This is a comparison between the censored TV Version (first broadcastet on NBC, 28-02-2014) and the uncensored Producer's Cut (included on the US Blu-Ray released by Lionsgate)


- 2 altered scenes
- No difference in time

Whenever the TV Version heads for a commercial break, the US Blu-Ray shows a black screen for 2-3 seconds. The resulting difference in time was not regarded for this report, however, it explains why you will see slightly different points in time at the time designations.



It is still pretty amazing, what kind of effects the creators of the series Hannibal are able to include in their TV broadcast while still getting a TV-14 rating. Still, the second season's Blu-Ray release offers so-called "Producer's Cuts" for 7 episodes. This time, they did not make a big deal out of it, neither on the cover, nor in their press release. We only came across it because a user which was a part of the Blu-Ray's production made a posting on the Blu-ray.com-forums (as we already reported).
In that regard it is not at all clear in which way the episodes will be released in other countries. After all, the Producer's Cuts for season one were only released in the USA (and probably Canada). In the UK one could only buy the regular TV Versions on both DVD and Blu-ray.

If we take a look at the actual alterations, it is probably not too surprising, that the studio did not insist on a bigger advertisement for the Producer's Cuts. There are only very few and rather marginal scenes that were censored, which means that - in contrast to the first season - it would not be too big of a loss if one would only be able to get the TV Versions. Still, we will keep our readers up to date whenever we know anything new about other releases.

This report's episode 2x01, "Kaiseki" is a prime example (similar to Episode 1x05) of how idiotic US TV restrictions can be. It is no problem to show gruesomely mutilated corpses, however, some of their "offensive" body parts have to be covered up. It is just a very short shot that shows this, however, the small black veil in the TV Version still comes across as being pretty absurd. The same goes for an aeriation towards the end.



Time designations are listed as follows:
US TV Version / Blu-ray


NOTE:

Episode 2 is also listed as having a "Producer's Cut". Since it continues the first episode's plot that revolves around the naked corpses which are arranged like a color palette, it would actually make sense to censor this episode, too. Curiously enough, the TV broadcast we used for the report that is announced as having a "TV-14" rating, includes uncensored shots of all naked people, including an uncensored shot during the, which shows the naked corpse which previously was censored for the first episode. All the violence ((including a sequence of skin ripping open, which would probably have been something that every SAW movie would have to miss out on to get the R-Rating!) is identical.
It is possible that later reruns were censored, however, we will at first not make a report until we know for sure. After all, this is an exception. All other "Producer's Cut" episodes do have (minor) differences.

The recap of season one was - for whatever reason - cut together differently. We will not get into detail about this.

TV Version 2.5 sec longer



Digital Effect
19:18-19:20 / 19:17-19:19

During the second shot of the corpses on the floor the image was darkened around the pubic area.

No difference in time

TV Version	Producer's Cut

Digital Effect
42:16-42:29 / 42:17-42:30

The impressive tracking shot upwards, which at first makes the pile of corpses look like an eye, had to be altered because of nudity. It is hardly noticeable, but if you look close you can see that the pubic area was sightly darkened.
A woman on the bottom right of the screen (marked in red on the first screenshot) used to be topless. This was covered up as well.

No difference in time

TV Version	Producer's Cut