10 Moments Edited Out Of Your Favourite TV Shows
6. The Doctor "Drowns" - Doctor Who
Doctor Who of all shows sparked a majorly unexpected furore after the airing of the season 14 serial "The Deadly Assassin," which saw its third part conclude with the Doctor (Tom Baker) being attacked by the villainous Chancellor Goth (Bernard Horsfall) and seemingly drowned in a lake.
The uncommon violence of this cliffhanger ending prompted famed conservative activist Mary Whitehouse to claim that the scene was too harrowing for children, who would have to spend a week not knowing whether the Doctor had truly died.
The BBC ultimately cowed to Whitehouse's complaint by not only removing the grim freeze-frame of the Doctor's "corpse" underwater but literally re-editing the master tape of the episode, effectively erasing it from the official record.
And so when Doctor Who came to home video years later, the BBC was forced to reconstitute the original ending from VHS tapes recorded by fans from the original broadcast.
See it for yourself at 7:30 here.