Lost in Space
First, let me be as clear as possible up front: this is going to be frivolous. I am fully aware that this post encapsulates the smallest possible frustration to have with the Walt Disney Company, at any point and especially now. I get it. I do.
But it’s Friday, and it’s the end of another very long week. During a very frustrating time, as much as I grouse, I like to escape. Disney+, as you might imagine, offers a very distinct escape. The benefit, too, of receiving press releases from Disney+ about the next month’s batch of new and catalog titles arriving on the streaming service is that I can get excited about what’s to come.
In mid-March, Disney+ sent out a press release with its titles for April. Among them were two very exciting titles set to be available today.
A couple of weeks later, Disney+ tweeted out their big video announcing what would actually show up in the month of April. And those two episodes, “Man in Space” and “Mars and Beyond”, weren’t included.
And yet here we are today, and those two titles aren’t available. Leaving aside the intense frivolity of this discussion (if we can), I’m at a loss as to why these titles aren’t on the service. I have a guess I’ll get to shortly, but it’s just a guess. Sadly, this isn’t the only time Disney+ has promised titles at some juncture, only to remove them.
The most egregious example is also, arguably, the weirdest. “Josh, a press release probably said titles are subject to change. These episodes may have been listed, but something probably happened in the processing of the files, so they got delayed.” Let’s say that’s possible. And it’s not like Disney+ didn’t give us a few weeks’ worth of warning by omitting the Space Age episodes from their big video.
What about when Disney+ does something like this, though? Here’s Exhibit A, from February 28.
And now, Exhibit B, from a day later.
Why would Disney+ include a title like “I Captured the King of the Leprechauns” in an official tweet and a day later, the title vanishes? It’s head-scratching. The film tied to that episode, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, is available to stream on Disney+. This is not. Episodes like “Man in Space” and “Mars and Beyond” are supposed to stream, and yet they don’t. It’s especially head-scratching that, even in this time of crisis, the only things Disney+ promises to upload and doesn’t are these episodes. I have little doubt that a lot of work needs to be done to spruce up the shows to be streaming-ready. But there’s enough content already on Disney+ that looks rough around the edges. There’s no need to be perfectionists now.
I mentioned that I have a guess as to why these episodes may have vanished. (Please note, by the way, the Space Age episodes were released on DVD as part of the Walt Disney Treasures collection in the early 2000s. They’ve made their way to home media before.) My guess begins with yet another tweet.
This is in reference to a recent Defunctland episode on the genesis of Tomorrowland, and specifically in reference to Dr. Wernher Von Braun. Von Braun was a major piece of the Space Age series of episodes of the Walt Disney anthology TV series, too. Now, you’ll note that the tweet here is from 4 days ago. I don’t think someone at Disney just got an idea about the man’s background. But I wonder.
I genuinely wonder why it is that, of all the various titles Disney+ has promised to upload to its service, the only ones that fail to make the leap are episodes from the 1950s-era TV shows. Just last Friday, Disney+ released another list of upcoming titles for May, including another Disneyland TV episode, “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair”. I really would love to escape, for an hour, into that episode. I hope it’s there.
I now feel very skeptical that it will show up.