Skybird
08-12-16, 07:48 AM
This really lit my candle today: I just found out, by chance, that one of my most favourite TV series finally, after twenty years, has made it with all six seasons onto the German DVD market - with the original German dub. "Ausgerechnet Alaska - Northern Exposure" imo was a gem of almost British absurdity and humour, while at the same time always playing fair on the protagonists and being quite humane in atmosphere and mood. The english DVD sets were available since long, I had season two in English, but only season one made it with the original German dub onto the German market so far - and I prefer the German dub by far, not because I could not understand the English one (although this hectic Dr. Fleischman speaks so fast very often...), but because the German voices are so very good in synchronisation and translation and speaker choice. German market uses dubs more than any other in the world, everything gets dubbed over here, EVERYTHING, which means they have plenty of experience with it and with choosing the matching voices, and very often this results in extremely good dubbing indeed. So this was important for me, and now I ordered a box that was already released last christmas season, it seems. All seasons, in German, original sound files.
How new dubbing can go terribly wrong, cna be seen with the "Magnum" series. The German dub was in mono sound only, and they decided it was clever to sacrifice the orginal ingenious German speakers (especially the German Higgins was more British than the American original ever could have hoped to be!) for doing it new in stereo. The result was a disaster, and the series, though it was in high demand by the DVD market here, sits like lead on the shelves - but thankfully rests there in silence.
returning to Alaska now, well - plenty of laughter, plenty of good feeling ahead! :yeah: US TV gets plenty of Flak over here, and due to the high volumes of series output there is indeed a lot of garbage for sure. But many overlook that that there also are quite some quality series - and the really good ones are on a niveau and of a standard that even the best of the best of German TV production usually cannot match, and keep up with rare examples only every couple of years. Yes, there is far more garbage form US TV producing - but also more quality stuff. At least in the past, for the mainstream format market. Today, there is HBO, and they have a reputation for doing high quality, haven't they. What they do for TV, in Europe is done for the cinema only.
I am still waiting for Spenser getting the original German dub release, too, in English the DVDs with all three seasons are available since some years now, but Warner Germany has no plans it seems to release them with the German dub of back then. I still depend on my old VHS cassettes, recorded in LP :) and featuring all episodes, but in lose order, 8 per cassette. :)
Needless to say that I am a proud owner of all House boxes as well. :D
How new dubbing can go terribly wrong, cna be seen with the "Magnum" series. The German dub was in mono sound only, and they decided it was clever to sacrifice the orginal ingenious German speakers (especially the German Higgins was more British than the American original ever could have hoped to be!) for doing it new in stereo. The result was a disaster, and the series, though it was in high demand by the DVD market here, sits like lead on the shelves - but thankfully rests there in silence.
returning to Alaska now, well - plenty of laughter, plenty of good feeling ahead! :yeah: US TV gets plenty of Flak over here, and due to the high volumes of series output there is indeed a lot of garbage for sure. But many overlook that that there also are quite some quality series - and the really good ones are on a niveau and of a standard that even the best of the best of German TV production usually cannot match, and keep up with rare examples only every couple of years. Yes, there is far more garbage form US TV producing - but also more quality stuff. At least in the past, for the mainstream format market. Today, there is HBO, and they have a reputation for doing high quality, haven't they. What they do for TV, in Europe is done for the cinema only.
I am still waiting for Spenser getting the original German dub release, too, in English the DVDs with all three seasons are available since some years now, but Warner Germany has no plans it seems to release them with the German dub of back then. I still depend on my old VHS cassettes, recorded in LP :) and featuring all episodes, but in lose order, 8 per cassette. :)
Needless to say that I am a proud owner of all House boxes as well. :D