LOST Fans Forced to Wait? Shocker.

It was announced yesterday that the Lost Season 3 DVDs will be released on December 11th, and not early September as was the case with seasons 1 and 2. I'm assuming this is due to the show's February start date, and hey, why have two powerful marketing pushes when you could lump it all into one? Who needs those extra three months of sales?

Here's what doesn't make sense to me: The Lost DVDs have always sold well at Christmas. But they also come out of the gate in September and are usually the highest-selling television DVDs on the market. Problem? I'm sure many of you out there know a lot of people who say, "I'll just wait for the DVDs" and they get them in early September, but just can't find the time to bomb through 23 episodes in two weeks before the new season starts. So what happens? They watch it, love it, try to avoid spoilers all year, and then get the DVDs the following season. And in the meantime, the networks and show's production people gripe about how their viewership is down.

Hm... I wonder how that could be remedied. Hey, I've got an idea! What if instead of starting the show in September, they push it off to February. Then they release the DVDs in, say, late October, but not only catch up the people just trying to watch season 3, build a marketing campaign to pull in NEW viewers of the series. Offer the 3 box sets for a special price. Offer the first two seasons at a deep discount. Then build on that hype for the three months leading up to the show. Suddenly new people have a chance to get completely caught up, long-time fans get to brush up on their season 3 and enjoy the extras, and everyone's happy.

But oh... I guess the problem there is starting the show in February, eh? Because the rest of it just makes sense, but that February start date would be a toughie...

Sigh.

Sometimes I just don't know what the marketing people are thinking. Instead, they'll release it December 11. People won't necessarily buy it the way they would in September; they'll wait to get it as a Christmas gift. So the sales WILL happen, but as gifts (instead of nabbing all the people who would have bought it anyway in September, and then cashing in on all the gifts in December). DVDs are given at the end of December, then people can only crack them open early January after the craziness of year-end is over, and they probably don't find the time to watch the entire season in the 3 weeks leading up to the show, and boom. The networks are whining that their ratings didn't go up for season 4 because people weren't able to catch on to the show.

Oh well. If it helps, some of the special features have been announced:

The 23-episode, seven-disc set comes with a one-on-one with star Matthew Fox, a featurette on "The Others," a documentary chronicling 24 hours in production and a selection of never-before-seen flashbacks. Also included are behind-the-scenes looks at 10 episodes, audio commentaries, deleted scenes and bloopers.

In the meantime, the season 1 Heroes box set is due to be released on August 28th, so fans will have something to hold them over. There are tons of extras on it, and it includes fifty extended and deleted scenes. Wow.