Most shameless repackaging of a TV show

Over here, Cinemax Asia has the rights to the Battlestar Galactica
remake. It's kind of dumb that a commercial TV series gets aired on a
non-commercial TV station, but it's even dumber what they do with it.
What _do_ they do with it, you ask?

They air all the episodes in back-to-back pairs (except for the
finale), and shamelessly repackage them as "Missions": for example,
episodes 9-10 are packaged as Mission 5. (The finale gets aired in a
single hour as Mission 7, instead of Episode 13.)

Heck, they cut out the closing credits from the 1st ep, and then the
main titles from the 2nd ep of the "mission", but the credits that are
not part of the main title are still shown over the first scene of the
2nd ep. It nags me a lot, and I'm not the resident Battlestar Galactica
watcher (my dad is).

ungvichian...

This past Sunday, Cinemax Asia premiered the first ep(s) of New BSG S2.
They still package them as missions. But my dad tuned in in time to
catch the start of the 2nd episode of "Mission 8" (prompting him to
say, "What, it just started?" even though he tuned in about 40 minutes
into the alloted timeslot, just in time to see one of the characters
say that he'd rather have died on Caprica), and they showed the opening
narration ("They have a plan" blah blah), then the previously, then the
teaser, and then the S2 version of the titles. The episode was
relatively intact, with only the closing credits of S1 cut out.
Otherwise, no more pretending that this was just one long episode.
Wonder if they'll keep it up?...

Anyone here have any stories of shameless repackaging?

jayembee...

When Rod Serling did NIGHT GALLERY circa 1970, it was presented in
an unusual format. Each episode was an hour long, and consisted of
2-3 stories if differing lengths.

(During the third season, it was cut down to a half-hour and either
presented one story for the full half-hour, or one story for the
bulk of the slot, and one 1-2 minute vignette).

Anyway, when Universal packaged it for syndication, they had to
form-fit everything into half-hour slots. Because some of the
stories ran long in their original form, they had to be cut.
Others ran short in their original form, and had to be expanded.
Typically, this expansion was accomplished by editing in footage
from movies that Universal owned. For one particular story, for
example, the extra footage was taken from FAHRENHEIT 451, with
voice-over dialogue that attempted (but didn't succeed) in making
the footage seem relevant to the story at hand.

This was bad enough, but it doesn't stop there. There weren't really
enough episodes to really make a sizable enough syndication package.
In order to beef it up, Universal took another of their supernatural-
themed series, THE SIXTH SENSE, and twisted Rod Serling's arm to
get him to film new intros to make the SIXTH SENSE episodes appear
to be NIGHT GALLERY episodes.

Unfortunately, THE SIXTH SENSE was an hour-long show, so they had to
edit each episode down to fit the half-hour format. Which rendered
an already less-than-stellar series into complete and utter
incomprehensibility. Further, THE SIXTH SENSE had a regular
protagonist, played by Gary Collins, and except for one or two
episodes, they cut his scenes out completely, to make the episodes
look like one-offs.

A decade and a half later, a similar thing was done with the TWILIGHT
ZONE revival. It's network run was a similar format as NIGHT GALLERY,
and when they syndicated it, they had to edit-down or expand-up the
stories to fit the half-hour format. However, at least in this case,
they (it wasn't Universal this time) used cutting-room-floor footage
to expand with rather than clips from movies. And they didn't
cannibalize a completely unrelated show to beef up the package.

Ronnie...

How about when FOX tried out an edited half-hour "sitcom" version of
Ally McBeal?

ungvichian...

Was it replete with laugh track?

Good thing FOX didn't sell that version overseas...

Brian Thorn...

The original Galactica pilot being reedited and shown in theaters...

Invid Fan...

It was great promotion, though. Movie came out before the tv series,
and my 9 year old mind was shocked it was coming to tv that soon ^_^
Ah, the joys of not hearing anything about a show until it hits the
screen...
The same thing was done with Buck Rodgers, although iirc that was just
a showing of the full pilot in theaters with no edits. Great way to
justify a high budget to create the sets and sfx.

Anim8rFSK...

Nope. Buck Rogers theatrical had the different opening, with the
characters on a chess board, and the vocal version of the theme song.

Far beyond the world I've known,
Far beyond my time.

What am I, Who am I, What will I be?
Where am I going and What will I see?
Searching my mind for some truth to reveal,
What thoughts are fantasy and what memories real?

Long before this life of mine,
Long before this time.
What was there?
Who cared, to make it begin?
Is it forever or will it all end?

Searching my past for the things that I've seen.
Is it my life or just something I've dreamed?

Far beyond this world I've known,
Far beyond my time.

What kind of world am I going to find?
Will it be real or just all in my mind?
What am I, Who am I, What will I be?
Where am I going and what will I see?

altec3220...

I thought the three-hour Galactica "pilot" was originally released in
theaters, then edited down for television? At least, that is what IMDb

Brian Thorn...

Nope, ABC-TV bankrolled the project, it was ABC's star attraction of
the 1978-79 television season. Maybe it hit theaters in Canada first
due to the whims of U.S. network TV scheduling (I'd like to see some
supportng material for that claim, though, as I recall they barely got
the pilot finished in time for ABC's September 1978 scheduled
debut...) but it was still a TV production (albeit a TV movie, not a
weekly series), not a feature film, and had always been intended as a
TV production.

Anim8rFSK...

The IMDb article might just be worded very poorly. It's possible to
read it and come away with either impression.

jayembee...

It was definitely released in Canada at least a month or so prior to
the show debuting on ABC. A friend and I even made tentative plans
to drive up to Ontario (from Boston area) to see it, but we couldn't
allocate the time. In retrospect, that was a good thing.

Troy.Heagy...

.

When they cut the top & bottom off of V the telemovies, and labeled
them widescreen (it never was).

When they cut all the great 50/60s/70s tunes from Quantum Leap dvd, and
used generic elevator music instead, because Universal was too cheap to
buy the music licenses.