My inaugural post here, and it isn’t even about Star Wars!

Anyway, I’m wondering if anybody here has got DECENT (SP VHS?) recordings of the original three episodes of THE HITCHHIKER, from HBO (in the US) or First Choice (in Canada) with Nicholas Campbell as the title character.

The reason I ask is that–in reruns–the episodes were edited/partially-reshot to replace Campbell with Page Fletcher (who played the character in all other episodes).

The episodes in question are:

SHATTERED VOWS
WHEN MORNING COMES
SPLIT DECISION

I have a second-generation copy of the original 1983 HBO broadcasts, but the guy who sent it to me, unfortunately, made my copy in SLP, and then became impossible to contact about re-recording it. So, I have the episodes, but in not-so-great picture/sound quality.

On the Canadian Complete First Season DVD set, the first two episodes are the re-shot Page Fletcher versions. Surprisingly, then, the third DVD episode is actually the Campbell version. Unfortunately, it also appears to be some sort of edited-for-Canadian-TV version, because, in addition to adding three commercial fades-to-black throughout, there are two or three brief edits to the episodes (not nudity, as the original broadcast didn’t contain any, but, bizarrely, edits of the Landers sisters in full-coverage lingerie). So, even though it’s an ‘original’ episode, it’s not even complete! I say ‘edited-for-CANADIAN-television’ because 1). Hitchhiker was exclusive to HBO in the US at that time and 2). the words ‘get your ass over here’ are intact, and that phrase would’ve been forbidden on US television at that time.

I’m pretty sure the three Campbell episodes were only shown in the US and Canada, and may not have been seen (at least on HBO) since the second season debuted in late 1984. I have PAL-format recordings of these episodes from late’-1990s Sky One showings, but they are all the Page Fletcher ones. The ends of the episodes say they were distributed by Lorimar-Telepictures, so the prints seem to predate Alliance/Atlantis acquisition of the show and were probably from the original international syndication package put together in the 1980s.

So, looks like off-air VHS or Beta is probably the only hope of these. Anybody here able to help?