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Unless the cable snaps or an eye pulls out, how is it possible to fall further from the via ferrata than the length of your attachment straps, assuming you're on 2 of them?
Am not an expert but .. via ferrata is not necessarily horizontal, they can be vertical (e.g. up a ladder) or any angle in-between, so the fall doesn't start to become arrested until the carabiner that's on the safety cable actually strikes a point where the cable is fixed the the rock. That can be a distance below the fall point.
re Top Gear vs BG - Top Gear is nonsense presented as nonsense, it doesn't take itself seriously. It felt like the BG/Fry film was meant to be taken 'seriously'.
Just to clarify, the above comments relate to BG, not SF.
My guess is that someone other than BG decided that the only place SF was likely to fall was on his arse and therefore old school via ferrata methods were fine. BG didn't bother clipping on for most of it and apart from the very start it was a traverse.
It's also very likely that they'd have paid local guides to inspect cables/anchors and advise them on set.