Customer Reviews

Hunter: The Complete Series

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The first 3 seasons of Hunter were released a few years ago, and then like many of my other favorites, the releases just stopped. I don't think the studios realize that this makes many consumers a little shy to begin to purchase a new show, for fear they may not get the entire set. I have several "partial collections" of shows that have just stopped being released for reasons unknown to the common man. It is very sad that many great classics such as Gunsmoke, The Love Boat, Night Court, Mama's Family, and countless others have been cut after only one or more seasons, yet we are bombarded with junk being released every day that is barely entertainment- then again look at what is considered prime time TV today.

Hunter was one of my favorite shows growing up and I am glad to see that Mill Creek came up with the intelligent idea of releasing the entire series. A serious fan will purchase this and be done with it. Sure, the price is a little high, but you are getting 7 seasons and over 150 episodes. Usually when the shows are broken up into seasons you end up paying more overall (This way equates to $12.85 a season.) This way you know that you are getting the entire set- a fan does not have to wait forever at the mercy of some studio that is making billions of dollars to see his favorite shows. As long as the DVD's are clean and contain all the episodes, I really don't care about all the extras that the studios load onto other DVD's, usually in an attempt to justify the high price.

If you love the Hunter Series and enjoy having entire sets, this product will deliver. However, this is the cheesiest, cheapest, crappiest DVD set I have purchased! (MIAMI VICE- THE COMPLETE SERIES was the last set I had purchased, so naturally I am disappointed!) The quality of the picture is good, considering this was produced mid 1980's and restored so we can have it. I have absolutely NO COMPLAINT there.
I am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED with the packaging, and the lay-out. All 28 discs come in one flimsy plastic case that measures approximately 7 1/2" long, 5 1/2" wide, and 2" thick (It is definitely a space saver!). Each of the DVD's come in a black PAPER sleeve with a clear cellophane circular window where you can view the Season #, along with the episodes that are contained on that particular disc. The seasons are printed in different colors so you CAN tell them apart. All of the discs are stacked into ONE tight pile within the outer plastic casing. These are single sided discs, with the Season and Episode titles printed on the opposite side. There are NO EPISODE listings anywhere on the packaging. When viewing the Menu, the titles are NUMBERED and LISTED on each disc.
On the POSITIVE, I love watching FRED DRYER and STEPHANIE KRAMER in this series. I think they have GREAT CHEMISTRY, are adorable, and are a pleasure and joy to watch.
I tend to gravitate to the TV Series of the 1980's because I enjoy seeing REAL PEOPLE who have NATURAL BODY PARTS, some character lines on their faces, without face lifts, unnaturally glowing-white bleached teeth, blown-up trout-pout lips, fake breasts etc. I guess I'm just old-fashioned, and proud to be this way! Anyway, I'm glad to have the complete series in my possession and I would still buy it again, even with the crappy packaging.
Hope some of you will find this information helpful as you're considering purchasing this set.

There seems to be a lot of curiousity and strong feelings regarding the upcoming set of Hunter: The Complete Series on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment, so I wanted to stop by and share my experiences with it.

On Tuesday July 20, I interviewed the VP of Product Acquisitions from Mill Creek about Hunter and a bunch of their other releases (including his attempt to get the BATMAN TV series on DVD), and we also took fan questions about Hunter.

I've also personally reviewed a copy of the set and posted my findings at [...]. I can't say that every episode is completely uncut. In fact, I'm sure that's not the case. However, a large number of episodes clock in at the 47-48 minute mark, which does seem to be a complete episode for an hour show from the 1980s. The pilot is also most likely complete as it comes in at over 95 minutes for a two-hour timeslot.

However, I can tell you that while the DVD may not have the cuts in footage that cable does to add more commercials, there are cuts for music purposes. The Chaka Khan episode has all her singing edited out. It doesn't affect the story at all, however. You should know that Mill Creek did NOT do any editing on its own on these episodes for ANY reason. Any cuts or music substitutions that were made were done by Stephen J. Cannell Productions because of the extreme high cost of licensing music for DVD releases.

The versions of Hunter that are on this DVD are basically the "new, official" versions that the public will see whether it be on DVD, online, or in syndication unless the cost for music rights comes down. It's as simple as that. It's either this or nothing. Don't bother to wait hoping for a new set with all the original music because that's simply not going to happen.

To hear the story in Mill Creek's own words, check out my interview with them at [...] and you can also read my extended review of the Hunter DVD set, which includes detailed pictures of the packaging inside the case and a full rundown of each Hunter episode with its running time so you can judge for yourselves the completeness of each episode.

In our honest opinion, having actually had the set in our hands for review, we can give it four stars because Mill Creek did the best they could do with it, and they brought it in at a very fair price even if you do have the previous single-season releases.

You can also check out my [...] interview to hear Mill Creek talk about whether they will be releasing the seasons in separate box sets.

this is from a Project Manager at
Mill Creek Entertainment

Good Morning The masters of the episodes that were provided to Mill Creek Entertainment by the producers are the syndicated versions. With regards to the music issues surrounding the Hunter television series, the majority of the programs contain the original music as it was broadcast. There are some episodes where the original songs were removed by the producer for reasons unidentified to Mill Creek.

Terry

The good news is you get all seven seasons of a 1980s network TV show for a great price. The bad news is a) there are no extras, including no subtitles, b) the packaging is only just adequate (but space-saving), and c) the disc quality is marginal; the first disc we watched has freezes and drop-outs. Other reviewers have indicated that the episodes vary in length, indicating editting, and some of the music has been replaced presumably for copyright reasons.

So, if you are looking for a collector-grade set, this is not for you. But, if you just want lots of TV at a great price, you should be happy with this set.

I was very glad to learn that This series would finally be realeased in full after Anchor Bay started with the first 3 seasons about 5 years ago. I was disappointed with the packaging of this set however. It looks like I would imagine the bootleg copies of a show to look. The outer foil O-sleeve helps to dress it up some but mine was bent and scratched (the studio was nice enough to mail me a new one free of charge), the plastic outer case is thin and just looks cheap, the packaging of the DVDs is the worst, they are simply in a paper slip case with a plastic window which I imagine will easily leave fine scratches from repeatedly removing the DVDs which are all stacked on top of one another and fit poorly in the case. You have to remove every DVD on top of the one you want to get to a certain disc. I realize that it was quite hard to make a space utilizing package for 28 discs, but there has to be a better way! On the good side the video quality seems to be on par with what was previously released by Anchor Bay and the price is right (I got mine for about $72 including Shipping). I would have been willing to pay even $20-30 more to have a more professional package on par with the big studios but this is what we get I guess. I really think the most attractive option for the consumer would have been for Mill Creek to release the last 4 Seasons individually, but I suppose this was the most cost effective method for them. I guess if you are a fan of this show it is better to have it in this format than not at all. But as an owner of many classic TV DVD sets, I can say this is easily the cheapest looking and most poorly thought out of the bunch! UPDATE: I purchased these back in August and never watched them. Well I saw last night that a lot of people on here were complaining of freeze framing and other problems with playback. Well I started with Season 4 and the first 3 episodes played fine, the last 3 had so much freeze framing I quit watching. I was sent a replacement disc from the studio that seems to play correctly as well as a complimentary series called "Day Break" which I have never heard of, but it was nice of them. They also told me that consumer complaints have declined with more recent runs of these discs. I haven't experienced any problems with Season 4 disc 2 so far and I only have one more episode left. I'm hoping that I only had the one bad disc. I also discovered that the 3 defective episodes on Season 4 disc 1 would play correctly through sporadically, however it was never permanent.

Very disappointed, DVD Skips, Freeze thru out the show, one on show it just stop in the middle of the show and than a new one started, never saw the end of the show. Used different DVD Players same thing.

I am glad that they released the complete series but the packing stinks. On a scale of 0 to 10 I give the packing a 0! Every time I open the case out come a bunch of black sleeves with dvds in them. If you spend the money for this set and the dvds are worth it spend a little more and buy some slim dvd cases and throw the crappy packaging away. This is a bare bones set just the dvds no extras.

I wrote a review BEFORE this DVD Set was released, praising the idea of having ALL Seasons available in one set of DVDs. That's a great idea, I just wish more TV Series would be released that way. Now as far as this set of DVDs is concerned, since it's been released . . . . .
EXTREMELY poor packaging. All 28 DVDs are all jammed together and are very difficult to separate or to even select a single DVD from all the others that are piled on top of each other in flimzy paper covers. As far as the quality is concerned, it's about a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10 (if you are watching these DVDs on a 55" screen or larger). On a smaller TV screen, the quality looks a little better, but it's certainly no where near anything like watching an HD DVD. (Yeah, I know it's NOT an HD DVD set, but I truly thought that the quality would be a little better than it is). The quality was much better when this series was released by Mill Creek Entertainment. I'm giving it 4 STARS, mainly because it's a great TV series, PLUS, they released ALL DVDs together in one set. I'd give it 5 STARS if the quality was as good as the Mill Creek Edition. I still highly recommend this DVD set, and I'm truly glad I bought it, even though I did purchased the 3 Mill Creek editions when they were released a few years ago.

NETFLIX is a great service (highly recommended) but is NOT the answer for the Hunter series. Why?:

1. NETFLIX has only offered the first 2 seasons.
2. The Anchor Bay version on NETFLIX right now is so fragile/cheap I've had to send CD's back 5 times to complete all the episodes on those individual CDs. (I never have this problem with other CDs from NETFLIX.)

When this new product comes out, it will be nice to have a reliable new CD where episodes will not be stopped by messages about the DISC being damaged or unreadable. It will also be convenient to have the whole series together, especially where a 2 part episode happens to fall on separate DISCs (example "The Beautiful and the Dead" episode).