[Neil Jones]

The length of that video shows the media claims from the time that the episode ended "4 minutes early" can't be true- we're over 28 minutes in (including the internal ad break) at the point of the "outake", so there clearly couldn't have been long to go even if the "proper" version had gone out- possibly that's the point the credits were meant to kick in.

I think it should be obvious that TV shows record more than they need and that any excess would be trimmed out. It would have had to have meet a certain length at the editing stage when it was ready to go.

If we're at 28 minutes of content for a 30min scheduled should slot, then it just confirms that that broadcast was the wrong version of that episode and there should be a shorter edit. IIRC most commercial TV in this country in the early 80s was something like 26 minutes of content for a 30min slot so there must have been a broadcast version to meet that, as its all supposed to slot together and run beautifully within the rules (bearing in mind the limits on adverts and timings and what not) and look like you know what you're doing.

And of course ad breaks being late into programmes, well that became more of a thing as the 80s progressed and into the 90s (I think the all time record I ever saw was something like 23 minutes for a "Part One"), and I dare say there are other examples of breaks not being in the core 12-18min segment of the clock hour for a 30min programme.

So as Network did release it, that would suggest they've either found/been given what was meant to go out, or they "fixed" it to match the rest, although it sounds incredible that one episode was never finished in the first place out of however many episodes this series had (was it two?). If it had been strike action or a serious accident and that's why it was never finished, that's more understandable, but I don't think that applies here.