TVSquad

Actually, make that two.

Several months ago, I pointed out that the DVD version of the NewsRadio episode "The Injury" (the one where Matthew hurts his hand) is the edited version. In the subplot where Bill is doing on-air commentaries about broadcasters using the word "penis," Dave confronts Bill, and besides Dave saying the phrase "per penis" (referring to how much money Bill be have to pay as a fine), Bill calls Dave a penis under his breath. Both of these mentions of the word penis are not in the version on the DVD.

But I was watching the episode on TBS today (stations are starting to air NewsRadio again, including TBS and Nick at Nite) and it aired unedited! All the penises were intact (so to speak). I'm now wondering why the version shown on television has all mentions of a naughty word but the DVD version is edited? I understand that the episode wasn't shown until the third season (even though it was filmed in the second season) because of all of the penis mentions, but why is the original version intact on TV but censored on the DVD?

And I'm still wondering why the swears on the NewsRadio DVD commentaries are bleeped out. Seems odd to me.

Season three of NewsRadio is the best season of the show. Having said that, season four has quite a number of gems too. You can see that this was the season that they started to tinker with the show: they brought in new cast members, they switched around the jobs of a few characters, they fired Matthew, introduced more of story arcs over several episodes, and they started to have more surreal moments. Not all of it works (I, for one, was a fan of the Dave/Lisa romance, and breaking them up and then having them switch jobs put the show out of whack in a way), but this set is a lot of fun.

I've been watching the third season DVD set of Newsradio again. It's amazing how there are just some shows where you can just keep watching and rewatching and rewatching the same episodes over and over again. Sometimes within days of each other. I don't know, they give a sort of comfort to me. And now that you know how much of a freak I am, let me get into something that is probably baffling a lot of Newsradio fans.

Oh, this is certainly good news for Newsradio fans: the long-awaited second DVD set is going to be released on February 28.

There will be just the third season in this set, but the third season is a good one, with guest stars like Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Ben Stiller, John Ritter and James Caan. This is the season that includes the classic Christmas episode where Jimmy buys everyone new Miatas (except Matthew - who gets tapes and the rights to Fibber McGee and Molly).

The set will also contain several commentaries, like the first set.

Correction: that Xmas episode is on the first DVD set, not this one.