The Butcher lives in the PBS editing room

I have the Region 2 (U.K.) release of the Jericho series, and there are various chop-ups that PBS must've done for propriety, including the masking of the breasts on the woman during the showing of the English Maiden film during "The Hollow Men." (There are also more cuts between what's on the screen and the faces of the various characters present, which heightens the tension.)

The real killer, so to speak, came when Jericho and Caldicott are outside the Rex Theater after the scene in the projection booth. Viewers of Mystery saw an exchange with Jericho saying that they needed to get Caldicott to his wedding, and Caldicott responding that he became a policeman because of Jericho's example.

What Mystery viewers didn't see was exactly four seconds of one line uttered by Caldicott that's sandwiched between. He says, "Sir, will any good come of this?" and Jericho's expression saddens. It refers to a scene that's earlier in the episode, where Jericho is rhetorically going over the same question with his mother, with Caldicott silently taking all of it in.

That line brought a real poignancy, bringing Jericho back from the cocky high of solving another case to his usual brooding about the meaning of what he does in life. It's two seconds, for pete's sake. So why did some editor at PBS choose to take it out?

I've already seen major bits of other shows like "Foyle's War" taken out for no good reason, including one entire subplot in a show that showed Foyle's devotion to honesty and his willingness to question even a closed case. Why does this continue, especially when these shows are 100 minutes or less in full and they're scheduled for two-hour time slots?