Since the first of the year we have been featuring each Sunday an episode of the popular, landmark TV series Emergency! Our downloads of the shows have been provided by Hulu, the major tv and movie provider for home downloading of programming for personal computers. Emergency! ran for six seasons from 1972 through 1977 and was created and produced by Jack Webb, one of the pioneers and icons of television programming.
The first season of Emergency! was a mid-season replacement series and only contained 10 episodes, but it was an instant hit and the show remains popular today with both the general public and fire/ems members. When we started running the series in January we began in Season 2 and have worked our way up to the early episodes of Season 4 so far. Hulu has been making the first four seasons available for downloading, but not seasons 5 and 6. Yesterday we learned that Hulu’s rights to Seasons 2, 3, and 4 have been terminated effecting this coming Sunday night. So that means that our archived postings under the Sunday Emergency category will go dark also. But apparently, the first season will remain available, at least for the time being.
What we will be doing, since we’re so early into the 4th season here on Firegeezer, is running a Special Emergency! episode every day this week up to and including Sunday so that we can pack in a few more episodes from Season 4 before they become unavailable. Then beginning on Sunday September 26 we will begin running the Season 1 episodes that are still available. There has been no mention of any upcoming availability to download Seasons 5 and 6, but I am very doubtful of it happening.
What’s going on with that do you think? The Emergency! series programs are wholly owned by the Jack Webb Estate and it is my guess that they are getting ready for Hulu’s planned ”premium” service where you can order (and pay for) downloads directly to your tv, computer, or smartphone over the internet. Back on June 30 we talked about the Hulu-Plus service HERE. For $10 a month (to start with, anyway) you will have unlimited access to every episode of most all past television series. We will try and keep you informed of how things are going on that front.
There is some good news for those of you who like to collect the DVD’s of the series (and will no doubt remain in production). Each series is currently on sale, marked down by 25% or more. CLICK HERE to order the next one for your collection.
Ok, we’d better get our equipment checked out now. It’s Monday and that means the long check sheet. I’m going to get a couple of pots of coffee started. We’re going to need ‘em. See you back in the day room in a little while.
Also on FireGeezer…
- A Thursday Emergency ! – September 8, 2011
- A Wednesday Emergency ! – September 7, 2011
- A Tuesday Emergency ! – September 6, 2011
- A Friday Emergency ! – September 9, 2011
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