After picking up Season 5 at Best Buy today I was interested to see if there'd be a coupon for the next set as was the case last time.

The good news: Yes, there was meaning that Universal is committed to rolling out the entire series.

The bad news: The coupon describes it as Season 6 only. That means rather than combine Season 6 and 7 together, we're going to get a set of three episodes and in all likelihood more Mrs. Columbo (probably the pilot movie) as filler material.

This makes no sensse to me. Why not just get the whole lot of them (including the specials) on DVD and release the whole **** thing at once on like 20 dvd's?

Well the reason they wouldn't do something like that is because it would cost in excess of a few hundred dollars and very few people out there are going to buy a set like that.

We can only hope that the people putting this together at Universal are in fact going to do the sensible thing and combine Seasons 6 and 7 (8 episodes total) but that they're only calling it Season 6.

Drat!!! I was hoping to be first with this news. Oh, well, at least more are coming. I put the disc with Now You See Him into the dvd player, and sure enough, the night club singer is singing the theme to Charade. Cool.
I was scared it would replaced with no brand muzak.

Joe

P. S. Used my coupon at Movie Stop for the 5th season which was in the 4th season.

Give 'em time Eric Paddon. That is exactly what they WILL do. I bought all the Columbo dvds in Japan. They were released in volumes of 4 episodes in running order. About a year and a half later they released the whole lot together.
They're going to do the same with the Twilight Zone definitive collections later this year.

It will be cheaper than buying each season individually but still a large enough outlay in one hit to make you flinch.

Just out of interest, where did you buy the DVD's from in Japan? Was it online?

I wouldn't bet on it - considering that no set has contained fewer than 6 episodes, it's kind of hard to imagine them promoting the set with only 3 episodes of 'Columbo' itself.

Then again, I doubt it will dissuade anyone from buying the set, one way or the other. Really, 'Season 6' is the weakest of them all so I hope they do combine it with 'Season 7'. Some other series that suffered through partial seasons, like 'Remington Steele', are combining 2 seasons onto one set. Universal is the company releasing those sets as well.

"Remington Steele" is a Fox title, actually. It is true that Universal has gone the combined season route with other titles like "McCloud" (and they botched that one by using the syndicated prints of season 1 episodes combined rather than the original 60 minute versions), but I think with "Columbo" they just might go this route of separate releases only because they know how well "Columbo" sells, and this way they'll pad their profits by also dumping off more "Mrs. Columbo" episodes in the process, and also know that the core fans who buy "Columbo" will still buy it even if they don't like that approach.

This is after all, a company with a less than stellar track record in the TV on DVD field, so that's why I'll take the cynical approach until I see conclusive proof otherwise.

Mcgue, I lived in Japan for 2 and a half years and claim the honour of being the first person in the world to own all the original Columbo eps on commercially released dvds.

The insert could just be a misprint, put together by somebody who didn't know about the abbreviated season. I guess Universal could release a two disc set, with the second disc containing an episode or two of Mrs. Columbo. But would they charge $40 retail for this? If any more Columbo is coming out this year we should know by early August.

The Japanese CDs have been available for several years. You could at one time get them from this web site but I'm not sure if they are still in print.
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp