<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Why do you suppose it is not treated the same way in the US?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Until the Sci-Fi Channel picked up the show, it
was. Neither PTEN nor TNT ever aired it as a two-part episode.
I think that Sci-Fi decided that some of the plot threads (the hole in Sinclair's mind, Lyta's scan of Kosh, and G'Kar's offer to Lyta) were important enough that the pilot should be incorporated into the regular episode rotation rather than air as a separate TV movie. I'm told that the same thing was done when the show ran in some European countries.
In any event, it was a decision made very early on. When they first announced that they had acquired the rights to the series and movies in March of 2000, the press release specifically mentioned "all
112 episodes and
4 TV movies" - which a lot of folks, including JMS, thought was a typo. But they evidently always planned to run
The Gathering as a two-part episode, and counted things accordingly.
Regards,
Joe
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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net