Syndication

[reese35]

You know what bothers me the most about syndicated Malcolm episodes?

• Most of the episodes they don't dare to show the cold opener - THE COLD OPENER! and...
• Even if they do, all of them have a few minutes cut off! For example...
• In the pilot, the cold opener introducing Malcolm's life was cut.
• Pilot - The line with Caroline calling Malcolm a 'suspicious little dickens' was cut.
• Home Alone 3 - The cold opener with the Wilkersons 'happy' dinner was substituted by the boys' squirrel/fire extinguisher debacle from "Krelboyne Picnic" and was made into a 3-parter.
• Lois' Sister - Reese's statement about a idea coming into his mind to get into the Mustang was cut.
• Zoo - Not only was the 'Catch' cold opener cut, but they made the 2 parter into a 3-parter.
• Dewey's Dog - some of Malcolm and Reese's payback statement for Dewey was cut too.
• And there's more cut-offs than I can list here, so tell me...

What'cha think?

[allison]

That´s stupid, I don´t understand why they do that. The cold openers are one of the great things about the show. What do you mean by "they made the 2 parter into a 3-parter"?

[Emrysgirl]

OMG...yes! I just watched the pilot a few days back and was wondering what happened to the cold opener.:Angry: (why are there separate smilies for angry and mad?)

[ahelm13]

Most syndicated shows get cut up somehow. They need the extra commercial time or something like that.

[yardgames]

I still don't get the whole "2-parter to 3-parter"

[admin]

at least you get syndication, the bbc barely even shows them all once, its given up on is rerun of season 2 after 2, yes 2 episodes.

[yardgames]

That's too bad, over here the syndication ratings are doing absolutely fantastic (in terms of a syndicated series, I mean)

[Ryebeach]

From what I understand, when a TV show airs in syndication the allowed air time is cut from that of the original network broadcast. Shows need to be edited to fit in the alotted time. On MITM, the cold openers are what is cut, mostly, I would assume, because they are unrelated from the rest of the episode. While they are often very funny, the cold openers really don't serve a purpose to the specific episode. Because the cold openers often vary in running time, other parts of the episode occasionally need to be cut as well. All this is done, so more advertisements can be shown, which, in turn, generates more money for whomever is syndicating the show.

[yardgames]

Welcome to the forums. Thanks for the explanation.

What I don't understand is what reese35 said:

Zoo - Not only was the 'Catch' cold opener cut, but they made the 2 parter into a 3-parter.

That implies the episode is getting longer, rather than shorter. What is the specific difference between teh original Zoo and the syndicated Zoo?

[KB]

My guess is that means there are two commercial breaks during the main part of the episode, so the ep is split in 3, instead of in 2.

Normally it's:
Cold open
-commercial
part 1
-commercial
part 2
-commercial
credits

(although MITM sometimes has 3 parts originally)

In syndication it's

open credits/part 1
-commercial
part 2
-commerical
part 3
-commercial
credits