The Official Network Thread

[Shillingbury Tales]

Originally Posted by Jack.A.Napes

I went for:

MADE
ROME EXPRESS
80,000 SUSPECTS
THE CLUB
BLUE MONEY
ALL NIGHT LONG
PERCY'S PROGRESS
LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR*

All blind buys, but not much risk at a fiver a pop.

*Purely for the representation of jaw dropping political incorrectness in the 70's. Sociological reasons, honest guv.

No need to make apologies for Love Thy Neighbour, it was a great series and while it had the same overall intention of making the racist look bad it wasn't as cleverly written as the Alf Garnett series and it's all too frequent racial name calling (on both sides) is what keeps it off tv as most viewers don't see beyond that.
It's also a brilliant time capsule of the era for the exact reasons you mention and one episode in particular sticks in my mind.
Eddie the white man decides to sell his house and after failing to there is a great scene at the end where the punchline comes from the estate agent who without a hint of irony berates Eddie for misleading them by not disclosing he had black neighbours which (according to the agent) would cut his sale price by 50%.
The laugh is intended to be because Eddie is losing money but from a modern viewpoint the laugh comes from the WTF realisation that the estate agent is deadly serious and those who were there at the time know it really was true.

The feature film version is a different kettle of fish. I hate PC with a vengeance and really enjoy LTN , Mind Your Language and other shows we're not supposed to but the LTN film has an amazing opening credit sequence which as a comedy is presumably intended for laughs but consists entirely of racially aggravated violence and criminal damage from both black and white characters. I was a teen in those days but I don't really recall any time when that sequence would be classed as funny.

[Shillingbury Tales]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

Catweazle series 1 is absolutely wonderful, series 2 is on the whole great though IMO suffers from the absence of

[Show spoiler]Robin Davies' Carrot

and a more episodic story arc. Geoffrey Bayldon was made for this role, though part of me is sad that he turned down a chance to be the Third Doctor to take it (tempted to talk about the other two potentially great Doctors that almost were, Michael Bentine as 4th and Ken Campbell as 7th but I'll spare you that)

Shadows series 1 is very good, though there is one episode that sticks out stylistically like a proverbial sore thumb apparently made as the failed pilot for an Ace of Wands spin off series that never happened and was dumped into the run as money saving device.

I don't recall any intention of making the return of Mr Stabs into a series. It was actually several years after his AOW appearance that he appeared in Shadows , and the character appeared again years after that for a third time.
I think both were planned as just sequels rather than pilots although most kids seeing either would likely never have seen his original AOW story.
Typically just one month after moving out of an area where we could receive Anglia and London ITV in 1973 Thames decided to give a London only repeat to Seven Serpents Sulphur and Salt in a 6pm slot.

And I believe that was the final appearance of AOW on broadcast tv and before the advent of home video they managed to wipe the first 2 series so we'll never get to see the original Mr Stabs story again.

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by Sifox211

I can't get anything to go in my cart. Is it just me, or are titles sold out, or is it a really bad website

The site is pretty terrible. I seem to remember it it's early days the site offered much better content filtering making it easier to find stuff of interest without having to scroll through hundreds of unrelated titles. Or is this a case of rose tinted spectacles?

[Shillingbury Tales]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

The site is pretty terrible. I seem to remember it it's early days the site offered much better content filtering making it easier to find stuff of interest without having to scroll through hundreds of unrelated titles. Or is this a case of rose tinted spectacles?

All 3 incarnations of the Network site have been nightmares whenever a sale was on but the first one had a very simple a-z text listing of every single title available from Network alongside the price so you really only needed to sit on one page to place a nice large order.
Since they did away with that it does look nicer with covers on show etc but it means whenever the sale bottleneck crops up it makes ordering several titles really tiresome

[CZDK]

I have tried placing an order for a couple of days now, but everytime I click "Pay now" I get an error message saying:

Error processing transaction
This transaction attempt has failed. We are unable to redirect you back to the web store from which you were purchasing. The details of the failure are given below.
Status: ERROR
Status Detail: 5080 : Form transaction registration failed.

Has anyone else encountered that error?

[Shillingbury Tales]

Originally Posted by CZDK

I have tried placing an order for a couple of days now, but everytime I click "Pay now" I get an error message saying:

Error processing transaction
This transaction attempt has failed. We are unable to redirect you back to the web store from which you were purchasing. The details of the failure are given below.
Status: ERROR
Status Detail: 5080 : Form transaction registration failed.

Has anyone else encountered that error?

The new website has had some teething problems which makes it all the more surprising they opt to have a sale now.
In responses to queries over emails sent 2 weeks ago regarding an apparent despatch for 2 volumes of Department S not due for sometime Network said that there were some glitches in the system including payment problems. At this time of night I would not expect the site to be busy enough for that to be an issue so if the problem persists I would email them

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

The site is pretty terrible. I seem to remember it it's early days the site offered much better content filtering making it easier to find stuff of interest without having to scroll through hundreds of unrelated titles. Or is this a case of rose tinted spectacles?

The filter has never been this bad. Even typing in the exact title will call up between 10-117 titles with absolutely no relation whatsoever.

While clicking on the individual films will put them in the basket, clicking back won't take you to the page you were originally on so you find yourself scrolling back through pages you've already seen. The only solution is to write a list of titles you want while you're browsing and click them individually after you've looked at the full list. Because whoever designed the website obviously figured that the whole point of website browsing is having to make a separate list on a piece of paper for maximum inconvenience...

But my favourite is still the message that tells you '0 items added to basket' and asks you if you want to continue shopping.

I guess someone figures that we really need to put the work in to deserve prices like these...

[Shillingbury Tales]

The list of problems Network have always had is long.
2 really annoying problems - do a search and you often get loads of unrelated titles with the ones you're actually looking for either lost in the middle or at the bottom.

UK buyers pay a postage fee once your order goes over a certain weight. Network are alone in being a company who actually discourage large orders and instead of doing the obvious and offering free postage all the way they tell you to place multiple orders to avoid the charge.
On top of that if your order results in a postage charge you can delete an item but the charge doesn't go away. IIRC you need to refresh the page for that to happen

[Pikylechu]

Does anyone know if the Persuaders box set still comes with the 156 page book? I can't see any mention of it on the product page, and it's a fairly non-negligible extra.

[John_Drake]

Last year I believe the sale lasted longer than a week--don't have my receipts in front of me though.

They didn't send a tracking number for any of my orders last year--I doubt they will this year either.

[Pikylechu]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

Any idea on the end date of the sale? Looking at last years sale I saw some mention that the summer sale is usually 7 days, but I couldn't find a post that explicitly said the sale end date/time.

Sale ends on Friday at 1pm according to their Twitter/Facebook.

[CartoonCollector]

Dont order when you are outside UK. Look at the shipping here For example; When i order the same stuff from Amazon or Zoom i pay around 5 in shipping



Update:

There is something with The Lodger, look when i delete it from the cart:

[TheOneWithThePrize]

Originally Posted by CartoonCollector

Dont order when you are outside UK. Look at the shipping here For example; When i order the same stuff from Amazon or Zoom i pay around 5 in shipping

Nothing new. Per the "Shipping and returns" page:

Although we are happy to fulfil international orders, larger orders may incur a shipping charge of up to £40.00, to ensure that your order can be sent via a safe, trackable method. In any case, the shipping cost will be displayed at the checkout, before you confirm your order.

When that happens I just split the order.

[CartoonCollector]

Originally Posted by TheOneWithThePrize

Nothing new. Per the "Shipping and returns" page:

When that happens I just split the order.

Yeah good tip but still weird that The Lodger adds 33 pounds of shipping wtf

[CartoonCollector]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

It's not The Lodger, it's the cumulative weight of the package. Drop 2 or 3 other items and add The Lodger and it will be 7.85 again. The best I can tell, it's somewhere around 1000gms.

Some items like UFO get the big shipping charge by itself, but I can put up to 10 single/basic items (sometimes 8, sometimes 11) and still get 7.85, then anything added will flip it to 40. Dlx packaging, multidisc sets, inclusive books or special trinkets change the amount and which items.

The Lodger has 3 disc and a decent sized booklet adding bulk

Aha! Good to know bro, thanks

[Si Parallel Universe]

Had to go to the product description to add my two selections to my basket before being able to checkout in the normal manner.

[John_Drake]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

Thanks -- as long as it's at least a week I'll be happy.

Me too. I've been eyeing their upcoming release of Moulin Rouge (1928)--much lower than Amazon!

[TheKillKillKills]

have these four titles in my basket;

All Night Long
Importance of being Earnest
Tales out of school
Victim

Any suggestion on other titles I should pick up?

[Aclea]

Animal Farm
Deadlier Than the Male
The IPCRESS File
The Flying Deuces - really superb restoration
The Medusa Touch
Odd Man Out
Rome Express
Sabotage
Things to Come
Young and Innocent

...all spring to mind

I would add The Quiller Memorandum, but there's so much digital noise on their BD version it's like it was shot in a blizzard

[Si Parallel Universe]

Avoid The Quiller Memorandum even at sale prices