Oh-kaaay...
I admit it's been a while since I watched the episode, but from my memory the main difference is that in the original, the trick worked better at the end of what is Part 1 in yours.
Well, that and there's an additional 22-odd minutes' worth of material in mine. There were no skeleton warriors in the original, which you probably realised.
I don't know quite how the timing would work out if it was translated to the screen, but I reckon it's about right. The first thing I had to do was make a transcript of the episode, which was severely trying, especially when you get to the bits with the crappy dialogue. Gah! Anyway, in what is now part 1, I estimated that I omitted less than a minute of original material and added about four or five minutes of my own. So then I just cut off the last four/five minutes (which left it in a wonderfully convenient spot for a cliffhanger), and then made part 2 pretty much the same length as part 1.
The only E/J bit in the original is the whole "even if it takes twelve whole years" thing. I slipped in rather a lot more, and wrapped it up properly at the end, because - as we all know - it was about time.
And now for the rant. The episode was bursting at the seams with opportunities for Ed/Ky moments, but their dynamic was handled appallingly. I have learned from the Internet Movie Database that "Witchy Woman" was the only episode that Blenheim wrote - I don't think he even
watched the rest of the series.
I think I did the most re-working on the libaray scene with Ky and Eddie. The original scene cuts out at, "She digs me." Mine goes on for a little while after that, and contains things that needed to be said. There's no eye contact between Eduardo and Kylie at all in the original scene. He goes to chat up Wanda, seemingly labouring under the impression that he knows exactly what he's doing. When listing this as one of my
worst episodes, my main complaint was that Eduardo was being portrayed as an "imcompetant letch" - and Kylie doesn't even seem to care. (As I said during a discussion with my brother shortly following
The Catherine Tate Show, "Her face doesn't look bovvered.")
My brother's marvellous at playing devil's advocate. He was saying things like, "Maybe Eduardo was just transferring his feelings for Kylie onto them," and, "When she says 'Free biscotti' she's obviously jealous - she's
surprised by how jealous she is." Well, yeah, fine, maybe - but if that's what they're feeling, it isn't made at all clear. I discovered that if you pause the final frame and stare at Kylie's face for about a minute (this is after she's said "Free biscotti"), you can just about make it look like she's bothered. I say that's not clear enough.
There were a lot of minor gripes I had to fix as well. Some of what Eduardo says in the episode is so stupid I just had to cut it completely. Roland has a pretty dumb line too, which didn't make the final cut; and what was a conscientious student like Kylie playing at, starting a term paper the night - not the day - the
night before it was due?? I made the odd subtle comment about that - I don't know if you noticed.
I put in quite a few comments about the stupid bits, actually. Like:
I added Eduardo's word-and-a-half of dialogue there. I mean, WHAT SIGNAL?? Did she page them, or send out a smoke signal on the way down to the locker room, or what? And how did Roland and Garrett get there in - what? - five or ten minutes anyway?
Well... thank goodness I fixed it is all I can say.
BTW for anyone wanting to watch the original episode,
it's on YouTube, under slightly the wrong title and with an intro that makes you think,
What? This can't be it!
