The Doomsday Machine (TOS)
The MeTV edit of Errand of Mercy. Simply brutal.
Ah, MeTV.
Take a 50-minute episode, chop 6 and a half minutes off the content and re-edit the remaining episode with some pretty awkward commercial fades and sloppy scene transitions.
I adore MeTV because they air some old shows that I grew up as a kid and matured into adulthood watching, but man - the way some TOS Remastered episodes are hacked up on that channel is pretty cringeworthy. Syndicated reruns in the '80s and '90s had their bad aspects when it came to missing scenes and edits, but MeTV and the old SciFi Channel circa 2000 are much sloppier and trim three minutes of additional footage from each episode.
Considering that that same FOX station also aired first run TNG at that time, I was equally surprised to discover that there was no difference between the aired version and THOSE VHS releases.
Imagine my surprise when I was younger and realized that "Amok Time" had a long sequence that lasted at least a good couple of minutes where Spock wanders down to Sickbay to reluctantly report for medical exams and McCoy has to coax him to give in to the logic of the situation and submit. The slow zoom on Spock's right hand as it nervously twitched was a very effective shot.
My whole life until the early '90s I watched Spock leave the turbolift on the Sickbay deck, the doors hissed shut and the next shot was Sulu and Chekov talking on the bridge. Watching the completely uncut VHS tapes of the series opened my eyes to what was missing, and the magnificent Phil Farrand Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers was an awesome reference material that explained which scenes were traditionally cut from each episode for syndicated station reruns.
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