Saved from the cutting room floor

Today's column is the previously-referenced look at deleted scenes and how I feel they're creating alternate universes for some shows:

Where's Andy?

That's the question fans of NBC's "The Office" have been asking ever since the Jan. 18 episode, titled "The Return," when new Dunder-Mifflin Scranton employee Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) punched a hole in a wall in a fit of rage. He excused himself and hasn't appeared since.

Turns out the answer to that mystery lies within "The Return" itself - or, rather, in an extended producer's cut that was made available on NBC's Web site and through Apple's iTunes store. An added scene at the end explained that Andy was ordered to attend anger management classes.

"The Office" has been on the leading edge of a new trend involving TV shows that make deleted scenes immediately available on the Web, and producer Greg Daniels wanted to see what happened if he consigned a notable plot development to the show's on-line incarnation.

"It was the most important piece of information that we ever left out of an episode without fixing it in the next episode, and it was sort of an experiment," he says. "We had the idea that the online fans would somehow transmit the information to the fans who just watched the show, and they didn't."

Andy's stint in anger management was alluded to in Thursday night's episode and will be addressed more explicitly on-air when he returns in early April. But Daniels' failed experiment illustrates the value and risk of TV producers having this shiny new toy to play with.

To read the full thing, click here.