Lost episode

Lost episode
This article is about television/radio episodes that are/were missing. For other meanings see Lost episode (disambiguation).

Contents

A lost episode of a television series or radio series is one which is, or was at one point, not available for rerun or release on home video or DVD. In some cases, the term is something of a misnomer, used to describe an episode that for any number of reasons was not aired in its original chronological place and later publicly released. It can also refer to episodes that, after their original airing, could not be rerun for various reasons, or episodes that were not, strictly speaking, part of the series, or to episodes which were wiped and no longer exist in an archive. Some creepypastas include "lost episodes" typically taped on a VHS tape.

Affected series

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, originally scheduled to be the 39th episode in the 1961-62 season of the show, never aired on the NBC Television network. This was because the finale, by 1960s standards, was deemed "too gruesome" by the network and sponsor Revlon. The episode eventually was released in the program's syndication package to affiliate stations.[1]

Ironically, the episode once denied "broadcastability" is probably now the most seen episode of all those produced. Due to interpretations of the public domain status of the copyright for this piece, it has turned up in numerous VHS and DVD releases attached to the Hitchcock name,[1] including the Alfred Hitchcock, The Legend Begins DVD set.

Seinfeld

Seinfeld's lost episode is "The Stranded", which was taped during the second season, but as the filmmakers did not like the results, they aired it during the third season. The episode is included on the Seasons 1 & 2 box set.

Get Smart

Get Smart had lost episodes of a different sort: a dispute over copyright ownership of much of the final season of the series (after it was cancelled by NBC and picked up by CBS) was resolved by restricting the syndication licensing of most of the season, limiting them to no more than three airings per station, and imposing reporting requirements on those airings. With most stations either using up their allotment of airings early, or simply refusing to air the affected episodes, they went unseen for many years. In addition, the black-and-white pilot, which was of odd length, and differed significantly from the format of the actual series, was almost never aired.

Married... with Children

Married... with Children has one episode that was dubbed as "lost," because the Fox network refused to air it. The third season episode, titled "I'll See You in Court", went unaired by Fox due to reservations over its subject matter. It was aired by FX cable network in 2002 and included in the show's DVD collection.

Family Guy

Two episodes of Family Guy have faced issues with airing over controversy in the episode. One of them, Partial Terms of Endearment, was unaired due to its focus on abortion. The other went unaired for a while because of Peter trying to convert his son.

Dollhouse

A recent example of a lost episode is "Epitaph One," the thirteenth episode in Joss Whedon's 2009 Fox series Dollhouse featuring frequent Whedon collaborators Eliza Dushku and Felicia Day. The episode was originally intended to air as the final episode of the show's first season, possibly even the final episode of the series, but eventually went completely unaired by Fox, despite the series getting picked up for a second season later that summer. This was due to different contractual obligations between the television network and 20th Century Fox Television, the studio that produced the series, as 20th needed a total of 13 episodes of Dollhouse for the DVD release and for licensing purposes in foreign markets. The network, however, had already paid for but scrapped the show's original pilot episode, "Echo," and considered it a part of the show's 13-episode agreement, despite "Echo" being overwritten in the actual series by a new pilot episode. Therefore, Fox only aired the first 12 episodes of Dollhouse and 20th Century Fox instead opted to promote "Epitaph One" as a special incentive for international fans and American fans who purchased the DVD release.

Postcards from Buster

The episode of the PBS children's show Postcards from Buster entitled Sugar Time was banned by some (but not all) affliates because of children with gay parents appearing. This caused the loss of government funding and eventually cancellation of the series.

Dragon Ball GT

The English adaptation of the anime, or Japanese cartoon (show), Dragon Ball GT, made by FUNimation Entertainment, ran on Cartoon Network between 2003 and 2005, but it had a major alteration: the first sixteen episodes of the series, making up the "Black Star Dragon Ball Saga," were cut and replaced by a single, US-only episode, which summarized the saga; this became the new series premiere. This edit was implemented by FUNimation to prevent viewers from possibly being put-off by these differently-toned early episodes, which were more in tone with the first series of the Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball, which featured less fighting and more humor. The missing episodes have since been released on DVD as the "Lost Episodes."

Pokémon

An episode of the popular anime Pokémon, with the episode being titled "Beauty and the Beach", was dubbed "lost" when it aired on Kids' WB in 2000, as the episode was never shown outside either the US or Japan due to its subject matter. When it aired on Kids' WB, the scenes where James shows off his "breasts" were removed from the airing. The episode itself only reran once in the U.S. and has not been shown ever since.

Similary, another episode, titled "Yureru Shima no Tatakai! Dojoach VS Namazun!!", was left unaired in Japan when the plot of the episode became too similar to the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake. Also, four episodes of Pokémon Advanced were left unaired, as a three month hiatus happened before the next season began before the episodes ever aired.

Other lost episodes of Pokemon include The Legend of Dragtini for its use of guns, Holiday Hijinx for presumed racial sterotypes, and Tentacool and Tentracruel because of similarities between it and 9/11.

Some missing episodes cause a hole in the plot (i.e. Ash gets a Hoenn league badge from nowhere).

Mr. Show

One episode of the 1990s sketch-comedy series Mr. Show, "Oh, You Men", parodied the concept of a lost episode by working on the pretense that the episode would be aired and then intentionally lost in order to foster future nostalgia.

Dexter's Laboratory

An episode of Monkey (Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor) from an early episode of Dexter's Laboratory was banned from the air in the United States, Canada, and temporarily in the UK. In this episode, Krunk from the Justice Friends is seen drinking alcohol, getting intoxicated, and eventually throwing up. It also features a possibly homosexual character named the "Silver Spooner". The later episode "Dexter's Lab: A Story" aired in its place.

Since its banning, it was aired once in the United States on Friday, August 23, 2002 on Cartoon Network.

It still airs without a problem in several countries around the world, namely Latin America and the Philippines.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

For years, K00 - The Green Slime was considered a "lost episode", due to unknown existing fan copies. In reality, it was just never shown on television. The pilot was later shown to the public on October 3, 2008 by Joel Hodgson in its entireity at Archon 23. There are still 2 possible different versions of the pilot, however, as some of the clips in the copy of the episode shown at Archon 23 had some slightly different dialogue from the versions of 2 host segments, one being a clip of the 3rd host segment seen at a 1994 convention, the other a brief clip of the 1st host segment from the 20th Anniversarry boxset DVD. Episodes K01 - Invaders from the Deep, K02 - Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars amd K03 - Star Force: Fugetive Alien II have always been considered lost episodes, also due to unknown existing fan copies. The only host segments known to those episodes are 2 host segments from K01 (seen in the intro theme, a flashback in K17 - Time of the Apes, a montage in K15 - Superdome and the genises section of Mst3k.com), 4 host segments from K02 (seen on the Mst3k Scrapbook tape, the genises section, and the montage), and 4 host segments from K03 (seen in the intro theme, the genises section, and the Mst3k Scrapbook tape).

JAG

The first season finale entitled Skelton Crew of naval drama JAG was not shown by NBC before the network change or CBS after it. The exact reason for it never airing is unknown.

Abuse of the term

Often, some venues such as entertainment news programs like Entertainment Tonight will misuse the term 'lost episode' or 'lost tapes' in order to bring more attention to a feature story on something such as an older series or film, or an actor in their early years, using archive footage from their library, as if the footage was discarded after its first use. However in most cases tapes and footage used on these programs are properly cataloged and stored as they were created after 1979, a time when program archiving was starting to pick up steam, and are usually found easily within a program's archives. Sometimes the term is used by a program's network to describe an episode which had not cleared standards and practices for many years and is just airing for the first time (like "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", an episode of Family Guy).

See also

  • Category:Lost BBC episodes

External links

References


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