It has been almost 11 years since The WB premièred young americans. 12 July 2000 was the day that Bella, Jake, Scout, Hamilton, and Finn first graced our tv screens. Will had made an early appearance on 26 April 2000 in a 3-part story arch on Dawson’s Creek.  It has been over 10 years since The WB cancelled young americans. They were last broadcast in the USA on 30 August 2000 with their final appearance in Canada shortly afterward. They then graced tv screens all over Europe and Australia and many places in between in the coming year and later with the incidental encore presentations on a cable channel here and there.

The fan forum for the show is still going, http://www.fanforum.com/f39/. It has been going since the show started. Six threads had their last post yesterday and a further 17 threads have been active this month. It might not be much by some standards but it isn’t dead.

With a few key words you can google yourself episodes to view or a fan-made dvd set to buy. There are a few versions out there. I have one from WPIX, the New York station formerly of The WB. I have another that is of some other station of The WB. I have one from the UK. I have some rather low quality (by today’s standards) .wmv files. I also have some rather very nice though clearly up-converted 1080p .wmv files that are a mux of the French video and the American audio. There are others too. I mention these because each is an entirely unique recording. Can you think of any other show that has this much variety in its fan bootlegs? It is the most widely bootlegged show by fans in the 21st century.

It is a bit late to save the show but you can sign the petition in hopes that those in charge decide to finally release an official DVD set. We all have home-made recordings on VHS or/and DVD but wouldn’t it be nice to get a quality transfer and maybe some commentaries? The petition to save the show can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/wbya/petition.html and yes it is still alive as today.

Some good news, of sorts, in that young americans has moved up the list on TVShowsOnDVD.com’s ranking for demand of unreleased shows. In April 2010 young americans ranked 55th on the list. In September 2010 young americans had climbed to 49th thanks to a combination of  increased demand and some other unreleased shows getting released. In April 2011 young americans is 43rd on the list for demand of unreleased shows. When shows that have also been released are factored in young americans ranks 275th, which is damn high considering all of the TV shows that have made it to a store near you when people didn’t want to buy them.

Normally somewhere about now is when the home video rights holder would be realising they could make a lot of money if only they were to get off their ass and get the show out to the fans.  If you want official DVDs of young americans then tell Sony. contact info for Sony to come later once i find it – too sleepy right now.