Anyone watching on ION?
ION Television has shown the first four seasons in the US using a two episode block on Tuesdays and Sundays. ION will be airing future seasons, as they've signed on as a co-producer, but unfortunately they didn't start airing season five, possibly because it hasn't finished airing in Canada. So they've restarted season one, which I mostly missed when they first started airing on ION, but I had watched it during the abruptly ended run on NBC and, er, other sources.
I was only half watching, because I had seen them before, then it finally clicked that they cut the character of Dr. Ray Mercer out. He was in 7 of the 13 episodes in season one according to IMDB, but he's not been in any of the episodes I've watched so far. He was in the two episodes next up, so I'll be paying closer attention to the changes. If I remember correctly, he played a big part in the season finale, so it will be interesting to see if they recut that episode completely since they didn't show his introduction in the pilot and how he has a long-time connection to Toby. It also ended with a big cliffhanger about Toby's past that hasn't been addressed since.
I'm really curious if the cut was made to get in more commercials (very common), and it's just the most obvious cut and I haven't noticed others, or if they intentionally cut him out because he doesn't appear after season one anyway. The show did away with all the conspiracy stuff about his family apparently being telepaths in hiding from someone/something and transitioned him from a paramedic who stumbled into cases and helped the police, to the police knowing and using his talents, to moving away from the paramedic angle and making him a full-time police consultant. My understanding is this was because it almost didn't get a renewal for the second season, and when they did, they played it safe with a more straightforward "police procedural with a telepath" and the ratings went up. Wish they'd touch upon at least a bit of that mystery again, but I guess they want us to have a bit of amnesia about it instead of bringing up stuff from season one that hasn't been mentioned in years.
I was only half watching, because I had seen them before, then it finally clicked that they cut the character of Dr. Ray Mercer out. He was in 7 of the 13 episodes in season one according to IMDB, but he's not been in any of the episodes I've watched so far. He was in the two episodes next up, so I'll be paying closer attention to the changes. If I remember correctly, he played a big part in the season finale, so it will be interesting to see if they recut that episode completely since they didn't show his introduction in the pilot and how he has a long-time connection to Toby. It also ended with a big cliffhanger about Toby's past that hasn't been addressed since.
I'm really curious if the cut was made to get in more commercials (very common), and it's just the most obvious cut and I haven't noticed others, or if they intentionally cut him out because he doesn't appear after season one anyway. The show did away with all the conspiracy stuff about his family apparently being telepaths in hiding from someone/something and transitioned him from a paramedic who stumbled into cases and helped the police, to the police knowing and using his talents, to moving away from the paramedic angle and making him a full-time police consultant. My understanding is this was because it almost didn't get a renewal for the second season, and when they did, they played it safe with a more straightforward "police procedural with a telepath" and the ratings went up. Wish they'd touch upon at least a bit of that mystery again, but I guess they want us to have a bit of amnesia about it instead of bringing up stuff from season one that hasn't been mentioned in years.