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Forgive me if this is the wrong stack for this, but it definitely seems TV related -- Netflix is my only TV provider!

This question is primarily about Buffy the Vampire Slayer; I was watching the musical episode, Once More With Feeling, last night and noticed a missing line. I remember it going something like this:

(Dawn walks into the Magic Box)
Dawn: guess what happened at school today!

Buffy: everybody started singing and dancing?

Dawn (disappointed): no, I gave birth to a pterodactyl.

Anya: oh my God, did it sing?

Dawn: you guys too, huh?

But what actually showed skipped the lines about the pterodactyl entirely, which is too bad, as it was funny (but didn't advance the plot). Call me crazy, but I think they skipped Dawn's dance number as well.

After I noticed it, we watched a few more episodes, and a lot of lines are missing. They're not quite as noticeable, but the fact that something is missing is -- the conversations don't quite gel, and so on.

Why is this happening? Is this a special, edited-for-time version of the shows? If so, why?

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    Netflix doesn't air shows on a schedule, so I don't see any reason why they'd WANT to edit the running time of a show. Seems odd. Are you sure you aren't just mis-remembering the dialogue? Do you have an "unedited" source that confirms something is missing, or is it just your gut feeling? (I'm not saying you're wrong, BTW, just that it doesn't seem like something worth Netflix's time to do.) Could it be an internet connection issue, where the streaming video is skipping small chunks due to a lost connection or such?
    – Steve-O
    Jan 14, 2017 at 15:07
  • @AJ Would asking about dialogue edits in a theatrical and bluray release of a film be off-topic? Because this question isn't so much about a website as comparing the content of two different releases.
    – faintsignal
    Jan 14, 2017 at 15:26
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    @faintsignal I removed it, but there are some lines which should be removed as Paulie_D mentioned.
    – A J ♦
    Jan 14, 2017 at 15:36
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    N.B. According to both IMDB quotes & my recollection, there is a classic follow-up to Dawn's sarcastic comment. ".. Dawn Summers: [disappointed] I gave birth to a pterodactyl. Anya: Oh my god. Was it singing?"
    – Andrew Thompson
    Jan 14, 2017 at 16:17
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    It's likely the "edited for syndication" version, which AFAIK is the only version available in HD. The HD version of Buffy has been widely criticized for its technical shortcomings and for its edited content (not just this episode, but also others).
    – BCdotWEB
    Jan 14, 2017 at 19:22

1 Answer 1

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These are episodes that were shortened by the studios for syndication or a DVD release.

In this particular case, Once More With Feeling was an extra long episode that ran 8 minutes longer than usual when it originally aired. It was later cut for syndication and subsequent airings with many bits missing, including the pterodactyle joke (you can see a detailed list of the scenes cut in this site). Now, the long version was available on Netflix, but Netflix has since replaced the streaming versions with the (controversial) HD remasters, and the OMWF version there is the shorter, syndicated one. :( [FWIW, they say Hulu has the full version, but I haven't checked yet.]

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  • Just out of curiosity - are the DVDs safe? Or have they also been remastered? In case you happen to know.
    – Richard Rast
    Jan 14, 2017 at 22:44
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    @RichardRast "safe" AFAIK, yes. :) EDIT: Hmm, on second thought, mine are pretty old. So I don't know about the newer ones. But IMO it's a safer bet than Netflix right now. Mind you, the old DVDs have some visibility issues; there's a reason they tried to clean stuff up. It just seems they didn't do a very good job.
    – Walt
    Jan 14, 2017 at 22:49

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