Steve Phillips

Word is the Season One DVD set contains the edited versions created for syndication. There is a thread over at the home theater forum about it.

I won't be buying edited DVD sets of ALF or any other show. I could record the edited stuff from cable reruns! I've got some of the uncut shows from the original NBC broadcasts anyway.

Time to cancel those pre-orders; those who still have sealed copies may wish to consider whether or not they want to open them now.

Lion's Gate needs to hear from fans of this show (via a real letter, not e-mail) in droves that they won't pay good $$$ for edited junk.

pilot

bah, stupid lions gate ..now i need to decide if i want to keep them, or return it .. i remember reading about combat that they were "speed up" syndicated versions .. i wonder if this is the only thing we're gonna get, or if lions gate made a mistake (doubtful) or if these were the only ones they could (or wanted to) release..very pissed off boo to you lions gate..

darkside

That is the whole point of buying these box sets. To get the original broadcast episodes.

One of the reasons I don't watch shows like the Simpsons in syndication is the fact all the episodes are edited.

bboisvert

Yeah, I hope that the general reaction to this isn't a shrug and a "Well, it's just ALF... who cares?"

The whole point of putting together these TV sets (well, one of the BIG points anyways) is to have an archive of all the episodes at home, without the compromises that comes with sydication. No commercials, no random edits, etc.

I don't see much point in buying a season of a show if every episode has been sliced up by about 3-4 minutes to insert commercials.

Al Padrino

Dammit. I knew getting it for $21 was too good to be true.

digitalfreaknyc

They edit some of the Will and Grace episodes as well. Lions Gate sucks.

Darknite39

Now I'm really glad that I didn't order it.

Ephemeral_Life

Pisses me off to be so mislead. That was clearly false advertising. Considering sending it back when it comes here, but my wife will probably want to keep it anyway.

Dazed

Thanks for letting me know. one less thing to spend my money on now

costanza187

Dare I ask what was edited about this? I really liked this show, and it is something I had hoped would come to DVD.

cseyer

Count me as a non purchaser for any edited TV shows. BOOOO!

Not that I was planning to purchase ALF but I definetly WONT pick it up now.

bboisvert

I don't know if any sites will have a detailed list (there's probably an ALF fan site out there that has a list of syndication cuts... scary thought).

Anyway, just about every show out there has about 3-4 minutes (6-8 if it's a 1-hour drama) removed when it is sold to syndication. This allows for more commercials to be run when it airs. They usually aim to remove jokes or subplots that do not directly relate to the main plot, so as to not confuse the main plot.

In general, I don't have a huge problem with that. There are a bunch of compromises when watching a show on TNT or whatever anyway... a few minutes cut out won't make me cry. But to pass off these chopped-up versions on DVD? Unacceptable.

I didn't buy this, but I would absolutely return it if I had. Just to send a message.

Schloob1

Jsut sent an e-mail cancelling my order. Any chance, does anyone know or recall of a time that they have first sold "edited" versions of a TV show then later came out with an actual "complete" version. Just wondering since this is the first time I am purchasing a TV show series that I truly loved growing up and becasue it would not cost much since it was only 4 seasons long.

otmetrud

Is it possible that these syndication versions were the only ones available to release? Maybe the originals were lost or damaged or something? I wouldn't buy Alf at all, but I wouldn't buy any show that was the cut-up syndicated version.

Wasn't there a classic show of some sort not too long ago in which a couple or three of the episodes were the edited syndicated versions? All in the Family, Sanford and Son, one of those?

Philip Reuben

The only example I can think of is Sailor Moon seasons 1 and 2, but that's a VERY different situation ^^; (And, similarly, the upcoming uncut release of Yu-Gi-Oh)

darkside

A&E accidentally did this with the first season of Nero Wolfe. They shortened some of the episodes when replaying them later on TV and put those versions on the first box set. When people complained they recalled the box sets and replaced them with the unedited versions.

Scott27

I can confirm that at least one episode is cut. A couple years ago, a Candian company called VSC released a disc called "The ALF Files" in Canada containing 3 hour-long episodes, including "Try to Remember," which is included in Lions Gate's season 1 set. I have that Canadian disc and since I opened the season set before seeing this thread (unfortunately) I checked the running time of that episode on both discs. I didn't watch the episodes so I can't tell you what's cut (I will try to watch them tomorrow). But I can tell you that the Canadian disc clocks in at 48:54 for that episode, a full 3:09 longer than LG's set, which was 45:45.

LBPound

No Beach Boys song in "Help Me, Rhonda"!

coladar

Utterly amazing that some moronic company would do this with a show like ALF. As many shows that are on DVD at this point, there are quite a few where people wouldn't blink an eye to getting edited versions. But ALF seems to still enjoy a semi-cult following. Seems to me it would have been hard to pick a worse release to cut 10% of each episode, in regards to people bitching like mad.

Just sorry I didn't know about this two days ago. Even for $21, I wouldn't have bothered with this shoddy release if I had known. Order's already shipped from DDD, so I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle to return it or not. We need a smiley with steam coming out of it's ears, because that's about what I feel like using right now. Here we go:

Upper pylon 3

It is also possible that these are the only versions that Lion's Gate had available to release. I read on a Little House thread that some of the S3 & S4 episodes are edited. Someone emailed them to ask why, and they said that they were the only ones that NBC sent them.

Does NBC own AFL? If so I suspect a conspiracy. Maybe now that Universal owns NBC they will only let Lion's Gate put out the edited versions so Universal can put out the original versions after Lion's Gates' contract expires. I did read somewhere that when Universal will be the excusive distributor of NBC dvd's once the other contracts expire.

Again I don't know if ALF is owned by NBC or not so my theory may no be correct. I have heard that Saved by the Bell (an NBC show) is somwhat edited and Punky Brewster (also an NBC show) is not edited buy the video does have several glitches in it. I now fear that the S2 set of Punky will be edited.

pilot

according to imdb, NBC & Warner were two distributors.. NBC for the USA, as well as Warner Brothers..your NBC theory maybe correct?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090390/companycredits

also, Lions Gate/Artisan previously struck deals with NBC/etc to release their stuff exclusively .. (like dead zone, which airs on USA network, which is owned by Universal/NBC) ..it may just be simply thats what they had in the best condition ..but who knows ..

digitalfreaknyc

Will and Grace is NBC...and is edited as well.

mythmaker18

That wouldn't surprise me at all. They probably figured (wrongly) that fans would want the best looking copy versus the most complete copy. The syndication versions are likely of a more recent vintage than the original broadcast tapes. Perhaps the originals had a lot of drop-outs, etc. in them that Lion's Gate couldn't be bothered to clean up...

I'm not an Alf fan, but if someone tried pulling this crap on a show that I would collect, especially a show that I'd be "on the fence about", like M*A*S*H (on-the-fence in a "I'd like to own it, but if it's cut, I'll just watch it in syndication or otherwise forget about it" kind of way), then it could sit on the store shelf and rot for all I care.

Mistakes like this rarely (if ever) happened in the early days of home video. Granted, we didn't have the tidal wave of TV product that we now have, but there's still no excuse to use TV edits. Someone should've checked, then raised bloody Hell when they discovered the shortened versions were sent.

Class316

What did they find to censor?

Walter Neff

Animal-rights activists demanded that all references to eating cats be removed.