Episode 1: Mysterious Shadow
What the fheck?!? ...groan...
This may turn out to be a worst-case scenario, as Fox has given their version of CYBERSIX the sloppily rushed pacing that I was wary of. Predictably, commercial breaks have been shifted around and added, but to accommodate this, Saban has exercised their hack-n-slash tactics even more gratuitously than I would have imagined.
The intro sequence has been more than chopped in half, its footage replaced, and its music bastardized with a faster tempo and surrogate vocals.
The dark mood of many scenes was completely destroyed in the way the show was re-edited. The Japanese feel of lingering camera moves that establish atmosphere has been removed. Scenes have been sliced and sped up. You know: just trim a few seconds here, a few lines of incidental dialogue there...
It must also be Fox's intent to chase off any girls in the audience, because nearly all of the show's delicate aura has been eviscerated. The distinctly Japanese pacing of action, pause, reaction has been molested into a non-stop stream of action!-reaction!, with no time for reflection or emotional connection. While the story remains intact, it now seems more like just a highlight reel of hurried events that is lacking in ambience. The net effect is comparable to taking the original show and arbitrarily hitting your fast forward button every other second.
The most un-retouched segment was in the middle act, where Adrian and Lucas walk home to discover his apartment in a wreck. However, in the subsequent scene where Cybersix changes into costume, there is an audible skip in the music indicating that something has been cut out. What you're missing here is a tight shot of C6 zipping up the front of her costume; Fox must have felt this was too "suggestive".
In the haste of the closing act, clips of the fight scenes were noticeably absent, sacrificed to make room for more commercials. The way they were editing things with a machette, I was surprised Fox even bothered to include that ending close-up shot where Lucas holds Cybersix's hand.
I can only guess what they are going to do with all of those pensive flashbacks in episode 2, or the quieter moments of the last few episodes...
From your comments, it seems Fox's ESCAFLOWNE got the same sort of treatment. But with ESCAFLOWNE, I am not so concerned, because I am one of those anime fans that RZetlin described as saying, "Who cares what Fox does, because I'll end up buying the videos anyway." Since CYBERSIX isn't yet available on video, I'm worried that Fox's chopped up version will have trouble finding an audience.
Uggh... Head spinning... Must lie down now... 
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