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Help: looking for... Life (2007)

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 (Edited)

Does anyone know anywhere that it’s possible to get the original version of NBC’s Life (2007)? All the versions on DVD and the ones I can find online have the NBC Rewind music instead of the original music.

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The show’s creator wanted to be able to pick expensive music for the show’s soundtrack. As a compromise, NBC let him, but only for the first airing. For reruns, syndication, and home video, they replaced the expensive music with cheaper choices and called it the NBC Rewind version.

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SpacemanDoug said:

What type of music?

As an example, in season 2, episode 11, 42 by Coldplay is replaced by Spear (aka “Heart Will Fade”) by Caution Cat in the NBC Rewind version.

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Honestly it doesn’t surprise me Universal replaced the music, cause this is a “less popular” show to them unfortunately

Raccoons

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SpacemanDoug said:

Honestly it doesn’t surprise me Universal replaced the music, cause this is a “less popular” show to them unfortunately

This was negotiated before it aired. The creator wanted more expensive music and NBC was only willing to pay for the rights for first run episodes. Nothing to do with how popular it was.

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It’s interesting cause Smallville had like 500 something songs in its first few seasons and as far as I know they were all intact (I know it’s Warner though but still)

Raccoons

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I can’t verify this, but here’s a quote from Reddit from someone who claims to have been involved:

[MTeson said:]

I was a sound editor on Life. Can confirm that the creators didn’t care about DVD and streaming music sources, and spent a ton of money for single use rights. It was…not smart. Bit then again their battle to stay alive was always with the studio and the studio cared about first airing and pushed that.