My So-Called Life
November 28th, 2002
A combination of Demon Internet having severe connectivity problems tonight and my having worked later than planned means that I haven't done any web browsing this evening, so I'm afraid I don't have any interesting links to post.
Happily my day wasn't a total loss, since I took a trip to my local sorting office to pick up the box set of My So-Called Life on DVD which I ordered from Amazon after AnotherUniverse turned out to be untrustworthy.
I've just watched the pilot episode for the first time in about five or six years since the show was last repeated on Channel 4, and I'm delighted to report that it's every bit as terrific as I remembered. Although the DVD presentation is nothing to write home about (very basic packaging, tacky menus) the content is just fine. After all, the bottom line is that I've got one of the five all-time classic US TV shows of the 90s on DVD, and that's what counts.
For what it's worth, the others on that list are Twin Peaks, Homicide: Life on the Street, Murder One and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Roseanne would have made the list, probably displacing Murder One, but it started in 1988.
Babylon 5 doesn't quite make the cut, but it comes very close. Although it deserves credit as an ambitious and successful attempt to plot a complex but coherent science fiction story across the course of five years, on reflection some of the acting and dialogue was sufficiently workmanlike that it can't quite live with the standards set by the Top Five. (But then, none of them had any planets blowing up, cool spaceships or multiple, overlapping, millennia-spanning alien conspiracies!)
November 29th, 2002 at 06:38
Ooooh, you have the dvd box? Oooh. Aaah!
*Envy*
November 29th, 2002 at 11:16
Go on, take a trip to Amazon and order one of your own. You know you want to…
November 29th, 2002 at 23:51
Bet I can get the end of the series before you …. go on, race you …
November 30th, 2002 at 09:37
I believe you've already got quite a head start on me, so I think I'll pass. :-P
Incidentally, I've just read your comments on the box set at your site and I'd say – in my humble opinion – that your assessment of the relative merits of 'Dawson's Creek' and MSCL are spot-on. I think the only show which comes close to MSCL is 'Party of Five', but it's really difficult to compare a show with a single central character which ran for one season with one that went for five seasons and juggled four central characters.
I think that the lustre of MSCL is enhanced by the fact that it only lasted a season. If the writers had been given the opportunity to continue the story for three or four seasons they'd have ended up developing the Jordan/Angela/Brian triangle, introducing new characters and having the characters move into new situations. All this would have given fans grounds to decide that they hated seeing Angela with Brian/thought that Rayanne's new friend wasn't a patch on Rickie/thought Rickie's boyfriend was an ass/hated that Angela broke up with Brian/hated that season where Patty and Graham's business went under and they nearly split up/wish the writers hadn't chickened out when Sharon got pregnant by making her have a miscarriage rather than tackle the whole abortion issue head-on.
I'm not saying that the writers wouldn't have been able to steer the show through a few more seasons, or that if they had the quality would have gone down, or that the cast couldn't have sold the new storylines to us. (Incidentally, I'd forgotten that Claire Danes was only 13 when shooting commenced on the pilot. 13! What a phenomenal talent!) It's just that the standards are a bit different for a show that goes on and develops beyond its original format.
Of course, it works both ways. If 'Buffy' hadn't made it past one season it would have been remembered as an improvement on the film that spawned it, but not especially groundbreaking. It was season 2 that really cemented the notion that the show – and the performances of SMG et al – was something special.
November 30th, 2002 at 16:46
I was generally following on from the The Guardian artice I posted a few days beforehand. I perhaps didn't make so clear in the post that I love DC — have done since the first season (although I hope that attitude has been clear elsewhere). I love the fact that it's grown from Beverly Hills 90210 into Melrose Place (sort of — I think that comparison works). I didn't pick on PofF because I never watched it — I wish I had actually but I missed two seasons worth for whatever reason. I picked on DC because it's always largely come back to how Dawson feels in the same way MSCL always returns to Angela.
But you're right of course – DC has had more time to make mistakes and piss off it's fans.
Mostly I was just trying to work through all my MSCL stuff … I've been idly talking about it a lot lately and I wanted to tie everything down so I could move on …
Now all we need a boxset of 'The Heights' and my life will be complete. I should also point out you can't get 90210 or PofF or large sections of DC on DVD. That probably means something as well …
November 30th, 2002 at 19:49
It's a pity you missed out on Po5. At times Po5 did teenage angst every bit as well as MSCL, but because there were several family members to follow and they weren't all teenagers there were always some other story threads going on. (Not that I didn't enjoy the angsty aspects of MSCL – indeed, at times Po5 had two or three different teenage angst stories on the go!)
As far as what the non-availability of shows on DVD goes, I think that tells us a couple of things. First of all, MSCL hes been off the air for long enough that the syndication rights in the US aren't devalued by a full DVD release as would be the case for a more recent show. Second, as there's only one season to release the producers don't have to commit themselves to releasing all the seasons only to find that everyone really just wants to buy season 1. Third, MSCL fans are, on average, far more rabid than Po5 fans. (I mean that in a good way, incidentally!)
Have you ever read any of the fanfic attempts to write MSCL season 2? I liked Eric Holdridge's mammoth attempt at a first half of season 2. The stories can be found at
http://www.mscl.com/fanfiction/show_author.phtml?layout=low&id=1
November 30th, 2002 at 23:08
Did you get the bonus disc or does that only come from AU? I really want the bonus disc!!!
Funnily enough I was looking at some tapes of MSCL the other day (I'm trying to organise my tapes, I haven't got a clue what's on them)
Danes was fantastic and the quality still shows today.
Incidentally, Living have started showing Three sisters staring A.J Langer (rayanne) as well as Vicki lewis (beth in Newsradio mainly). It's on at 18:00 weekends from today (so you've missed the first one)
November 30th, 2002 at 23:55
The bonus disk is exclusive to AnotherUniverse, though I believe that it still hasn't shipped. Considering AnotherUniverse's record to date, I have my doubts that it ever will.
Nice as it would be to see what A J Langer is up to nowadays, as I don't have cable or satellite TV, I'll be missing much more than the first episode of Three Sisters.
December 1st, 2002 at 01:08
I actually read Eric Holdridge's scripts after the Channel 4 rerun in 1998 (was it?) Absolutely brilliant — very true to the series and profession. They're often sited as how fan-fic should be written — it's neither about putting yourself in the show or crossovers — it's a genuine attempt at extrapolating where the show would go from eps 19. I cried when the real TV show ended, and I cried again when I got to the end of the scripts. Very moving.
I have the unfortunate privelige of owning this …
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375801111/qid=1038704748/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-3206411-3019023
… which is an absolute travesty, reducing all the characters to teen stereotypes and missing the point altogether. It reads a bit like the stories which appeared in Doctor Who annuals during the late seventies. At no point do you get the feeling that the author has ever watched the series.
MSCL fans always seem to be giving Po5 fans the glance because they were the ones who had a writing campaign to bring their show back and actually won.
Strangely, this auction hasn't had many takers …
http://s1.amazon.co.uk/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y03X1751998X8892510/qid=1038704741/ref=sr_aps_auctions_1_2/202-3206411-3019023
December 1st, 2002 at 13:23
I read the scripts after that rerun too – I think it was in late summer/autumn 1997. I just wish he'd found the time to finish off his vision of season 2, but I suppose that if it hasn't happened by now it ain't going to.
Spin-off books are always something of a lottery, so I'm not terribly surprised that the MSCL book isn't up to scratch. Ironically, MSCL is one show where there should be scope for a spin-off to work, since the writers should have had plenty of opportunity to introduce new characters and situations without having to worry about fitting in with the continuity of several seasons of the original show. (One of the reasons I think the two 'Tales of the Slayers' spin-offs from 'Buffy' work so well is that they allow the writers to take the concept of the Slayer and take it for a spin in very different times and places, where what happened during Buffy Summers' time as Slayer is neither here nor there.) As you say, though, it's not just about continuity with the parent show – it does help if the writer is familiar with the characters and the tone of the show and isn't just doing a find-and-replace with the characters' names on Standard Teen Drama Script #5.
I think the window of opportunity has just slammed down hard on the fingers of that Amazon auction seller.
December 2nd, 2002 at 03:07
Ok, saw "Three sisters" earlier. The best thing about it is that A.J Langer looks much better now than when she was in MSCL. I might watch it again but it really wasn't that good.
December 2nd, 2002 at 07:04
At least she's still working. Has anyone seen Wilson Cruz or Devon Gummersall lately?
(Which isn't really fair, since Cruz has worked steadily on Broadway. It's just his TV career that seems to have stalled. I think the last time I saw him on the small screen was as a guest star for a single episode way back in season 1 of 'Ally McBeal'. Of course, it may just be that he prefers theatre work.)
January 4th, 2003 at 11:49
Aj is great she is my favorite actress. What channel was three sisters airing on again i have never seen an episode yet and would like to. I have cable just dont know what channel email me please if anyone knows. phantom_man_2002@yahoo.com
March 10th, 2003 at 19:29
Um, Stu, you posted a message mentioning a Guardian article on MSCL (and Po5 and DC). I'm pretty sure it was the one I read, in the Guide (from the Guardian on Saturday). Sadly, it's not listed in the Guardian archive. Assuming we're talking about the same article, do you have it transcribed and if so, can you point out where on your site it is? Great site, by the way, but difficult to find something specific. Cheers.
April 2nd, 2003 at 00:19
Wahhhhh! I want to get My So Called Life on DVD. I had a look on Amazon.co.uk and it was available in the auctions with a price in dollars. I have a Sony DVD player so it's unlikely I can hack it to accept a Region 1 disk from America.
Could you tell me whether you bought the Region 2 (Europe) or region 1 (US) disk.
Does anyone know where I can buy MSCL on DVD region 2?
April 2nd, 2003 at 01:14
The MSCL DVD I have is coded as Region 0 (sometimes known as "Region Free.")
My understanding is that a Region 0 disk should play quite happily on any Region 2 DVD player, but you should probably check with Sony or whichever retailer supplied your player to confirm whether your player can cope with a Region 0 disk. See this page on the MSCL.com fan site for confirmation of the box set's Region 0 status – they use the term "Region Code Free" but it's the same thing – as well as a note about possible problems with the NTSC encoding. For what it's worth, I have a four year-old TV which has no problems playing NTSC-encoded DVDs. I believe that almost all newish TVs can cope with NTSC format signals, but obviously it's something you ought to check out before spending money on the DVDs. My DVD player is a couple of years old and it can play Region 1 DVDs anyway, but I normally have it set to play Region 0 and it takes my MSCL DVDs without any bother.
I note that the Amazon.com entry for the DVD claims the disks are Region 1. This certainly wasn't the case with the initial run of DVDs, so either Amazon's information is wrong, or else there's been a second printing of the DVD and they changed the encoding after the first print run. I haven't heard of this having happened, and I bought my DVDs from Amazon.com in the first place. I suspect that the MSCL.com site would mention it if there had been a change in the DVDs' region coding, because plenty of fans based outside the US use the site and you'd think someone would have noticed. You might want to post a query to the MSCL.com forum and ask whether anyone in the UK is aware of the disks having changed to Region 1 coding.
I don't really know what to suggest: if you find a seller, you might want to ask them to confirm that the discs are coded as Region 0 before paying up. Trouble is, multi-region DVD players are much rarer in the States than elsewhere – basically, we all have an incentive to buy kit which can play Region 1 content, but the US domestic market isn't much interested in imported films – so there's a good chance that the seller won't even have paid attention to region coding. I can't see any indication on the packaging of the disks' region code, unfortunately. I'd be very surprised if BMG had bothered to produce a second run of disks with a different region code. However, I can't absolutely rule the possibility out, because I stopped paying much attention to MSCL DVD-related news once my set arrived. (That said, I'd be astonished if there had been a change and the fans at MSCL.com hadn't heard about it.)
My best guess is that any disk you buy will be Region 0 and you could safely buy the disks from a US-based seller and play them on your Region 2 player, but that's easy for me to say because it's not my money you'd be wasting if I were wrong. :-)
Good luck with your search. I hope it turns out that the disks are still coded as Region 0 and you can get hold of a set, because it's definitely well worth having.
April 2nd, 2003 at 20:58
Re: region coding of MSCL DVD box set.
Many thanks for your speedy posting John. I enquired of one seller and they still seem to think that there is only a Region 1 disk out there. Hmmm. I will try to post on the MSCL Forum and see if I get any joy. One way or another I am going to buy the box set while I still can, after a bit of enquiry. I've heard of a plug in thingy that is supposed to disable Region Encoding on any DVD player.
Anyway, thanks for wetting my appetite, I'm thrilled that it's finally out on DVD with 19 episodes. Too good to miss.
April 2nd, 2003 at 23:56
Don't be too worried yet Kevin, chances are the DVD is R0. AFAIK every player in the uk plays R2+R0 though you might want to check your manual. If you've got any "special interest" DVD's (porn or non-mainstream documentaries etc) then that could also be R0.
Don't bother with an auction unless you can't buy from amazon or the auction is cheaper. The seller is most likely presuming they have an R1 disc because it's american.
If john wants to check his discs I'm sure there's a utility that'll give you the region if you have a dvd-rom player. Not to sure about macs though.
If the discs are R0 and the player plays them (quite likely) then I think most players ourput a Pal version of the video. Your TV has to support this but we've got a pretty old TV and it's fine IIRC.
The other option is to buy a DVD-rom drive for your PC or mac, they're quite cheap now and can play anything.
You can have your sony chipped and seeing as it's probably quite old now the warrenty will have expired so there's no risk there. It's quite expensive though.
April 3rd, 2003 at 00:40
I haven't found a Mac utility that confirms the region code for a DVD yet, but I'm pretty confident that the set I have is Region 0. That's how the set was advertised and described from the very start. In any case, my iMac's DVD drive is set as Region 2: if my MSCL DVDs were Region 1 then the iMac's DVD player software would warn me that I was trying to play a Region 1 disk and offer to change to Region 1. (Like many computer-based DVD players, the iMac's player allows the region code to be changed a very limited number of times, to allow for people changing country from time to time.)
I'd say there's an excellent chance that the DVDs Amazon are selling (and which are being auctioned) are in fact Region 0, not Region 1. It might be worth emailing Amazon asking them to confirm that the set is Region 0 – it could just be that many buyers trusted the information supplied by AnotherUniverse (the original distributors) and MSCL.com and didn't even read the Amazon description, and consequently didn't prod Amazon into updating their listing.
As Simon says, it's highly probable that any more-or-less recent DVD player and TV combination will happily cope with a Region 0 NTSC-encoded DVD.
April 3rd, 2003 at 14:00
I have the set from Another Universe, which is definitely Region 0. They play on our Australian DVD player and PAL TV just fine.
April 3rd, 2003 at 23:00
Many thanks for comments from a few of you. I have took the plunge and ordered the box set from http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com. It will cost just short of $59, which I make a rough guess at being just short of £35. For 5 a dvd set of one of my favourite programmes I am gonna be seriously chuffed if this works out without having to buy extra kit. They say that they sell Region 1 DVDs, I guess to make sure that they don't get loads of returns. However, the product info. for this disk specifically says Region 0.
I am keeping my fingers crossed and will update. Once again, many thanks.
April 3rd, 2003 at 23:44
I'm glad you've taken the plunge, since I'm pretty sure your player will handle the DVDs without any bother. There's no denying that at that price it's a risk well worth taking, given the quality of the show you're getting.
Fingers crossed that everything works as planned.
April 4th, 2003 at 02:50
I'd say that site doesn't mention R0 because they're not that common rather than anything else. It's like my sweetshop not mentioning that they sell string.
Worst comes to the worst you can flog it easy enough
February 17th, 2004 at 04:36
ok, had to dig for this one! Oddly Devon Gummersall has been on TV in the US twice this week. Last sunday he had a small role in The L word and then on thursday he had a big guest star part on Tru Calling. Yep, just like the buses…..
February 17th, 2004 at 06:59
Good to see he's still working.
I notice that according to the IMDB he was in Independence Day. I don't remember spotting him at the time: do you have any idea which part he played?
February 18th, 2004 at 01:51
He played philip
I don't know who that was though and I only saw the film in the cinema at the time
February 18th, 2004 at 23:41
I suppose that given that neither of us remembers spotting him it must have been a fairly small role. I'll have to keep an eye out next time Independence Day shows up on TV.
June 14th, 2007 at 20:30
Tvshowsondvd is reporting that a special edition set is on the way with commentaries and notes for the second series to be included!
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7484
June 16th, 2007 at 00:07
Interesting. I don't think I'd be tempted to buy another copy just to get the extras, but its good to see the show being made available again. (The fact that it's going to provide more content at a lower price than the AnotherUniverse release is galling, but that's the way of DVD re-releases I suppose.)