THE MUNCH MENTION: SCENE AND UNSEEN

Right after I watched the season finale of 'Luther', I added the second disk of the show to my Netflix queue. First off, my DVR didn't catch the last minute or so. And as it turned out, I actually preferred how it cut off - the silhouhette of John Luther, Alice Morgan, and Mark North were seen against the great glass windows of a deserted railway station.

But the main reason I needed to get that disk was for the penultimate (fifth) episode, one which crossoverists and televisiologists in America (I'm not the only one, you know!) had been waiting for since its British broadcast in June.

DCI Luther realized there had to be a reason why the young woman in the kidnap gang didn't show up on their radar: "She may not have been our problem up until now, but she was somebody's. You don't start off with kidnapping; you work your way up to it." he said. That's when Luther told Ripley to contact Detective Munch in New York; that he was in the SVU squad.......

THE MUNCH MENTION (EDITED OUT)

THE AFTER-MATH (TELEVISED)

When that episode aired on BBC-America, my DVR didn't pick up the episode at all. Sunday night programming for me was quite over-crowded that night. So I watched it via BBC-A on demand. And it was heralded as "The Director's Cut."

Well, for some reason, the director decided to excise that scene so that the American audience couldn't see it.

I only watched that scene (and the one leading up to it) and could see even more edits from the version on BBC-America. Subtle stuff - reaction shots, a few quick lines of dialogue, that sort of thing. They may not have been significant, but they did enrich the experience.

From the Toobworld perspective, they could have shredded the American version and it wouldn't have made any difference. That episode of 'Luther' had already been broadcast in Britain, so it's the version that becomes part of the TV Universe.

The same goes with the edited scenes in American shows once they go into syndication and room must be made for even more commercials.

So, conspiracy nut that I am, BBC-America didn't want us to see that scene - who knows? Maybe they were afraid of lawsuits. But I bet Tom Fontana would have lent his support, since he was a major supporter of the Munch connections.

If I was tech-savvy, I would have lifted that scene off the disk and posted it to YouTube. Viva liberación!

BCnU!