DVD Review HTF REVIEW: MacGyver: The Complete First Season (1 Viewer)

[James Thompson]

JasonLa I appreciate the time you have taken to compare your copies to the DVD. Syndicated episodes have become a problem in recent months and I feel more confident are reading your findings that the copy of MacGyver I bought my mom for her birthday most likely includes all uncut episodes, because i agree with the previous few posters that episode lengthes probably aren't as relevant, because it would be too hard and create obvious awkward moments at the end to get each show to a predetermined length, and I think the most important part is they are all around 47 minutes or more.

 

[Tony J Case]

Episode length - piffle! What I want to know is who would win in a construction showdown - Mac or The Professor!

 

[Linda Thompson]

Jason...I also appreciate your efforts!

I wasn't particularly worried about cuts, but I also am delighted by the hard evidence of your findings. Very nice to know that all the DVD eps are indeed longer than your off-air syndi-cuts.

 

[JasonLa]

Thanks for the votes of confidence. This was my 1st show from universal so I didn't know what to expect. As I figured the episodes wouldn't all be exactly the same length. I guess now that I think about it some more those times aren't that much shorter on the shortest ones. After looking at some other hour time slot shows running times varied by about 1 minute. I'm confident that there are no cuts with the exception of episode 3 which matched the syndicated copy with the exception of the slight time compression present in the syndicated one.

If it weren't for ALF season 1 I probably would never have even thought to check anything I buy for completeness.

 

[Jano Rohleder]

Eh... do you mean Paramount or are you talking about some other show besides MacGyver?

 

[JasonLa]

Sorry I mean paramount. lol

 

[Mike Heenan]

Anyone have problems with captions on the last 3 episodes of disc 3? They dont work for me.

 

[Steven_F]

I have compared the uncut version of Thief of Budapest (episode 3) to the version on the recent USA DVD release. Approximately 2:30 of footage has been removed. About 27 seconds is from the opening credits. The rest is throughout the episodes. There is a total of 7 cuts and 3 have dialogue. I think it is likely that most of the shorter episodes have been edited as well. I plan on contacting Paramount to let them know that I think they should attempt to use uncut episodes even if they have to raise the cost.

I own more than 40 season sets of TV shows on DVD and I have found most of them to be very consistent with the episode time throught the season. It would be easy to add or subtract time. That is the editors job. Every show has some scenes that may end up being removed (well, not shows like All in the Family, but even it was a combination of 2 live performances).

 

[JasonLa]

Thanks for confirming thief of budapest. Hopefully the other shorter episodes if not all can also be confirmed from original broadcasts. So far the current trend of verification I have seen everyone using is the running times. There has to be people out there with original airings comparing to the DVDs. We need to get their results up here on the forum. There are several other shows season sets I suspect of having cuts but I have no original airings to compare to.

 

[Steven_F]

Jakob S. from Norway sent me the uncut Thief of Budapast. I think he has all of the MacGyver episodes uncut. They were recorded from a network in Norway. They show MacGyver uncut and without advertisement breaks. He said he is going to check the running times of the rest of the season 1 episodes that he has. Maybe I can get him to provide me with a couple of more episodes for comparison. Maybe one of the ones you have marked with **** and one that is only slightly shorter (like 09 or 21).

On 09 and 21 you say that it is reasonable to assume that the original was slightly shorter. Do you say this because they are not that much shorter, or because it was something like ABC showing more promos for another show or showing a "previously on MacGyver" type of thing?

 

[JasonLa]

I say this primarily based on running times. But now that I think about it more 21 should be one marked with **** because it is close to the others marked with **** less than 2 minutes difference in running times. As you can see all other episodes I didn't make any comments on are about 48 minutes with the longest being #6 48:17 and shortest #13 47:52 and the average being 48:04. With episode 9 this could mean the origional airing could have been about 15 seconds shorter than the #13 and not quite 30 seconds shorter than the average. Applying this logic to 21 would mean at least 35 seconds shorter than the #13 and about 45 seconds shorter than the average. And those marked with **** are around 45 seconds shorter than the #13 but more like 1 minute shorter than the average running time. This is basically some of the logic I used in making my list.

 

[Steven_F]

Thanks,

I am sending Paramount a letter thanking them for the release, but complaining about the edited episode(s). I think this is the right guy to send it to:

Mr. Joel Berman
President of Worldwide Distribution
Paramount Pictures
5555 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038

On the DVD box it says "Complete First Season", and the official website says "6 DVDs featuring all 22 original hour-long episodes". Episode #3 is obviously not complete, and it is not the "original" episode. This advertising is misleading at best.

 

[JasonLa]

Any new info to confirm the intactness of the other episodes?

 

[Steven_F]

No, Jakob is supposed to check the times of his uncut episodes to compare with the DVD times. I sent him an email to see if he would send me a couple of episodes to compare (one that is cut about 1 minute or more, and another that is only slightly shorter), but I haven't heard back from him yet.