I wonder if former employees of TV Land have found positions with ME-TV. ME-TV does what TV Land used to brag about. They run the entire episode. No editing or voice over credits. I have seen scenes in MASH and Star Trek I haven't seen in years. Their promos are about as creative as I've ever seen. Their creativity extends to their special programing. Someone gives a lot of thought to their Sunday afternoon programing. I'm just waiting for Andy Griffith to show up on ME so I can watch entire episodes again. I have not seen Antenna-TV so I can't make comments about their presentation but would be interested in yours.
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ME-TV Vs. TV Land
- Thread starter therealjm12
- Start date
Star Trek on MeTV is very heavily edited (6-7 minutes cut from each episode). Most of the other shows are just sped up/time compressed. I agree on your other points - it's nice that they don't do credit squeezing or even voice overs over credits.
Antenna TV is similar - complete credits w/no voiceovers. Editing, if any, is not excessive.
Antenna TV is similar - complete credits w/no voiceovers. Editing, if any, is not excessive.
therealjm12 said:
A difference between the two networks is quality of source material. TV Land airs better quality material since it is based on the master print; helps when they owns the shows. Me-TV and the rest of the world receive lower quality material. Andy Griffith is an example, the TV Land episodes are bright and clean while the episodes elsewhere are dark and grainy.
radiorob2.0 said:
TV Land makes up for the better quality by heavily editing Andy Griffith and not just little things but whole scenes where it was a pivotal point in an episode. The episode where Andy meets Thelma Lou's cousin Karen (played by Gail Davis (Annie Oakley)) as an example where they cut the whole scene where Andy takes Karen to his home for supper and they sing and that's about 5 minutes of cutting right there. Some of the epilogues are added but some episodes don't have the epilogues (another huge cut).
And on the subject of picture quality: TV Land has a better picture quality with I Love Lucy than Hallmark's where it looks like that it was a syndicated print from the 1970's from the way the picture is grainy at times. And TV Land's I Love Lucy is also heavily edited whereas Hallmark's has most of the whole episode intact.
nsa1 said:
Me-TV seems to be running the recently-remastered "CBS Television Distribution" Twilight Zone prints that are also on Hulu. "The Network Formerly Known As Sci-Fi" airs the hazy early-'90s-era Viacom prints. You can really see the difference in quality between the two networks, even though the official TZ Facebook promotes the Syfy marathons and not the airings on Me-TV.
Braves2005 said:
TV Land also has the ridiculous 38-minute episode blocks that seemingly change every month and are next to impossible to keep track of; ME-TV rarely veers from their schedule, which can get boring, but at least it's reliable.
S
searadiofreak
Guest
I am completely satisfied with Me-Tv. A good example of quality prints is the difference between watching the Mary Tyler Moore/Bob Newhart Show on Me, compared with RF TV. The quality is much better on Me.
I like their Sunday line-up with The Brady "brunch", followed by I Love Lucy.
Antenna TV is also good, with a nice block of Maude/All In The Family during the evening. Though, Maude can get tiring if you watch too much. Too much loud arguing and a little too dramatic to take for a full hour. Their Partridge Family block is also good, so many young guest stars, and past stars (Ray Bolger comes to mind as a recurring roll as grandpa) to count!
I like their Sunday line-up with The Brady "brunch", followed by I Love Lucy.
Antenna TV is also good, with a nice block of Maude/All In The Family during the evening. Though, Maude can get tiring if you watch too much. Too much loud arguing and a little too dramatic to take for a full hour. Their Partridge Family block is also good, so many young guest stars, and past stars (Ray Bolger comes to mind as a recurring roll as grandpa) to count!
M
Mario500
Guest
nsa1 said:
If this is true, could you specify any scenes removed from any episode Me-TV broadcast recently?
I gotta tell ya, I watched Star Trek on ME last Saturday night. I didn't notice any editing. In fact, I think I saw scenes I have never seen before. And I used to run the show in master control. There was one extra break added, however. One thing about Star Trek on ME, they run the version that were digitized a few years ago specifically for broadcast TV. The colors are brilliant and some very subtle effects were added.
On the subject of creativity, Me-TV's promos about as good as it gets right now. While watching, I've often thought about NIck's and TV Land's promos from the 90s. I also agree about their blocks. The Sunday blocks, last week's Valerie Harper-centered Mary Tyler Moore shows and the Bewitched themes are clever. It at least feels like the programmers care as much about the shows as the audience does.
Since we're talking about themes: This was probably happenstance, but on the big day at the Vatican last week, Hallmark's late night Golden Girls block included the episode where Sophia steals the Pope's ring. If that episode was already scheduled, it was one crazy coincidence!
Since we're talking about themes: This was probably happenstance, but on the big day at the Vatican last week, Hallmark's late night Golden Girls block included the episode where Sophia steals the Pope's ring. If that episode was already scheduled, it was one crazy coincidence!
MeTV runs the same remastered version that was in syndication from 2006-2009. The edits are exactly the same.
They typically cut bits and pieces of dialogue throughout the entire episode, remove some reaction takes (especially of minor characters), shorten some scene transitions, and in some cases cut entire scenes. It all adds up to something like 6 minutes.
Usually it's pretty well done, so there are no plot holes or continuity problems.
The running time of these edited episodes is around 44 minutes (including credits but not including commercials). The originals were over 50 minutes.
They typically cut bits and pieces of dialogue throughout the entire episode, remove some reaction takes (especially of minor characters), shorten some scene transitions, and in some cases cut entire scenes. It all adds up to something like 6 minutes.
Usually it's pretty well done, so there are no plot holes or continuity problems.
The running time of these edited episodes is around 44 minutes (including credits but not including commercials). The originals were over 50 minutes.
Mario-500 said:
Since you asked.
From an episode I know very well - The Doomsday Machine - this was run on MeTV not too long ago - just off the top of my head:
- When Kirk and co. first beam over to the Constellation, and Scotty says "The warp drive is a hopeless pile of junk", this entire scene is cut
- The transporter-room scene with Decker and McCoy beaming back to the Enterprise is cut
- After Decker takes over, some reaction takes of Sulu and other minor characters as well as an Enterprise fly-by are removed.
- Some scenes with Decker sneaking around the Enterprise after he knocks out the guard are cut.
- When Decker is flying the shuttlecraft into the planet killer, some of the dialogue between Kirk and Decker is cut.
In addition, there are many snippets of dialogue cut throughtout and some Enterprise fly-by's. There's probably more, but this is what I remember offhand.
If you compare with the DVD or what's on Netflix streaming, you'll see what I mean.
earshot said:
On that subject, the 1963 movie, "The Cardinal" was already scheduled on TCM, but it happened to occur on the day Pope Benedict officially resigned the papacy. What makes it truly bizarre is that the Vatican liaison for the film was 35-year-old Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict.
So for shows that one really likes, the best bet is to "bite-the-bullet" and buy the series on DVD or watch on other internet sources like Hulu. That's what I've been doing.
Overall I think ME-TV does an excellent job. What editing is done is certainly better than TV Land or any other channel on my lineup. Try watching The Rifleman on AMC then on ME. You'll see a big difference. I like their promos -very creative. Their overall presentation is very slick and tight. I understand they may not have the pristine prints of all their shows (Mary Tyler Moore & Bob Newhart for example.) but I'm sure that is what available to them. Their programing: well, personally I don't care for the hour detective shows and some of the sitcoms are lame (Petticoat Junction, My Three Sons, Family Affair) but that's just my taste. I understand that probably most people probably like programing like that in their audience. I'd like to see more shows with a bite to them, Cheers, All In The Family (I know it's on Antenna), Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere. Maybe this shows will pop up in the future. I do like the westerns and would like to see more of them.
nsa1 said:
Yup, that's almost exactly right. Per the CBS TV Distribution Bible website, the running time of the syndicated version is 43:48. The episodes I've been watching on Blu-ray are around 50:25 to 50:30, so 6 1/2 minutes are being cut from each episode.
But I'd agree with you that CBS TV Distribution did a pretty good job on the editing -- I remember the complete butcher jobs that I saw from local station editing of "Star Trek" reruns back in the seventies, where if you didn't already know the story you could never have figured out what was happening. CBS, in contrast, has done a good job of maintaining plot consistency.
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