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Charlie’s Angels’ wings clipped for PG

Another fast-tracked show has undergone edits with scenes involving violence and gunshots edited out to fit a PG classification.

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Another fast-tracked show has undergone edits to fit a PG classification, this time the Charlie’s Angels pilot on Nine.

Scenes involving violence, gunshots and images of children were trimmed by Nine so that the series could play in a 7:30pm timeslot.

It follows TEN cutting dialogue in Glee‘s season premiere last week.

Amongst the footage cut by Nine were:

– Close up of gunshots on the beach.
– A fight scene between women in a hotel room.
– A fight scene between women on a boat.

There were also minor dialogue cuts relating to underage girls being trafficked.

The original Pilot had the following dialogue:

Eve: You have no idea what he’s done.
Abby: How about trafficking under-age girls?
Kate: He was behind a case we just broke. 16 year old runaway. We managed to help her but there were others we couldn’t save. We can rescue them and take down Pajaro’s entire operation, but not if you kill him.
Eve: He can’t hurt another girl.
Kate: He won’t. You have our word.

But in the episode that aired on Tuesday night it was trimmed to:

Eve: You have no idea what he’s done.
Kate: He was behind a case we just broke. We can rescue them and take down Pajaro’s entire operation, but not if you kill him.
Eve: He can’t hurt another girl.
Kate: He won’t. You have our word.

Footage of a nun being shot, overseen by two orphan children, was also cut along with the accompanying voice-over “Pajaro was there to steal the girls. They murdered the nuns and the boy.”

Images of children in a ute with men holding guns was cut, with the dialogue “Faces of the girls we left behind still haunt me.”

Several scenes of men punching women were cut, along with one of the Angels being zapped by a taser in a torture scene, and being gripped by the throat.  Martial arts fight scenes were trimmed, notably those involving the Angels, but also another between two men with one man being struck by a metal bar.

A scene with the Angels hitting a man with a car deleted the moment of impact.

Other scenes with gunfire were included but only where they were less gratuitous or intense.

The PG classification has strict guidelines about the impact of violence and Nine’s choice to air the series at 7:30pm required it to make the cuts to avoid a breach of the Code of Practice.

Nine’s Chief Classification Officer Richard Lyle tells TV Tonight that Pilot episodes frequently differ from series episodes with big budgets and stunts to impress. Although there were cuts necessary for the first episode, he hopes there will be less as the show’s tone settles with less violence.

“While it – the Pilot- could be played at 8.30pm, the overall feel of even the Pilot, the promotional material and storylines available for the subsequent series, plus the producers’ intentions to make it a light fun romp, meant that it was worth some cuts to the stronger Pilot (an “M”), as the following series would be much more likely to be “PG” from episode to episode,” he said.

Lyle also says that currently there are very few episodic dramas being produced for PG classification timeslots.

“There are few one hour action light comedy / drama shows being made at the moment. For example even the amiable Chuck does have some strong action / killings in many episodes, and Charlie’s Angels seemed like a viable programming alternative for the family audience on Tuesday night.

“However, as always, it will be viewers who will decide and Nine can only try to offer them an engaging 7.30pm romp.”

25 Responses

  1. Absolute rubbish show. Saw the 1st episode.

    1. What a really terrible crappy voiceover they use for Charlie, makes me want to puke

    2. Terrible acting

    3. Terrible production

    4. Amazing how they had a real time satellite view of the room where the girl was held, and what is really amazing was how they managed to get this to move around so quickly and actually get a horizontal view of the bedroom she was in.

  2. I wish the networks would stop trying to fit a square plug into a round hole. Whatever happened to the “special time” timeslot when shows needed a higher rating? If it’s not likely to be suitable for 7.30 on a regular basis, then I would prefer it shown at a later time so it is not hacked to pieces to make it fit.

  4. Evans: What is the focative case, William?

    William: O, vocativo, O . . .

    Hugh: Remember, William, focative is caret.

    Mistress Quickly: And that’s a good root.

    Shakespeare was a filthy bastard. Lets edit him

  5. To Kenny – sorry, I was just quoting Stevo, not saying he was right! Of course they said ‘f***’ in the 40’s and the 1840’s and 1740’s etc. The word has been around a long,long time but it wasn’t written down in ‘proper’ books till the 1960s’, said in films in the ’70s etc. which gives people a false perception of just how long it has been used …and frequently!

  9. Networks need to learn from the three golden viewer complaints:
    1. Start a program on time and finish as scheduled, rather than overtime.
    2. Finish a full series, season or episode, before changing it to a point we cry foul.
    3. If it’s not PG friendly, try 8:30-9:30 start, therefore editing is not much of an issue.

    As for Glee, Maybe “Tweens” are not meant to see things, even if its past 8:30.

  11. I think Nine have done the right thing, esp if overall this is a “romp” best suited to 7:30. As has been suggested, perhaps they should give it a whirl on Go! at 8:30 without the edits. It’s not like there is much more than repeats of repeats on there anyway.

  15. Nine is the wrong network for this show … it belongs on Ten or Eleven (I hate saying that!). It is created by the guys who did Smallville (and more) and should be on the CW Network in the US, not ABC …

    It is not meant to be just a drama, but also an action adventure full of glamour, charm, style and comedy … which it definitely is. It should be on at 8:30. As usual, Nine have mistreated their product! They just can’t seem to help themselves destroying the chances of new shows… how do they stay in business??? Wake up!

    I really enjoyed the frist episode, and think that the show has been given a very unfair beating by reviewers … we need many more of these kind of shows … everything else is carbon-copy crime/un-reality/lame US comedy that show no imagination or talent at all.

    Thank god for BBC Wales!

  19. Both Nine and Ten need to learn that people want to watch shows unedited. Don’t choose a classification for us and then edit the show around the classification. If the show is meant to be M then keep it that way. All they’re doing is making the shows look worse with their crappy editing and forcing people to make a habit of downloading the unedited versions!

  20. Maybe networks should be forced to say when they have edited a show from the original. Just another excuse for people to flock to channel BT. When will the networks learn? Also on the channel nine catchup streaming, will they reinstate the edits?

  21. Hmmmmmm. I thought the pilot episode was pretty terrible, but some of those edits would have made it better.

    For example, I was trying to figure out how a 16 year old with wealthy parents who had the money and resources to hire the Angels was kidnapped as part of a low-rent child smuggling ring in the first place. It makes sense if she was a runaway and had been snatched off the streets as opposed being snatched from her palatial mansion or private school.

    The poor editing in some of the fight scenes was particularly evident. I thought it was due to the lack of skills of the actors involved as opposed to the editing. I had planned to watch the second episode, but perhaps it would be better to simply obtain the full episodes through other means rather than watch the poorly edited versions shown on 9.

  24. Harks back to “Stevo”s (John Stephens, previous Nine Program Director) major ratings rules:
    1) Sharks always rate; 2) Never shoot a nun; 3)They didn’t say ‘f**k in the ’40s.

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