34 on Sky

Between 24 December 2022 and 4 June 2023, Sky Showcase (as the channel formerly known as Sky One has recently rebranded as) brought Season 34 of The Simpsons to the UK, at least on pay TV: "Top Goon" aired as a festive special on Christmas Eve (in spite of this particular episode's questionable links to the festive season, this has become a tradition for Sky dating back to Season 30's "'Tis the 30th Season"), and the rest of the season followed on a weekly basis from 15 January. With one exception: the annual trilogy of terror, "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII", was not aired as part of this season, and we were left waiting until the Sunday just gone, the 22nd October, for its Sky debut... which it made at 4:45pm.

That's not actually that unusual -- episode premieres became earlier and earlier since they moved back to Sundays for Season 33 -- but it does indicate concerns over content weren't a huge factor in the long delay. Was it so it could air at Halloween itself? If so, that wasn't a concern for the thirty-two previous Halloween specials that came before it, was it? I will note in all fairness to Sky that they scheduled no fewer than four repeat showings, all in primetime: one two days later, another on Friday 27th, yet another on Saturday 28th and still another on Halloween itself. It was a fantastic and ambitious show -- maybe I'm over-reacting to a decent new episode, but I might even put it in my top ten Treehouses -- so do try and catch one of those repeats if you can.

Anyway, one other notable thing I discovered when I caught up with my recording of the premiere on the day this post was made was that the episode was censored: I believe the first to be cut by Sky since the word "wanker" was excised from "Fears of a Clown" back in Season 29!

First up, from Death Note parody "Death Tome", when Lisa kills Mr. Burns:

LISA: The most peaceful way to go.

[BURNS falls over in his sleep, and lands on the Simpsons' hot plate, screaming in pain. HOMER and MARGE try to peel him off, costing him a good chunk of his face.]

MARGE: How is he still asleep?!

[BURNS screams in pain again.]

LISA: Oops.

There's then a long sequence of Lisa killing people, of which just one, the woman being sucked into an aeroplane engine (the only one with visible blood) is cut; it comes inbetween the guy whose parachute fails to open and the toilet gator. Both of these are pretty good cuts, especially since the second one is in a musical montage.

Next and last, in the third segment, "Simpsons World", when an android version of Homer at a Westworld-style Simpsons theme park gains sentience:

MALE TECHNICIAN: Look, we've got a bus full of Australian super-fans coming, let's just wipe his brain, OK?

[The MALE TECHNICIAN produces a rotating saw blade, and advances on HOMER, who picks up a hammer from a tray of equipment that was knocked over earlier.]

HOMER: Put that thing down or else!

MALE TECHNICIAN: Look, Monorail Homer, your programming won't allow you to intentionally hurt a human, okay? So just be a good robot and let us saw your skull open.

HOMER: Ohh... okay. Here you go--

[HOMER makes to hand the hammer over, but accidentally drops it on his foot; he recoils into another tray of equipment, which goes flying.]

HOMER: My bad!

[A chainsaw and a large blade decapitate both the TECHNICIANS.]

HOMER [to the TECHNICIANS' remains]: Ooh, sorry, sorry!

This is a very obvious cut, and also seems pretty pointless, since the shot of the technicians' mangled remnants, blood and all, is left in. Blood is also left in when Homer kills two of the park's tourists by pushing them into the Homer-hedge meme, but to be fair that's far more fantastical. I see no other cuts.

Still, I suppose I should be grateful someone's still looking at these, as I was wondering when they left the word "shit" in for the 6pm premiere of "The Star of the Backstage" last season...