Subject: Re: Last episode in the U.K.
From: larryy@Apple.COM (Larry Yaeger)
Date: 1991-06-24, 20:55
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1991Jun24.102043.18744@aifh.ed.ac.uk> hazel@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Hazel Sydeserff) writes:
> >In article <AWB.91Jun23135543@stoat.uk.ac.ed.aipna>, awb@ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) writes:
> >|> In article <PVOSSLER.91Jun21140004@exua.exua.exeter.ac.uk> PVossler@exua.exeter.ac.uk (Phil Vossler) writes:
> >|> 
> >|> > The final episode of the current series of T.P. was shown on BBC 2 in
> >|> > the U.K.  last Tuesday. I'd like to know if the rumour I have heard
> >|> > that the last episode in the U.S. was a two hour marathon is true. If
> >|> > so that explains why there were odd threads left dangling in the fifty
> >|> > minute finale we were presented with. My impression was that it had
> >|> > been hacked dowb to wrap up the series in one showing.
> >
> >Remember that in the US the show was interspersed with adverts, which we, 
> >watching the good old BBC, did not have. That would take quite a few 
> >minutes off the actual show time over two hours.

Yep.  Besides the two-episodes-back-to-back way in which the show ended here
in the States, you can usually figure on an average of about 6 minutes of
commercials per half hour.  This average varies with time of day, day of
the week, and particular show.  Actual commercial time also varies over the
course of a particular show, typically with fewer commercials in the
beginning, and many more towards the end (which was definitely the case
with the TP finale over here).  So a "one hour" commercial program is
really about 48 minutes of actual program content, typically.  For what
it's worth.
-- -larryy@apple.com "You wouldn't recognize a *subtle plan* if it painted itself purple, and danced naked upon a harpsichord, singing, 'Subtle Plans are Here Again'." - Edmund Blackadder