Why was last episode cut before showing?

There's a flaw in your logic: unless you had already watched a torrent, how would you know that the scene had been cut?

More seriously, it could be because there are different standards in the US and UK. The last Torchwood had scenes cut for the UK broadcast.

There's no flaw in my logic. I said "If you don't want us to download torrents". I never said "I do not download torrents". There is a big difference. Yeah, I was curious and wanted to see the next episode before it was shown here, so what?

That's not the point, though. The scene was hardly graphic - it was pretty damn mild actually. I can only think it was cut so they could fit more adverts in, which is inexcusable.

Having not been following Torchwood, what exactly was cut? Was it really that bad? I don't think the UK and US have different standards really, do they?

The flaw is that you, by your own admission, downloaded the program but then watched it on broadcast. You imply that people will obtain programs illicitly if they are cut for UK broadcast rather than watch the broadcast version, but you did both!

Anyway, I still suspect that the cut was for UK Standards reasons and certainly don't think it was to fit in more advertisements. Not only are there very strict regulations as to how many advertisements/promos can be shown during a program, but how long was the sequence? Seconds? How many adverts could have been shown in that time? Possibly the cut was because W13 is generally a bit "fluffy" and a "good" character indulging in torture was not allowed.

Torchwood had a bit of male/male sex cut, by the way. By all accounts it was fairly tame if somewhat gratuitous. There was some talk about another ep being cut for violence, but that didn't generate the same press coverage so I don't know if that actually happened. The point is, it does happen for reasons other than "more ad space"; in Torchwood's case there would be no point in having more space for ads as it was on the BBC (while AFAIK the US broadcaster is ad-supported).

Well, it wasn't a "good" character. It was rogue FBI Agent Sally Stukowski. She uses the doorknob to burn the Regent's hand to get info, takes the doorknob off her, then puts it back and watches as first her arm, then her whole body burst into flames, then a few seconds later the flames and Regent disappear. The cut occurs immediately after the bit where she puts the doorknob back into the Regent's hand - it cuts straight to a single burst of flame as the Regent disappears.

My bad; I thought you meant they'd cut a bit out of the scene where Mrs F was torturing Sally. However, the rest of my post still stands and has yet to be addressed.

What I did, regarding torrents and watching the programme is irrelevant. The fact is that Mrs Frederic's torture scene was complete and uncut, and Agent Sally's scene was butchered to the point of being almost non-existent. The thing is, other people besides myself will have noticed this - if someone liked the episode and wanted to watch it again, for example - and word will get around that "Syfy cuts episodes before showing them". If enough people hear this, then it will encourage the downloading of torrents more. It's not about what I did. It's about what people might hear about Syfy's censorship policies.

Syfy isn't the only offender. GOLD did it too, with Blackadder II episode "Money". Half the scene with the sailor was cut - it goes straight from the silly song to the next scene, where Blackadder says "Well, we've got sixpence". This is also unacceptable, because it was one of the best scenes in the episode, and it wasn't cut during its original showing. It seems GOLD feel the need to remove mild language and things like that, when they were perfectly fine when shown on BBC or ITV the first time around.

But what if, as I suggested and you have ignored, it's not policy but compliance with regulations?

As for GOLD, times change. Can you imagine "Love Thy Neighbour" being broadcast uncut these days?

Anyway, it doesn't look like we're going to agree on this, so there's only one to settle it:

THUNDERDOME! Two men enter; one man leaves!

...I mean, I've emailed the channel and asked.

FYI: The 57-minute Torchwood episodes were cut to 50 minutes for the US market so that they could have adverts and still squeeze it into one hour. Aren't you glad that you are in the UK where TV is not ruled by advertisers?