TV Drome

Currently exploring the excellent supplements on Arrow's Videodrome Blu... When Arrow first announced their plan to issue Cronenberg's film, I was disappointed the set would not include Videodrome's near mythical TV version and now having watched the 25mins or so of scenes that were added for the TV version, I'm thankful for its absence. Arrow's assemblage of the deleted scenes, in chronological order and prefigured with scene setting title cards gives a good approximation of the what the TV version might have played like, effectively reducing Videodrome to a muddled second rate hi-tech thriller. Perhaps the biggest act of sabotage is done to the characters - in this version Max Renn is much too naive; Nicki Brand, irritatingly frivolous and Barry Convex has less of a sinister edge to him. If their are any gains, we get to see more of Debbie Harry (at the height of her beauty I think), and a few extra shots of Carol Speir's fantastic derelict boat set...