One of the great frustrations with beloved TV series and streaming availability is music rights. Some shows have been held back from streaming because it is too expensive to re-license music used on the show (just try and find the TV show Ed anymore). Or when they do make their way to streaming, it is with music tracks replaced with cheap knock-offs/alternatives.
And then there's the greatest frustration: watching a beloved show returned to your life, only with the entire theme song replaced due to a licensing issue. Which brings us to Dawson's Creek and the Paula Cole-sung theme song "I Don’t Want to Wait." Press play on Dawson's Creek and you haven't heard that song for a couple of years.
This is how Dawson's Creek is supposed to open:
But on streaming and DVD viewers bore witness to an atrocity. The theme song was swapped out for "Run Like Mad" by Jann Arden:
Why the issue? Money. Licensing.
“I Don’t Want to Wait” has not been featured on streaming and DVD versions of the TV series for many years because Sony only purchased the on-air rights to the track. But now a deal has been struck with Cole that allows use of the song across all streaming platforms. The restored version was re-recorded and re-mastered by Cole to get it back in circulation.
That's right. Press play on Netflix today and you will see that Sony has re-supplied Netflix with the restored video files. One would assume that you will start seeing other streaming services with the dud version replaced in time. (For fun, Aussie viewers might want to check out the difference with Dawson's Creek streaming on Netflix via streaming on Stan).
Now try explaining to your kids why the theme song is now different to what they have grown up watching...
Bruce Haring
Logies cancelled for 2021
Australian TV award show The Logie Awards have been canned for the second year running? Why? Not for reasons of quality or public interest. No, this was because they were to be held on the Gold Coast and there's currently a border closure preventing TV industry folk from Sydney and Melbourne (where the industry actually is) from being able to attend.
Once again, Australia will not know who the Best New Talent was. Heartbreaking.
Of course, this break in the Logies would be a great opportunity to rethink the awards:
- Broadcast them at the start of the year to kick-off the ratings year and make the awards an actual event that signifies something (other than being a random weekend mid-year).
- Turn the event into an industry-voted awards show, with just the Silver and Gold Logies left for the audience to vote for.
- Stop inviting Joe Hildebrand (this isn't a Logies-specific complaint. I just think it is generally good practice).
But none of that will happen. Even if it would benefit the awards tremendously.
David Knox
Reviews are in: Scenes From a Marriage
HBO's Scenes From a Marriage debuts Sept 12 on HBO. The Jessica Chastain / Oscar Isaac limited series is based on Ingar Bergmann's 1973 Swedish TV miniseries about a marriage falling apart. It is, as you'd expect, highly anticipated and the first lot of reviews are in with the series having just debuted at the Venice TV Festival.
Here's Daniel D'Addario at Variety:
Each episode of “Scenes From a Marriage” opens with a bit of frank reality. The five installments of HBO’s new limited series begin showing one of the show’s stars, Jessica Chastain or Oscar Isaac, getting prepared for shooting — walking to set, receiving makeup last-looks. Then the clapperboard closes and, suddenly, we’re in the scene.
It’s disconcerting, at least at first. If this is an attempt to emphasize the challenges faced by productions in the COVID era, the point is effectively made. (Chastain’s and Isaac’s helpers are masked, and in one scene, Isaac wears a face shield.) But if it’s trying to claim space for the show as especially real and frank — a fitting description for a reimagining of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 miniseries, probing the collapse of a long-term relationship with painful intimacy — it backfires, somewhat.
Daniel D’Addario
TeeVee Snacks
- There's a Highway To Heaven TV remake? It's a planned TV-movie series set for Lifetime debuting this November. Read: TV Insider
- Law & Order: SVU actors Jamie Gray Hyder and Demore Barnes are exiting the series. Hyder says the decision to leave was not hers. Read: ET Canada
- Money Heist flopped on SPanish TV - how did Netflix turn it into a global TV sensation? Read: The Washington Post
- Back in the pre-Netflix days of yore, kids could watch cartoons on their Game Boy Advance hand-held consoles. Read: Polygon
- Speaking of Game Boy, rumors suggest Game Boy games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online. Read: The Verge
- There were weekend rumors that The Offer, a TV series about the making of The Godfather, was shut down after actor Miles Teller (reportedly unvaccinated) tested positive for COVID. But production continues on. It remains unclear if Tellar tested positive, or is unvaccinated. Read: Vanity Fair
- An Amazon-branded TV is reportedly in the works for a release pre-Christmas. Read: The Streamable
- RIP US Today weatherman Willard Scott. Read: NYT
- There's a lot more graphic male nudity on TV nowadays. Blame/thank streaming. Read: Mashable
- Could Ted Lasso s2 backlash online disrupt the show's Emmy chances? Read: Indiewire
Detour
This weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the debut of reality show The Amazing Race.
Reality Blurred has a great oral history of the creation and first season of the show. Here is co-creator Elise Doganieri recounting the genesis of the idea after a conversation with her husband Bert Van Munster:
Bert came from MIPCOM, and said he didn’t see anything new. I was like, What is going on with people in television? Why can’t you guys come up with something new? And he said, Oh, you think it’s so easy? Why don’t you come up with something? That was, of course, the trigger. I thought about the backpacking trip I took with my college roommate.
Trailer Park
The third and final season of Dickinson debuts on Apple TV+ on Nov 5.
Forever Rich debuts on Netflix Oct 1
What's next? Tomorrow.
