Sunday Night Smut Alert

Tonight in the UK the climatic final episode of "War & Peace" will be broadcast at 9pm on BBC1. As a nation we will all be excitedly glued to our TV sets. That's because last week's episode featured what can only be described as; "A Penis Incident."

Following a battle many of the soldiers were bathing in a lake when their commanding officer rides up on horseback to speak to them. This prompts their effectively Sargent Major to get out of the lake and walk towards the commanding officer.

Although I'm pretty sure they didn't show the tip the Sargent Major's penis was certainly on display flapping about in the wind. As he approached the camera the shot tightened gradually reducing the amount of visible penis. This created a sort of penis gradient if you will. How the three US networks who are yet to broadcast the show choose to edit that dialogue scene is likely to be interesting.

As I've previously mentioned War & Peace is being broadcast in direct competition to the German show "Deutschland 83" which is being shown in the UK on Channel 4.

The second episode of Deutschland 83 featured possibly the worst continuity error since Lando Calrissian  appears wearing Han Solo's costume at the end of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" for absolutely no reason. Basically a woman appears at the start of a scene wearing nothing but a towel. Then mid-scene she magically changes clothes and is suddenly wearing a skirt and camisole.

At the time I thought that this was done entirely on purpose. The excuse being used by the German production is that while they have a comparatively relaxed attitude towards nudity the more prudish British censors would have been thrown into an absolute panic if during the ensuing fight scene the towel had lifted up giving a brief flash of what UK censors term; "Anal or Vaginal detailing."

My suspicions were confirmed when the next episode was full of what initially looked like glaring continuity errors.

For example in the opening episode a house is featured that resembles to Communist-era tower block. Then in episode 3 the same building is portrayed as a country cottage. However as the episode progresses the viewer's effectively given a walk-through of the building showing that while it looks like a cottage from the front in the back there are actually multiple levels going down into a sunken garden.

This seemed intended to send the message that the show's location and continuity managers aren't in fact that stupid.

In the next episode a pair of young lovers are about to take a swim in a country lake. Initially they are shown embracing each other so while it is clear that the woman is topless you can't actually see her breasts. Her buttocks are also covered by a pair of panties.

In the next shot the couple are shot from a distance walking hand-in-hand into the water. Here the woman has removed her panties exposing her buttocks. Those panties can be seen hanging from the branch of a tree in the top right-hand corner of the screen. This is an area of the shot reserved for what are known as "cigarette burns."

If you watch a lot of movies - particularly 20th century ones - you may have noticed that every so often these two black circles - similar to cigarette burns - appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen. These are to alert the projectionist that the current reel of film is reaching its final frames so they had better be ready to switch to the next reel. 

You sometimes see something similar on TV when a barcode-like square appears in the top right-hand corner. This is to warn the TV stations continuity operator that the show is about to go to a commercial break.

As such those panties on the tree seem intended as a jokey warning to UK censors that some nudity could be imminent.

12:35 on 7/2/16 (UK date).