The Avengers

I recently watched a recording from the True Entertainment channel of The Avengers - The Master Minds, featuring Bernard Archard and Patricia Haines.

I was more than a little surprised to see end credits, not for the episode I'd just watched, but for The Cybernauts (Michael Gough, Burt Kwouk and Bernard Horsfall)

The following evening The Murder Market guest starring Patrick Cargill and Suzanne Lloyd had the end credits for The Gravediggers (Ronald Fraser, Wanda Ventham etc.)

What is going on here? Surely even a cable channel wouldn't have the audacity or be legally allowed to start moving end credits around but equally how could episodes be produced and edited and exist for 50 years with mistakes like these?

Stuart Neville

The episode has possibly been re-edited by the distributors. If there were inperfections in the archive material (eg sound or vision interferences) they may have replaced the end credits with a 'cleaner' set.

The set may be 'cleaner' but inaccurate and, I would have thought in breach of contract with the many actors and technicians involved.

Not unique to The Avengers, when CBBC was repeating Look & Read, one of the episodes had gone walkies buts its key content existed so the opening/end credits were copied from another episode, cutting an entire artist credit out in the process.

But anyway, I'd argue "breach of contract" only applies to the original production and editing. If Joe Bloggs is contracted to get a credit but doesn't get one, that's a contract breach. If Channel Z buys it and then chops all the credits off, then Channel Y buys the butchered copies with the missing credits and sticks them on wrongly, Joe Bloggs may not have a lot of say in the matter in syndication.

Then you have the reverse situation where an entire scene has been chopped out (for time or editorial reasons) and an actor who only appears in that scene is still in the credits. So they still get a repeat fee?

If I recall it was Episode 6 of Joe and the Sheep Rustlers. Powell Jones was the missing actor (played a Tramp). Closing credits were computerised though.
http://www.broadcastforschools.co.uk/mediawiki/images/9/96/Joe_and_the_Sheep_Rustlers_ep06_03.jpg

Didn't someone fail to get credited on a recent episode of Doctor Who, then got credited the next week instead when he wasn't appearing? Or it might have been the other way around...