I don’t what what it is, but Friday seems to be a big day for email. Here’s one I got today, which read, in part:
Television series air and are eventually canceled. What
happens to them? Obviously I wouldn’t be asking if I weren’t interested in
a particular series."Search," an adventure series that aired in
1972 lasted one season and has never aired since. Do you
have general knowledge of what might of happened to a series such as
Search?Any information that you
might be able to provide that would assist someone like myself in finding
out more about the disposition of the series, or how to be able to maybe
have the opportunity to actually view the episodes once more would be
invaluable.
The simple answer is that cancelled shows end up in a film vault somewhere. Unless the series had enough episodes to syndicate (which SEARCH didn’t), and there’s a real demand to see the reruns (which there isn’t), the show will just stay on the shelf forever. There are literally thousands of series like that, and not all of them are one-or-two season flops. . There really is no opportunity for fans to get episodes, except bootlegs from collectors. There’s some room for hope…the success of TV show collections on DVD have given some obscure old shows new life. Whoever thought you’d be able to buy the complete DUSTY’S TRAIL (and who would want to?) Whether SEARCH will ever come out on DVD remains to be seen…but there are a lot of other, better known and more successful shows in the Warner Brothers vault that are likely to come out first. I’m still waiting for SPENSER FOR HIRE…
I love the fact that even one season shows now have a chance to come out on DVD. One of my recent favorite shows to be cancelled was Firefly. I was thrilled to find out they released it on DVD (of course I bought it).
Now Dusty’s Trail on DVD, that’s a concept. I vaguely remember the name. Did it feature Gilligan?
Damn do I remember Search fondly. I doubt it would hold up well — I was pretty young when it aired. But it was my favorite show and I’d happily by the season on DVD. The rotating lead was a great idea; the tech was very cool for 1972, but not too cool or outrageous.
On a tangent here — “Lost” has brought back memories a different short-lived series, “The New People.” Richard Dreyfus among the guest stars, and a pilot by Rod Serling (under another name), weren’t enough to keep it on the air.