donutsweeper | What do you consider canon?

But....it's an American show? I thought? *baffled* What got deleted?

It is an American show. All I know about the deleted scenes are what's been posted here (http://katikat.livejournal.com/1180433.html) (the poster put a link to it up at

whitecollar_tv)

I don't know if the scenes were cut for time, due to American censors or if Jess Easton did it for some reasoning of his own.

I've said 'what's aired and that's it'.

But I guess if the deleted scenes were aired somewhere, as opposed to just appearing in extras or on a blooper tape or whatever, then that would constitute canon after all.

So I'm now saying B but *only* if scenes are actually aired, even if you personally don't see them aired, and not just shown as extras on a DVD or something. I won't change my vote as I know that deleted can mean 'not shown on TV but only appear on DVD as extras' and to me that's not strictly canon - just as commentaries, etc. aren't canon, to my mind.

*Waves to you*

*waves back*

I'm torn about different versions airing in different places. I wonder WHY the scenes didn't air originally- it's possible the director took them out because they no longer jived with his/her vision of the show or something like that.

F, but C can be a little dodgy.

I really need to get properly into White Collar, for it is awesome.

Commentary sort of stuff certainly can be useful to varying degrees- I think it's the only place we learned Myfanwy's name (I can't quite remember) but can also be inconsistent.

White Collar is AWESOME. And it's one of the few shows with strong women on now. Diana who's in the pilot and then S1 finale and S2 is GORGEOUS and amazing and fierce! And the show just rocks on so many other levels.

It's a difficult one. Could it have been simply due to the time factor?

I know, for instance, that some things the US buy from us get cut because of the need to incorporate adverts. We bought the Mrs. Bradley mysteries in R1 as they weren't out here. Then a few years later they came out here, so we replaced them and discovered various scenes that had been cut - but had been in the original airing. So had I been writing Mrs. B, I'd have said the longer version was canon even though Americans wouldn't have seen it.

Selling to the US and conforming with 'your' needs, is why a lot of our shows are now shorter than they would have been years ago, because we take into account how much of the hour your stations take up with adverts.

And I know that the Grey's Anatomy DVDs I have have some episodes that are longer than the original airing due to the advert issue - but then that's different in my mind as they weren't show anywhere.

It could be just due to timing and commercials, but I don't know.

My opinion of canon goes with how the show aired in his home country and first airing, be that a shorter or longer version than seen elsewhere.

Even here shows have become shorter and shorter. If you watch reruns of old shows (b&w ones from the 60s for example) there will be either a lot cut to have the normal amount of commercials air or they'll have a lot fewer commercials, depending on circumstances.

It's very irritating to discover, I imagine.

That makes sense and I could easily go with that, I'm on the fence re: deleted scenes being aired elsewhere. But I'm very firm about deleted scene appearing on DVDs/in extras as definitely not being canon.

Now you mention it, I've noticed that. Thinking of some of the older US shows I have on DVDs (MFU & Starsky & Hutch for instance) they are longer than NCIS.

Deleted scenes that only appear on DVDs I don't consider canon- a few times there's been commentary for them and the director or writer has said the scene was cut because they realized it didn't work for how they saw the characters (or something similar)

Writer and director commentary, I usually trust more than the actors'. Not sure why - maybe because they might not know everything the writers are planning? Not that I know how these things work.

I've seen about 3 full episodes of White Collar. It's been airing on some obscure channel at an inconvenient time. Might download it or something.

They certainly don't count - nor do commentaries, comment by actors, directors IMO.

It makes you wonder if they are cut for that reason from the TV airing why they are included on the DVD, doesn't it?

Have you caught the pilot? If you haven't you really should try to find it *coughs*

wcollar_eps *coughs*

The same thing happened with Nero Wolfe when it was shown elsewhere. Different countries have different rules for how much time is spent in commercials, so if the country has less commercial time, sometimes the show will provided extra stuff to fill in the difference. Nero Wolfe sometimes had a opening or joining scene with the guys playing poker and something along the lines of 'remember that case where...'

For me, canon is what the creators say is canon. I don't put much stock in deleted scenes, since they were deleted for a reason. They were able to be cut because they weren't important enough to need to keep. They may be fun little facts to throw in, but they aren't strictly canon.

Sometimes I think they're included just so they can say they HAVE extras. And since they're already taped and whatnot it's very easy and inexpensive to add.

Ah, now that's a clever thought - and a jolly good one too. I know for a lot of people extras is what DVDs are all about.

I didn't know that about Nero Wolfe! And I've seen the dvds too and don't remember seeing scenes that hadn't aired here. huh.

I don't put much stock in deleted scenes, since they were deleted for a reason. They were able to be cut because they weren't important enough to need to keep. They may be fun little facts to throw in, but they aren't strictly canon.

I like this way of looking at them, I agree with it.

And I've seen a lot of grousing when they're aren't any extras for whatever reason.

Interesting!

If forced at gunpoint to choose from among A-E, I would choose A. But I would say not just what's "originally" aired but the full extent of anything that is made and edited by the production team and aired, on television, somewhere. Sometimes they have to make heartbreaking edits for time or commercial interests, but when they get a bit more freedom, they'll do it closer to how they originally intended.

That said, "canon" is kind of a spectrum for me. In descending order of "unarguably canon" it's something like this for me:

1. What's aired on television
2. Writer & director commentary | Deleted scenes
3. Spinoff media created and written by the creative team of the TV show, especially while the show is still in production
4. Actor commentary
5. Official website materials (unless they contradict facts from the aired show & it's clear that the people putting together the website are not even running it by a continuity editor...)
6. Spinoff media written by others, but officially licensed

So basically, 2-6 I think are things that you can take into consideration, more or less strongly, in how you *interpret* canon, and then if you're writing fic... just use what's convenient, and explain in the notes where it came from so people can decide for themselves how close to canon they make it.

With Torchwood, there's *so* much history that wasn't explored on the aired show, if I want to delve into that history in a fic, I have a choice of making it all up myself, or researching what the website created and maybe what's in the official guide book thingy that was published. If I go with the latter, I'll feel like I'm at least closer to canon. But somebody else could argue that I'm not.

Oh! And of course, 'In Doctor Who, there's no such thing as canon.'

Edited 2010-09-03 17:31 (UTC)

There are apparently two versions of the DVDs? And you can request them or something? I don't know, I read it on the Wolfe Pack website ages ago.

The opposite thing happened for Doctor Who when it originally aired in the States (not sure about Canada, I watched them on DVD). They cut out scenes to fit in the time slot, since Britain has less commerical time. I'm sure it was the same with Spooks/MI-5, since the episodes are literally 60 minutes long and A&E would have had commercials it needed to show.

They show The Tudors on CBC here and edit it so hard, it's not even funny. We missed so many episodes, we got the DVDs and discovered there were whole characters and plot lines edited out. They even truncated the opening credits.

So maybe canon for me is 'what originally aired, in the country of its origin'.

Really?

They don't bother me in the slightest. In fact we rarely watch them.

I do buy the US NCIS DVDs because they have more extras than the R2 ones, but that's because it's NCIS. But I confess *looks sheepish* I haven't watched them all even now *g*

My answer (All of the Above) comes from my experience in Firefly fandom. What actually aired was three episodes short of what was filmed and finished. What was filmed and finished was an episode short of what was written (my icon is a line from the unfilmed episode script--a super insider Firefly reference); hints of stories that never got a chance to be told were made in commentary and even at cons. If you wanted to know what the Mandarin lines meant, you had to use the web, and things like a map of the Firefly 'verse were only available online. Then there were comics and a movie.

All in all, the line between Firefly canon and Firefly fanon is very blurry.

I think with the way episodic television is changing, F is a valid answer--whether it's just as valid for WC as for Firefly, I'm not sure, but it's a really interesting area of fannish speculation and I enjoyed thinking about it.

I think I did see it, but I'm not 100% sure. *coughthank-youcough*

'what originally aired, in the country of its origin'.

That's my canon too.

I saw the US version (DVD and what aired) of Nero Wolfe, I have never seen different dvds anywhere, but I'll keep my eye out.

I remember hearing that the scene in "The Doctor Dances" between Jack and Rose on his ship where he explains the nanogenes was cut from it's first airing in Canada and then they realized how much it affected the episode and found a different scene to cut in subsequent airings. I'd have hope that the importance to the overall plot was considered before slicing up shows!

I always mean to watch them... but rarely do.

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