running Figures, Part 1" had just 2 instances, and "Part 2" just changed radio/jukebox music, and "Trial by Fire" had just minor instances.

"Set Fire to a Straw Man" had 4 short instances and "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys" just had background carnival music replacement (during the vigilante roundup).

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CBS, which claims to put classic television on "a pedestal," better come up with a new slogan. How about something like, "CBS places classic television in the toilet?" because that is exactly what this crew of goons has done to "The Fugitive." What a bunch of creeps. I'll never purchase another DVD or Blu-ray or anything released by CBS again.


That's funny, moron. That must be why you're over at the Home Theater Forum saying you'll buy this set. You Fugitive music fans are so pathetic. This set is probably one of the best sets for very few music changes, yet like everyone on the Internet tends to do (myself excluded), you take the first negative words as gospel when they've now been proven untrue.

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Yeah, I jumped to conclusions when I saw an early review. You're right, Jarth. I'll definitely be buying this set now because it seems the changes are minimal. My apologies to CBS.

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Exactly. How about next time (season three, volume two) you wait a while before you start bad-mouthing CBS/Paramount?

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You got it.

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jarth, someone proved to be a man in this post and it sure wasnt you.

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Nah, it was me.

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Yes, this is AWFUL. I was just watching the Season 2 episode "Brass Ring" with Angie Dickinson and Robert Duvall, and the score varied considerably from the syndication copy I've had for years -- and the changes aren't good: the lost romantic (and creepy) score has been replaced with something far less effective.

And yet, in a few scenes, it's unchanged.

The Wikipedia says:

For the release of Season 2, Volume 1, entirely new musical scores (created on synthesizer and composed by Mark Heyes, with additional contributions by Sam Winans and Ron Komie) were done to replace the tracked music that had been used for original and rerun broadcasts, syndication and earlier home video releases. CBS/Paramount has yet to offer any detailed explanation for the music replacement, though a recent article on the Film Music Society's web site suggests that the use of several cues from the Capitol Music Library that may have been difficult or impossible to clear could have been the cause. Many fans of the original score wrote letters of protest and boycotted this release with the hope that CBS/Paramount would fix this debacle by reissuing the collection with all of the original music intact.

On 17 February 2009, CBS/Paramount announced a program to issue replacement discs for Season 2 Volume 1, with much of the original music restored. This was a significant effort by CBS to mollify outraged fans. While this was a step in the right direction, many fans concluded that the replacement discs were too little, too late. Several episodes still had major portions of their original scores replaced by the new compositions, and at least one key scene in the episode "Ballad for a Ghost" was deleted entirely. Inexplicably, many of the missing cues were clearly owned outright by CBS. These cues (correctly) appeared in some scenes, yet were replaced in others, reflecting an overcautious CBS Legal Department and needless music replacement.


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