Reposted from old boards:

Posted by TV Guy:

Diana Hyland, the actress who played Joan Bradford (the mother), was fighting cancer during the filming of the first season, and was not able to appear in every episode (she passed away after filming was finished for the season). Most of the reference books say that her absence was explained by saying that Joan was out of town, and the kids and Tom would be seen speaking to her by phone. But when I caught those reruns last year
on PAX, not only was Joan not mentioned, but they used the opening credits from the second season, eliminating Diana Hyland's credit.

I recently found out that when ABC reran the first season in the summer of '77, they only reran the episodes without Joan, and edited out all references to her. They were apparently trying to get viewers used to her absence, since she wouldn't be there for
the next season. What's strange is that I remember seeing the show in syndication in the early 80s, and they ran the shows as originally seen, with references to Joan. Interesting that PAX has the edited versions from the summer '77 run.

I recall seeing reruns in the 80's with Joan in them. I even saw the pilot with Mark Hamill as David.

Any idea why the episodes on the Season 1 dvd release are edited? Are the episodes with Joan as originally aired somewhere out there?

It would be nice to see the episodes where Joan is mentioned. But i guess it was sort of jarring to say she was out of town....and then suddenly time has passed and then she is dead. I'm sure the show and network did the best they could at the time.

I recall that the syndication cycle in the 80s included the original edits - like in Quarantine - where we saw Tom talking on the phone to Joan and we heard her voice. But when FX and Pax reran it in the 1990s, we saw the versions with those phone calls (and the opening credits) edited. I’m sure the originals still exist, but whoever at Warner Bros is in charge of the series doesn’t understand the details and why it’s important to release the original versions.