Hi,
I wouldn't normally "butt-in" on this kind of thread, but I think some things need to be said here.
1) Firstly, it's NOT Sky that has dropped/edited/censored the episode, but SyFy. SyFy often censor shows, because - as is the case of QUANTUM LEAP - it airs during the daytime, as well as the evening. As with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, STARGATE SG-1 and many other shows, SyFy like to keep things simple and only have one version of an episode airing, not different ones. Sadly, that means they tend to cut/edit episodes to make them suitable for transmitting at anytime of the day/night, especially when it comes to some of the more mature sci-fi shows that used to be aired at 8pm or later in the evening.
So your beef is with SyFy, not Sky.
2) Now before anyone says anything, I am aware that Pick is also showing Q.L. at 6pm, and Pick is a Sky channel. However, because of the daytime time slot it's been given, the episodes will almost certainly be the same cut/edited ones SyFy use. Again, it should be obvious why these episodes have been cut, even if you disagree with the editing.
3) Regardless of what the show's intent was, and even putting-aside how good the more controversial episodes of Q.L. were in tackling those issues in a mature, sensitive fashion, that doesn't mean that those episodes will be suitable for family viewing, in 2021. The show is about 30 years old now. As a child, I watched Q.L., and loved it. As an adult, I look at some of the sexism from Al, and I cringe inside, as it's toe-curlingly awful. That's not to say the show isn't good, or worthy, or both, but it was a show that seemed to sometimes want to have its cake and eat it.
4) Regardless of how one viewer may feel about not wanting cut versions of a beloved show to air, when you start throwing about words like "PC Brigade", "Woke brigade", "Wokeratti", etc, etc, frankly any value you once had in your argument, goes right down the drain. If you want to see these shows as they were made, simply buy them, if you are that incensed by their treatment on TV. It's not as if you can't buy Q.L. on DVD or Blu-Ray easily enough.
5) Attitudes towards people who aren't white, male, and straight have - sadly - not exactly gotten much better in recent years. If you aren't aware of that, then you clearly don't follow the news, or history. Just because you don't find something offensive, distasteful, crude, sexist, racist, or whatever else, doesn't mean others side with you on that.
Now, rightly or wrongly, I can see both points of view. Several of the Q.L. episodes like "Jimmy", "Black On White On Fire", and "Raped", and several others did handle their topics fairly well.... BUT, despite me saying that, the language and content in them is still problematic, no matter the show's intentions. I can see that. When they were originally broadcast in the 1990's on BBC2, they were problematic to me as a youngster then, let alone today. That's not me saying that the show shouldn't have tackled the topics it did, in the way it did, but you have to remember that problematic language is still problematic, and that doesn't change simply because you aren't the target.
Therein lies the problem.
The episode "Jimmy" contains numerous offensive of the "r-word". It's a horrid word. It's an offensive word, and regardless of the face the character of Jimmy comes-out on top, and is actually one of the best portrayals of disability on TV for its time, it's still an episode that doesn't exactly go out of its way to condemn the way his character is treated. In fact, the episode basically says tolerate him. Being tolerated, is NOT the same thing as being included and accepted.
Again, therein lies the problem.
The portrayal of disability in TV across the globe is pretty apalling. There are almost no, mainstream shows that feature characters with disabilities. You'll get the odd one or two pop-up in a soap opera, or serial-drama, but there are very, very few who are fully-fledged characters.
This is why TV channels are being more sensitive towards the very few portrayals that do get to air on-screen in the UK. It's NOT about rewriting history, or censorship, or disallowing someone to not see something uncensored. It's purely that in the current day-and-age, people who look or sound or act different, when it comes to a disability, or their gender, or race, or ethnicity are treated appallingly by society, and no TV channel wants to air something to a broad-audience (like the kind who might watch Q.L.) and then risk that word being used by others, as a form of putdown.
By-the-way, is anyone aware that when Blue Peter in 1981, tried to open-up the debate on disability on the BBC, by introducing its viewers to Joey Deacon, the next day kids went around schoolyards up-and-down the country, calling people who looked/sounded like him "Joey". It was the new equvialent of calling somebody a "sp**tic"! And that's another word that no one in their right mind would use today!
So let's not kid ourselve here.
Some may argue, my post is making too much of a small issue, but it's not a small issue to the person on the receiving end of that name-calling, or verbal or physical abuse.
So, please. Let's be a bit more considerate towards others who are different from yourself. just because a TV channel decides to edit something you don't have an issue with, doesn't mean they're being "woke" or "PC". They're just being sensitive. They're just trying to be tactful. They're just trying to be respectful.
Considering we live in a world where problems between the way people are perceived, and how that results in them being treated much more poorly, or less favourably, I'd like to think that people would be a little more understanding of why cuts might be being made.
In the case of Q.L., it's two-fold:
1) The language isn't suitable for daytime broadcast, and is difficult to defend its inclusion in the episode, when it's used so much (rather than just, say, once!) AND
2) The language was problematic in the 1990's, and is even more problematic by 2021's standards.
Language DOES mean something, and words DO have power. If they didn't, then I could write "bjshcbm dhebdbeauek usbeadueniw", claim it was the most offensive language humanly possible, and everyone would know exactly what I meant, and no one would get upset by it.
But that's not how the real world works, I'm afraid.
As Rodney King once very famously said: "Can't we all just get along?"
Quantum leap series 2 episode 8
