Frogshake

Thursday was a great. After a more or less boring day I finally arrived at home and discovered an amazon package among my mail. Excitement! I hastily opened it, ripped off the foil and there I was standing, holding a brand new copy of The Shield Season 5 in my hands. What joy! Of course, I started watching immediately, still as excited as a little child on Christmas morning.

2 days later I was through and Wow! was it a blast. This truly is the best drama series out there. However, something felt wrong. Wasn’t something missing? I was sure that something was off, so I re-read the little episode guide which accompanies the DVDs and there it was: an entire scene seemed to be missing! Shock! Well, at least I thought it was missing because the episode description didn’t quite match the actual episode I had just watched. So I went back to the episode and watched it again, this time in fast forward. Still not there…hm…

There I was, sitting in my room, absolutely mesmerized by the thought of the possibility that Sony put an altered version of the season finale on the UK DVD release. Can it be? So I did what most people do in a time of crisis: I started obsessing. After three short hours of rummaging in the Internet, I finally found out what was wrong. Apparently, Sony, for whatever reason, decided not to put the 70 minute long season finale on the UK release, but a 48 minute long version. WTF? That doesn’t even make any sense, especially since a picture of one of the missing scenes was used as a background for the DVD episode menu (you know, where you can set audio commentaries on/off and so forth). Weird.

What’s done is done, and while investigating I also stumbled across amazon.com and they offer - and that is really cool - Season 5 and 6 of The Shield as download. Again, excitement! I, after all, get to see the whole 70 minute long episode! Of course, I didn’t. “You can only download Unbox videos while you’re in the United States.” Great!

In the end, all the drama culminated in me writing an email to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment - or at least that’s where I think I sent it to - which will most likely go unanswered. Here it is:

Dear Sony people,

I have a problem or rather a question regarding the The Shield Season 5 UK DVD release. The season finale (”Post-Partum”, Season 5, Episode 11) is 48 minutes long on the UK release. Interestingly, the original episode is approximately 70minutes long. Why? As far as I know the US DVD release features the 70minute version of “Post-Partum,” so why doesn’t the UK release? Care to clarify?

In case I get a reply I will publish it here, but don’t hold your breath as I really don’t expect any. Frustrated, I come to the conclusion that:

1. Sony sucks

2. Sucks to be me

Over and out, have a nice Sunday!