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BBC edits Doctor Who beheading scene

“In light of recent news events, we have made an edit to episode three out of respect" says BBC.

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2014-09-05_1432The BBC has edited out a beheading from a fight scene in the third episode of its Doctor Who season, following the killing of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic State.

The episode sees the Time Lord encounter Robin Hood but the Guardian reports the BBC has decided to edit the climactic fight scene between Robin Hood and the sheriff of Nottingham.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “In light of recent news events, we have made an edit to episode three out of respect.”

The episode was filmed in February.

The edit follows a recent edit of a same sex kiss to Doctor Who in the Asian market, due to broadcaster regulations in Singapore.

Earlier this week a US publicity firm apologised for a Sleepy Hollow campaign touting a “National Beheading Day.”

8 Responses

  1. They took out about a minute of the fight scene, don’t think it will impact the story over all, just hope they deleted scene makes it to the DVD or an unedited copy makes it to air one day.

  2. School shooting happens.

    Buffy episode is about comedic plan by school cook to poison those pesky students, with a side story of providing support for marginalised kids.

    Better ban it, just in case.

  3. IS needs to be stopped, now messing with or fav SciFi is just going to far!

    Lucky this didn’t happen last Christmas when the Doctor was carrying around the head of a Cyberman for much of the special.

    But really this is a fictional show and the beheading is a robot (its in the title so no spoiler) from what I’ve heard its a pivotal scene so it will be interesting to see how they edit around it.

    I have when current news events screws with fictional TV shows, I remember years ago the same thing happened on Buffy.

  5. There was also a recent airing of Midsomer Murders (24 Aug) on the ABC that had two beheadings edited out. Had an M rating… I wonder if there were similar concerns.

  8. I was just thinking about this topic a couple of days ago when watching an epsiode of ‘The Strain’, which also had multiple beheadings.

    One extended scene, in particular, would have been very difficult to work around. It may have had to have been fully cut out.

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