I'm pretty sure they were saying, at the time the dvds came out, that the original negative do not exist. The syndication prints were edited right from the original negatives, cut up and the footage was discarded. Maybe someone can dig up old threads because I can't find the one we were...
I thought they couldn't do a blu ray because the original elements were chopped up prior to syndication and no longer exist? That's why the dvds look so hodge-podge in terms of editing.