From: ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin)
Subject: The Five Doctors - once and for all was Re: What's the differenc?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 04:26:15 GMT

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In article <1992Sep7.033403.20020@cs.ucf.edu> wilson@cs.ucf.edu (tom wilson) writes:
>Ric_Goldman_-C@hqops.3mail.3com.com wrote:


Right.  once and for all, here is the story on "The Five Doctors" and its
formats:

Normally, a story is broken into 25-minute parts for broadcast in England
with a cliffhanger at the end of each episode (and this is the form it
will be shown on the SciFi Channel, BTW).

key word is normally.  "The Five Doctors" was an Anniversary Special,
and so John Nathan-Turner arranged to show the whole thing at once,
and thus Terrance Dicks was allowed more of a free hand in the writing
as he didn't need to build to a cliffhanger every 25 minutes.

And so, "The Five Doctors" as it was originally made and shown in both
the UK and the US was as one 90-minute movie/episode/story/special.
Period.

Later, when the BBC decided they wanted to repeat the story in 1984,
they edited it down into 4 25-minute episodes as normal.  The cliffhangrs
(obviously) weren't all that much, but they were there.  It is this
version that I was trying to distinguish from when I made my first
listing.  

When the story was first released on video in the UK, some cuts were
made to the story for very little reason that anyone can gather.
They aren't very big, but annoying in any case, especially the one to
the start of the scene taken from "Shada" on the River Cam.

When CBS/Fox issues videos in this country, they do not deal with 
Lionheart, but rather directly with BBC Video, and thus the copies they
release in this country are duplicates of the BBC Video versions
(converted of course), and thus the version of 
"The Five Doctors" available in the US from CBS/Fox video contains
some edits.

But then again, so does the Lionheart version.......

For reasons which are again beyond me, every time 5 drs has been shown
in my area (Minneapolis/St Paul and the Wisconsin Public Television
Network), the version shown had five missing scenes.  This was unknown
to me until I bought a copy of the Video, and found these five scenes
I didn't know were missing.
I was so amazed by this I wrote in to "Doctor Who Magazine" about this
and they printed that letter and a follow-up some time later.

However, these cuts are not Universal across America it seems, some areas
have indeed seen the full version.  But I would still bloody well like
to know why Lionheart made these cuts in the first place!

Here are the scenes missing from the broadcasts in my area:
1.  Small cut from end of Sarah/K9 scene, where K9 calls after Sarah
	next to the "Beware of the Dog" sign
2.  The Second Doctor waving for the Brigadier to "come on" leading into
	the Master poking the charred corpse of "one of his predecessors,"
	a Time Lord councillor killed in the Zone.
3.  The middle of the scene where the Master and the Third Doctor meet,
	where the Master says "These thunderbolts are everywhere,":
	and the Doctor says "You just watch me!" when Sarah tells him
	they can't just leave him.
4.  The First Doctor and Tegan on their way to the Tomb, with Tegan
	calling out to him as Doc, and then him telling her not to
	refer to him as Doc.
5.  Turlough and Susan in the TARDIS watching the CyberBomb being set
	up, when Turlough says, "Big, isn't it?"

Xref: sparky rec.arts.drwho:5989 rec.arts.tv.uk:5379