Ever Decreasing Circles - Series 1 UPDATED

[Todd_Oberly]

I recently read that episode 1 of Ever Decreasing Circles on the 2 Entertain set is edited, and bought a copy of Network's series 1 to compare. The run times for Network's disk look like this:

- "The New Neighbour" (27:49)
- "Taking Over" (28:52)
- "A Strange Woman" (27:13)
- "Holiday Plans" (27:36)
- "Vicars And Tarts" (28:56)
Interview with actor Richard Briers (16:02)

and 2 Entertain's episode 1 is definitely cut. Many cuts are subtle, just a second or two trimmed from the beginning or end of a shot. But in other cases, sections of dialogue or whole shots are removed. To document them all, I'd probably need video editing software to sync the two episodes, but still managed to find about a dozen differences manually. As I've certainly missed some, here are just the two main bits of missing dialogue:

1) At 11:37, the scene with Martin and Mrs. Beardsmore:

Martin: "Paul his name is. Reminds me very much of a boy we had at school. Came two years after I did. He took everyone in. They all thought he was wonderful."
Mrs. Beardsmore: "I pitched down those stairs one Wednesday, I remember. Ooh, I fetched my head such a crack on that boiler."

then again at 12:23 when discussing the salmon:

Mrs. Beardsmore: "Yes, you know who I'm talking about, Mrs Hammond. You ought to try it over this side of the room."
Martin: You see..."

2) At 16:51 during the lorry protest scene:

Martin: "Take your feet off the curb please, Johnny. We're supposed to be in the road per se."
<Linda begins singing "We Shall Overcome">
Martin: "Do you mind, Linda, please? We're supposed to be intelligent people, not the London School of Economics."

Let me know if you want more. I verified the times on the 2 Entertain set but did not investigate the other Network episodes, which all have slightly shorter run times. I did notice that 2 Entertain holds longer on Sydney Lotterby's Producer/Director credit, so it could be something simple like that.

Finally, the soundtrack on 2 Entertain's set is "English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono". (With my entertainment system in 5.1 mode, mono sound comes from the two front speakers vs. just the center channel as with the Network disk, which I believe is the correct definition.) The packaging is a Scanavo 6-disk keepcase in a cardboard sleeve, which IMHO doesn't qualify as a "special case"...but I'll leave that to your discretion.

[Samuel_Scott]

Thanks Todd,

I shall move this to reference forum in the next few days and link to it from the comparison also.

Great work!