MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) Discussion > BBC is really HACKING up TNG episodes re...

BBC is really HACKING up TNG episodes recently


Now, let's start by saying - of course TV shows on networks are edited and cut so that more commercials can air. But BBC America is taking it to absurd levels.

Last night I watched

THE SCHIZOID MAN. The chopped it up as if a 5 year old had been given a pair of meat cleavers. Several poor cuts happened throughout the story, and then, at the end, when they discover Data in his quarters on the floor, and Kareen says "Captain - look! It's Ira! He's put himself in the computer!" THAT IS WHERE TEHY ENDED THE SHOW!!!

They cut out the entire explanation that Graves has transferred himself out of Data and into the Enterprise's computer, but only his knowledge, not his consciousness — the "human" part of Dr. Graves has been lost. Which is kinda important because it's the ENTIRE CONCLUSION of episode! They also cut out the entire last scene, where Data is on the bridge and they are discussing his behavior since he and Graves had beamed back to the ship. In all total, THEY CHOPPED THE LAST 3 MINUTES 10 SECONDS of the episode!! Completely discarded it. It was bad enough they hacked off many scenes during the rest of the episode, but this was ridiculous.

Then, I watched

"MEASURE OF A MAN". OMG. At the end of the court case, Data stands up and says "I FORMERLY REFUSE TO UNDERGO YOUR PROCEDURE". And that's it! The show ENDS right there! We miss the last 2 MINUTES AND 54 SECONDS where Maxwell cancels the transfer order,


MADDOX: I will cancel that transfer order.
DATA: Thank you. And, Commander, continue your work. When you are ready, I will still be here. I find some of what you propose intriguing.
(Data leaves)
MADDOX: He's remarkable.
PHILLIPA: You didn't call him it.
(Maddox leaves)
PHILLIPA: You see? Sometimes it does work.
PICARD: Phillipa. Dinner?
PHILLIPA: You buying?

[Observation lounge]

DATA: Sir, there is a celebration on the Holodeck.
RIKER: I have no right to be there.
DATA: Because you failed in your task?
RIKER: No, God, no. I came that close to winning, Data.
DATA: Yes, sir.
RIKER: I almost cost you your life!
DATA: Is it not true that had you refused to prosecute, Captain Louvois would have ruled summarily against me?
RIKER: Yes.
DATA: That action injured you, and saved me. I will not forget it.
RIKER: You're a wise man, my friend.
DATA: Not yet, sir. But with your help, I am learning.
They cut this ALL OUT! BBC AMERICA is editing to the point of wrecking the episodes and losing the flavor of what was intended. I have NEVER seen such sloppy editing in my life.

At this point, the shows aren't even worth watching on BBC America anymore. A shame. I used to enjoy their late night marathons. But hacking the episodes in this manner makes them un-watchable.

reply

Agreed. I posted a question regarding The Schizoid Man about a year ago on whether or not his consciousness might still be in the computer. Someone mentioned the final scene and I was like, "Say what?" I had to find the actual ending on YouTube I think. YouTube!

Thanks BBC America.

reply

Dvds and blu-ray's are a wonderful invention.

X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.

reply

Dvds and blu-ray's are a wonderful invention.


For once, I wholeheartedly agree with you, CJH.

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

reply

Speaking of DVDs
Why do they get stuck when they are playing.
I just watched some of season 3 and suddenly they are jumping and getting stuck!!
Is it my player or the DVDs?

🎵"It's One Nation Under GOD" 🎶 not allah,wake up people.

reply

Depends. How old is the DVD player? Take them to a friends house, or put them in your PC and see if they act the same way.

DVD's and CD's don't go 'bad' unless they've been scratched or damaged (in most cases). I have every CD I've bought since 1987, and they sound as good today as they did then. Same with my DVD's. If the DVD is bad out of the box, it may be defective. But overall, I'd say the player is probably the issue.

reply

They could also be dirty without being damaged. A fingerprint in the wrong spot can do rather bad things.

reply

Oh okay thanks Seldon and Censor.
It is probably my players, they are old and cheap and one has some sort of internal short where the visual goes of and I have to get up and wiggle the player to get the visual back on.

I wish there were products that you could pay more for that were actually better.
I think in China, they just stick on a different brand name cover depending on the day of the week or orders taken, something like that.


🎵"It's One Nation Under GOD" 🎶 not allah,wake up people.

reply

The part that goes quick on cheap DVD/CD players is the 'laser reader'.

Again, before you toss the player in the trash, test the DVD's on another player. That would seem to me the best way to determine where the problem lies. But my bet is, it's the players. There have been defective discs, so if its brand new out of the DVD case and giving you issues, you definitely want to put it in 2 players.

But I've never seen a DVD or CD that worked fine for a period of time 'go bad' without some external issue occuring, such as scratching or as Seldon said, fingerprints.

reply

I take care of my dvds and cds. My gf's player has been skipping my discs, but they're perfect on mine.

X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.

reply

It's the only way I watch the Trek series and movies nowadays currently watching TNG S01 Coming Of Age,at Season 1 with TOS and nearly at the end of season 3 of ENT.

reply

[deleted]

Not in the UK, MysteryDan, and the VPNs don't work anymore neither.

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

reply

[deleted]

Well, I used Unblock-US for a long time years ago, and recently, like in the beginning of the year, when I tried to use it after a long absence from Netflix, Netflix refused to play the US content via Unblock-US. Now, there may be other, better VPNs out there but I decided to buy and own the DVDs, as I don't want to put up with that stupid kind of hassle anyway.

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

reply

[deleted]

You're damn LUCKY you get Star Trek on BBC at all, we get squat Trek in the UK from the BBC - all they show us are endless insipid quiz shows, property shows, cooking shows (the ones where you don't even get the recipes!), antique shows, auction shows, and just generally boring boring BORING shows.

It wasn't always like that: from the late 1980s through the whole of the 1990s and I think a few years into the millennium, the BBC always used to show an episode of Star Trek (TNG, DS9 and Voyager), in series and episode order, once a week on BBC 2 on Wednesdays at 6:00pm. It was a wonderful time then, and this is how everyone in the UK caught all the mass of new Star Trek coming out back then, and most of us would record on VHS so we had a fine collection of episodes with no advert breaks.

Now, it's a lot duller, as I said. Reality TV as I described seems to be at the forefront of primetime entertainment, and I cannot figure out how such boring TV can be popular. Which is why I've recently bought almost all the Star Trek series boxsets, so I can relive the good days of quality 1990s sci-fi.

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

reply

I'd never watch them on tv, now that Dvds and blurays are the norm. And Netflix.

X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.

reply

I usually do watch them on Netflix. But there's still a charm about clicking on the TV, not knowing what episode is airing next, enjoying a marathon in the middle of the night. But, I won't be doing it anymore. The way they are hacking them now, it's just crazy. I don't mind a little editing. But what they are doing now is just insane. They are literally losing the essence of the episodes.

reply

[deleted]

It wasn't always like that: from the late 1980s through the whole of the 1990s and I think a few years into the millennium, the BBC always used to show an episode of Star Trek (TNG, DS9 and Voyager), in series and episode order, once a week on BBC 2 on Wednesdays at 6:00pm. It was a wonderful time then, and this is how everyone in the UK caught all the mass of new Star Trek coming out back then, and most of us would record on VHS so we had a fine collection of episodes with no advert breaks.


That's how I got my weekly dosis of Trek in those days and where I first saw TNG later DS9 although that did appear on some local commercial channel as well followed (sort of )by VOY but by that time after FC I kinda lost interest.

reply

Welcome to my nightmare. They've been hacking TOS episodes for years, sometimes by as much as 8 minutes per episode.

Over 20,001 Tacos Returned...AS GARBAGE!

reply

I know exactly how you feel. When I started getting into ST:TNG, I looked up the episodes online so I could binge watch them all. Took me bout 2-3 weeks and cut out more sleep than is probably healthy, but ended up watching them all.
Since I was home this last week I decided to watch some recordings I had of the series. I can't remember which episode I started out with, but I do remember anticipating a particular scene that I always laughed at and when it should have been there, it wasn't. At first I thought, "Okay, this is tv so I guess they're going to have to cut some parts." Happened to other episodes, but usually I could rectify with "Well, the cut scene didn't alter the story telling that much, but I still wish they would have kept it just for character moments." I get that commercials provide advertising money so if that's how they need to offset costs, then I'll be fine so long as they keep the important bits.
However, after watching 'Realm of Fear', The Schizoid Man', and 'Measure of a Man', I don't think I can give them that same consideration.
In RoF, they cut out the scene of O'Brein telling Barclay about his fear of spiders and I kicked myself when I didn't realize it until the end, when they showed O'Brein presenting Barclay with Christina. Since I already saw the full episode I knew what the significance of that meeting was, but I bet viewers who didn't were wondering "What's with O'Brein and that spider?" I know I would have been.
TSM cut riled me up because the last scene in the full episode gave the episode closure and also gave more detailed information about what ended up happening with Graves and the information transfer. Horrible hack job that I'm sure left viewers wondering what the heck just happened.
MoaM is definitely the one that gets me. They cut out the farewell party the crew put on for Data, but slightly fortunate they showed him and Geordi having that conversation. The abrupt cut at the end of the episode, however, nearly sent me screaming. Cutting out the final exchange between Maddox and the other characters essentially eliminated his character change and made it appear he did not learn anything from the court proceedings. It will make it really confusing for those who don't know he changed his views when they see "Data's Day" and wonder why Data would keep in contact with Maddox. The elimination of the conversation between Riker and Data was also a horrible decision since it cut out Riker's sense of guilt when he had to see Data again.
Don't know what the BBC America editors were thinking when they hacked the episodes like that, but they should really be fired. It's somewhat a shame because I was considering watching other programs they had on, but I'll probably end up not bothering if episodes and programs are going to be cut so horribly.

reply

MoaM is definitely the one that gets me. They cut out the farewell party the crew put on for Data, but slightly fortunate they showed him and Geordi having that conversation. The abrupt cut at the end of the episode, however, nearly sent me screaming. Cutting out the final exchange between Maddox and the other characters essentially eliminated his character change and made it appear he did not learn anything from the court proceedings. It will make it really confusing for those who don't know he changed his views when they see "Data's Day" and wonder why Data would keep in contact with Maddox. The elimination of the conversation between Riker and Data was also a horrible decision since it cut out Riker's sense of guilt when he had to see Data again.
I know. It was really bad editing. It's like they want to get in 25 minutes of commercials. People understand editing - TO A POINT. But what they are doing now is going to drive viewers away. Starting with me.

reply

TVLAND is the worst. They used to be great but they even gout to the point that they were hacking up episodes of ANDY GRIFFITH and speeding them up to where they walked and talked fast. Plus 5 minutes of commercials every 3 minutes. That's when I told cable to shove it and got a digital antenna.

reply

This, like many others, is why I have all 7 seasons of DS9, TNG, and VOY, plus all 3 seasons of TOS on DVD.

Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat

reply

Agreed, Rand. I get Censor's point about popping on a channel, but it's not even worth it anymore.

X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.

reply

I just saw JUSTICE on BBCA. They cut out the last 1 minute and 20 seconds. It actually leaves a big part of the story unresolved. They really need better editors.

reply