110 missing forever?
Ian Barnett
so far as he's concerned all the episodes that *can* be found, *have* been
found, and that he believes there will always be 110 missing
episodes..........
Without wishing to prejudice any delicate negotiations that may or may not
be taking place, would anyone care to comment? Others (Paul Lee for one,
according to his article) do seem to think there are grounds to hope for the
return of maybe two or three more........
john kelley
>be taking place, would anyone care to comment? Others (Paul Lee for one,
>according to his article) do seem to think there are grounds to hope for the
>return of maybe two or three more........
>
Richard Molesworth
Ian Barnett <i.ba...@virgin.net> wrote in article
<72nnie$38g$1...@nclient1-gui.server.virgin.net>...
> In the Missing Years documentary Ian Levine states pretty categorically
that
> so far as he's concerned all the episodes that *can* be found, *have*
been
> found, and that he believes there will always be 110 missing
> episodes..........
>
Ian is right in that all available avenues have been explored. However,
there are one or two not fully covered, but all that is in the way are
resources and goodwill - both are in short supply at the BBC, it seems.
And just 'coz they are not fully explored does not mean there is any *real*
hope of finding anything, but it would be nice to eliminate the possibility
for once and all.
There are no negotiations of any kind going on, simply because there is
no-one with whom to negotiate.
Paul Lee's intentions are probably well-founded, but I'm afraid that I have
yet to see an article attributed to him that isn't full of wild
innacuracies or ill-founded speculation.
Richard.
QuietOne
exists, as does The Daleks' Masterplan 4 (did Blue Peter take a third
episode?).
Maybe these will show up.......
If there ARE no more in TV stations' vaults, then some of the remainder
might be in the hands of fans.
QuietOne
Dominic Jackson
>Well look at it this way - it seems reasonable that The Tenth Planet 4 still
>exists, as does The Daleks' Masterplan 4 (did Blue Peter take a third
>episode?).
Why is it reasonable to assume TP :4 exists? Blue Peter NEVER had a copy
of this episode for it to be stolen! Masterplan :4, yes, possibly. TP :4
was most likely destroyed by Enterprises along with the rest of the serial
(it was just fortunate that 1,2 and 3 happpened to exist elsewhere). I
have to say I agree with Ian Levine - there are 110 episodes of Dr Who
that DO NOT EXIST and hence cannot be found.
>Maybe these will show up.......
>If there ARE no more in TV stations' vaults, then some of the remainder
>might be in the hands of fans.
>
But we have no real evidence to suggest this is true.
Cheers,
Dominic
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Well look at it this way - it seems reasonable that The Tenth Planet 4 still
> exists, as does The Daleks' Masterplan 4 (did Blue Peter take a third
> episode?).
Unlikely-it seems Blue Peter never had anything more than a brief insert
(in the same way Whose Doctor Who only took six minutes of Galaxy 4:
Four Hundred Dawns) taken from the Tenth Planet Episode 4. Blue Peter
ONLY took The Daleks' Master Plan: The Traitors from the Film Library.
They would have got the Tenth Planet clip from Enterprises.
> Maybe these will show up.......
> If there ARE no more in TV stations' vaults, then some of the remainder
> might be in the hands of fans.
This is a frequent allegation-fans are secretly hoarding episodes-and
one that is impossible to DISprove, since it's supposedly a secret.
However, I doubt there are more than handful of episodes existing out
there, possibly in the hands of collectors who don't realise their true
value, or the odd one buried in a TV station vault.
Of course, there's always the possibilty of video recordings...
Vin de Silva
> > If there ARE no more in TV stations' vaults, then some of the remainder
> > might be in the hands of fans.
I quite like the idea of going out on a high, viz. all four episodes of
"Tomb" showing up in Hong Kong.
It would be a sorry tale indeed if episode 5 of "The Space Pirates" shows
up one day and ends up being the last lost episode ever to be found.
I actually think there *is* a secret missing episodes club, with film
collectors avidly hoarding 16mm prints of lost Who. The reason we haven't
heard of them is that they're *very* discreet; I mean, it's just too
embarrassing to admit that you've got copies of "The Underwater Menace" #4
and the whole of "The Space Pirates" lurking in your cellar: undestroyed,
and probably even viewed. Repeatedly. Oooh.. it makes me shiver with
horror.
cheers
Vin
Richard Molesworth
Tim Roll-Pickering <t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote in article
<365023...@ukc.ac.uk>...
> QuietOne wrote:
>
> > Well look at it this way - it seems reasonable that The Tenth Planet 4
still
> > exists, as does The Daleks' Masterplan 4 (did Blue Peter take a third
> > episode?).
>
> Unlikely-it seems Blue Peter never had anything more than a brief insert
> (in the same way Whose Doctor Who only took six minutes of Galaxy 4:
> Four Hundred Dawns) taken from the Tenth Planet Episode 4. Blue Peter
> ONLY took The Daleks' Master Plan: The Traitors from the Film Library.
> They would have got the Tenth Planet clip from Enterprises.
Although it's fair to say that Blue Peter never lost 'Tenth Planet' 4, I've
yet to come across any evidence that all the BP Production Office had was
an insert from this episode. I have been told that the actual episode was
requesitioned (by a 'J. Smith') along with the 'Masterplan' 4 print, and
that the latter came from the film library, but that TP4 certainly didn't.
The only other library known about at the time was the BBC Enterprises
vault at Villiers House, so QED, TP4 was supplied from this archive. And
as it was still on sale in 1974, Blue Peter must have returned it.
'Cides, if they had an insert, where did they get it from?? The full
episode, which again takes us back to Villiers House!!! (It seems certain
that the 'Whose Doctor Who' team also used material from this archive as
well as Windmill Road).
Richard
Tim Roll-Pickering
> I quite like the idea of going out on a high, viz. all four episodes of
> "Tomb" showing up in Hong Kong.
> It would be a sorry tale indeed if episode 5 of "The Space Pirates" shows
> up one day and ends up being the last lost episode ever to be found.
Were it to change opinions, I think it'd be better. After all, would you
rather the last episode found was a let down or something better than
expected?
> I actually think there *is* a secret missing episodes club, with film
> collectors avidly hoarding 16mm prints of lost Who. The reason we haven't
> heard of them is that they're *very* discreet; I mean, it's just too
> embarrassing to admit that you've got copies of "The Underwater Menace" #4
> and the whole of "The Space Pirates" lurking in your cellar: undestroyed,
> and probably even viewed. Repeatedly. Oooh.. it makes me shiver with
> horror.
Hah hah hah!
Marcus Durham
<dbj...@ebor.york.ac.uk> shared the following with us in rec.arts.drwho:
[snip]
>there are 110 episodes of Dr Who
>that DO NOT EXIST and hence cannot be found.
I wouldn't write all avenues off. As Steve proved the other week, it's
at least possible that domestic recordings may exist somewhere, and
there is no accounting for what is in the hands of collectors. These
people are more concerned about their film collections rather than
what's on the individual films. And of course there is a small chance
that copies may be found in TV stations that had the series. Basically,
let's take an optimistic view. If we all take a pessimistic view then
the remainder of the existing material will never be found.
--
Marcus Durham
The UMTSDW Homepage. News, reviews, locations and Bates.
http://www.zenn.demon.co.uk/drwho/drwho.htm
Waxvax
>> up one day and ends up being the last lost episode ever to be found.
I, too, beg to differ. I am an avid Dr Who fan (like many that post here). To
be able to see any "new" Who would be great. 110 episodes to never be seen
disappoints me gladly.
And, DWM reports that Ian Levine says that no others will show up. Well, I've
never thought that Levine should be given TOP DOG Dr Who fan status.
___________________________________________________________
" By midnight, tonight, this planet will be pulled inside out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
m01h...@cwcom.net
Surely?
Mind you, part of me thinks (and it is only part of me!) that maybe it's better that some of the lost "classics" remain lost - the rather crappy model work for Evil of the Daleks has scuffed some of the gloss on an epic which, otherwise, lives in a (mostly) wide-screen technicolor multi-million £ budgeted world of my imagination!!!
JeffWorks
Masterplan" still exist?
o--c
___
| _ _ _ | | _ _ _
| |_ |_ |_ | | | | | |_| |/|_ --c
|_| |_ | | |_|_| |_| | \ |\ _|
Building the foundations for a spookier tomorrow...
SV7
So where do you think TP4 is today? I would dearly love for that one
story to be released in full someday. Is there still hope?
SV7
Carrot Juice! Carrot Juice!! Carrot Juice!!!
Richard Molesworth
SV7 <EAC4719.S...@ssu.edu> wrote in article
<3650B6...@ssu.edu>...
> Mr. Molesworth,
>
> So where do you think TP4 is today? I would dearly love for that one
> story to be released in full someday. Is there still hope?
All evidence points to the following: after the wiping of the 405-line
2-inch master videotape of the episode, BBC Enterprises were left with the
only copy of the episode on 16mm film (which they leant to Blue Peter in
1973). Sometime after 1974 (when Enterprises last offered the story for
sale overseas) the Enterprises copies of all 4 episodes were burnt, and it
was not 'till the 1978 audit of the BBC film library was it discovered that
duplicate films of parts 1- 3 remained. TP4 was erased / burnt over 20
years ago.
It will NEVER be seen again.
Richard.s
Richard Molesworth
JeffWorks <jeff...@aol.comhormel> wrote in article
<19981116181404...@ng115.aol.com>...
> Why is it likely that eps. four of "The Tenth Planet" and "The Dalek
> Masterplan" still exist?
It's equally likely that the other 108 missing episodes exsist. IE not
very. (Ooops - qualify that 107= likely. 'Masterplan' 7 will NEVER turn
up - it's gone for good!)
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Waxvax <wax...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981116175306...@ng12.aol.com>...
> And, DWM reports that Ian Levine says that no others will show up. Well,
I've
> never thought that Levine should be given TOP DOG Dr Who fan status.
Me neither. But that in no way discredits his opinion - which let me
remind you is founded on 20 years of trying to find missing DW episodes.
What were you doing about missing 'Who' 20 years ago, Waxy??? Same as
today, probably. **** all!!!
Richard
SV7
Oh my god! I wish I hadn't asked. What a damper on the evening. I think
I'd rather believe J. Smith walked out of the Blue Peter office with it
than that! There's no hope at all?
JeffWorks
up - it's gone for good!)
Is that because "The Feast of Steven" was never taped/filmed?
Mike Sivier
Cruel but accurate.
I mean, 20 years ago I was as much a Doctor Who fan as I am today, but
I knew sod all about the junking regime at the BBC. Nobody told me
about it.
Besides that, of course, 20 years ago I was nine years old and nobody
would have paid a blind bit of attention to me anyway.
--
Mike
Mike Sivier
>All evidence points to the following: after the wiping of the 405-line
>2-inch master videotape of the episode, BBC Enterprises were left with the
>only copy of the episode on 16mm film (which they leant to Blue Peter in
>1973). Sometime after 1974 (when Enterprises last offered the story for
>sale overseas) the Enterprises copies of all 4 episodes were burnt, and it
>was not 'till the 1978 audit of the BBC film library was it discovered that
>duplicate films of parts 1- 3 remained. TP4 was erased / burnt over 20
>years ago.
>It will NEVER be seen again.
A very depressing report.
However, if this is the case, BBC Video should just get on with it and
release what there is, plus a reconstruction of episode four. In My
Humble.
--
Mike
Dave Roy
Silva <wv...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> saying:
>I actually think there *is* a secret missing episodes club, with film
>collectors avidly hoarding 16mm prints of lost Who. The reason we haven't
>heard of them is that they're *very* discreet; I mean, it's just too
>embarrassing to admit that you've got copies of "The Underwater Menace" #4
>and the whole of "The Space Pirates" lurking in your cellar: undestroyed,
>and probably even viewed. Repeatedly. Oooh.. it makes me shiver with
>horror.
Yeah, I'm a member of that club. We have meetings every other
Tuesday, where we watch a random episode contributed by a club member.
Then we have donuts afterward. The only reason that I'm saying this
now is because they stopped serving the glazed donuts, and it pissed
me off.
Dave Roy
EJohnso
>Yeah, I'm a member of that club. We have meetings every other
>Tuesday, where we watch a random episode contributed by a club member.
>Then we have donuts afterward. The only reason that I'm saying this
>now is because they stopped serving the glazed donuts, and it pissed
>me off.
It may just be the beer speaking, but I think this is the funniest thing I've
read in a long time!!
Eric P. Johnson ==== Ejo...@aol.com
*This contains a randomly distributed email fragment. The rest of the story
has been emailed to random email addresses. Track them down and piece them
together to reveal the secret message.*
Richard Molesworth
JeffWorks <jeff...@aol.comhormel> wrote in article
<19981116210101...@ng60.aol.com>...
> >'Masterplan' 7 will NEVER turn
> up - it's gone for good!)
>
>
> Is that because "The Feast of Steven" was never taped/filmed?
>
Sort of - it was (as far as can be ascertained) never telerecorded onto
film or offered for overseas sale ('Masterplan' was only offered as an
11-part story, but was never actually screeded abroad, although ABC in
Australia did view the 11-part story and deemed it unsuitable for
transmission). Once the 405-line 2-inch tape of the episode was destroyed,
then it was gone forever.
Richard
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Why is it likely that eps. four of "The Tenth Planet" and "The Dalek
> Masterplan" still exist?
A copy of The Daleks' Master Plan: The Traitors was held by the BBC Film
Library until 1973, when Blue Peter borrowed it for an item about the
series' tenth anniversary. However, the episode was never returned to
the Film Library. The person who signed for the episdoe signed 'J.
Smith'-which many people found suspicious, but a Justin Smith was
working for Blue Peter at the time and had responsibility for these
matters.
There is a myth that Blue Peter also took the Film Library's copy of The
Tenth Planet: 4, but the FL NEVER had a copy-it was just coincidence
they had copies of episodes 1-3 in 1978.
Ben Woodhams
>I have been told that the actual episode was
>requesitioned (by a 'J. Smith') along with the 'Masterplan' 4 print, and
>that the latter came from the film library, but that TP4 certainly didn't.
>The only other library known about at the time was the BBC Enterprises
>vault at Villiers House, so QED, TP4 was supplied from this archive. And
>as it was still on sale in 1974, Blue Peter must have returned it.
Richard, is that necessarily the case? Is it not possible that BP
*didn't* return it, but it was still listed as For Sale because no-one
had actually checked whether it was there or not?
I don't want to sound like I'm clutching at straws (and I, for one,
think we'll never see TP4), but it seems to me to be a bit of an
assumption to take the paperwork at face value when, in so many offices,
such paperwork is frequently a botch job at best.
Cheers,
ben w.
--
"I know only that I exist - everything else is just my opinion."
Richard Develyn
wrote:
> I
>have to say I agree with Ian Levine - there are 110 episodes of Dr Who
>that DO NOT EXIST and hence cannot be found.
I think that's a bit strong - coming from anyone. How can he possibly
know that. Furthermore, on a purely practical level, what is the use
of promoting that sort of opinion. Isn't it better to maintain guarded
optimism?
Let me chuck in a few optimistis points.
1. None of us _really_ know what happened at the BBC in the 60s and
70s - at least, no one has ever presented me a picture which explains
_all_ the evidence we have had to date.
In particular I have never heard a theory which explains, in
describing how and why episodes fell into private hands at all, why
there might not be further ones to be found from collectors.
What I would need to see as resonable evicence would be something
like a BBC document reading "Went to trash Evil of the Daleks but
couldn't find episode 2".
What we tend to hear instead is:
- only a handful of episodes _could_ have been rescued from the BBC
- we have recoved a handful of episodes from private collectors
- therefore there are no more to be found
This, I believe, is a corruption of the founding, and I think still
largely inductive, syllogism:
- only a handful of episodes have been recovered from private hands
- therefore only a handful were rescued from the BBC
I don't believe there is enough in the first statement to allow me to
conclude the second. There are too many unanswered questions. I'd like
to know how these episodes escaped, and how they ended up in boot
sales, Mormon Halls, or simply private shelves. The true stories, not
just conjecture.
2. With regards to searching foreign TV stations we should not confuse
quantity of effort with vairation in approach.
I am very grateful to Ian, Richard, Steven, Paul, etc for all their
work trying to locate missing episodes. However, just because they
(may) feel they have achieved everything they're going to, this does
not mean that other finds cannot occur.
Apart from the fact that serendipity plays such a huge part in
recoveries the recent audio and Australian censor clips finds were
mainly the result of other people's efforts; people with different
backgrounds, contacts and abilities who applied themselves to the
problem.
If I classify Ian & co's approach as "dilligent proffesionalism on
behalf of the BBC", then it's probably true that the rate of maginal
returns on effort is now very small. I still think it's a useful
technique in the light of a changing political climate (we all had
high hopes of South Africa - what about if relations improved between
the UK and Iran?) and I also think it's vital in conjunction with the
other approaches.
Like I said in a previous post I do not believe that an impersonal or
even proffessional approach to many foreign TV stations would have
resulted in much co-operation from the powers within. I think personal
contact will work a lot better. That'll happen the day that a Dr Who
fan has a good friend who works within a TV station and asks him to
make a few discreet enquiries. Then, if a find is made, the "dilligent
proffessionalism" approach can come in.
In short, there is a limit to what any group of individuals can
achieve in tackling a problem of this magnitude, however much effort
they put in. What they could not succeed in, others might, not because
they're any worthier or harder working, but because they're different.
The important thing is not to give up hope.
3. Finally, we have no evidence that any episode, including Masterplan
7, was destroyed including all its copies.
Up until the time that Tomb was recovered we might have thought
otherwise. Though even then, let us not forget that Australia was sent
negatives, and that it is possible to strike prints from prints.
But the Tomb story I find particularly interesting.
Every foreign TV station had to return some pice of paperwork
indicating that their print of an episode had been destroyed. It is a
depressing fact that the number of "destruction" slips tallies up with
the number of copies made in a very large number of cases. As far as
we know (knew) all copies of these episodes had gone.
Including Tomb.
It's return cast doubt on these slips as forming destruction evidence.
I believe that in typical bureaucratic inefficiency the staff at
foreign TV stations simply signed and returned these slips, thinking
to themselves that they'd get round to destroying the episodes later.
After all, why should they go to the trouble of actually doing the
deed, any more than they subsequently went to the trouble of searching
for the episode. I expect they view the whole issue with indifference.
So my conclusion from all this is this:
a) We can no more say that a missing episode DOES NOT exist any more
than we can say it DOES. We just don't know.
b) We have very little idea how episodes came into private hands at
all so we don't know which or how many episodes might still be held
this way.
c) We can only say that we are -unlikely- to find more missing
episodes from foreign TV stations if we continue the same approach.
New minds, lateral thinking, fresh hope, could all yield fresh
results.
When high-profile hard working well connected dilligent individuals
throw up their hands and yell "I Give Up" it is tempting to be
infected with their pessimism. But this has happened in human history
many times.
And history has shown us that there are always new people willing to
take up old challenges. Some may well succeed. The important thing, I
think, is not to give up hope.
Richard
Mike Sivier
>history has shown us that there are always new people willing to
>take up old challenges. Some may well succeed. The important thing, I
>think, is not to give up hope.
Inspiring.
--
Mike
Mike Sivier
>I just got back from saving the universe, when I overheard Vin de
>Silva <wv...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> saying:
>>I actually think there *is* a secret missing episodes club, with film
>>collectors avidly hoarding 16mm prints of lost Who. The reason we haven't
>>heard of them is that they're *very* discreet; I mean, it's just too
>>embarrassing to admit that you've got copies of "The Underwater Menace" #4
>>and the whole of "The Space Pirates" lurking in your cellar: undestroyed,
>>and probably even viewed. Repeatedly. Oooh.. it makes me shiver with
>>horror.
>Yeah, I'm a member of that club. We have meetings every other
>Tuesday, where we watch a random episode contributed by a club member.
>Then we have donuts afterward. The only reason that I'm saying this
>now is because they stopped serving the glazed donuts, and it pissed
>me off.
Worry ye not, Dave m'boy!
Next week's doughnuts have hundreds and thousands on them instead.
<oops>
--
Mike
Richard Molesworth
Ben Woodhams <wood...@parliament.uk> wrote in article
<365155...@parliament.uk>...
The BBC's paperwork is a law unto itself, and both Paul Vanezis and Steve
Roberts who both work for the BBC have failed to find any significant
paperwork on either overseas sales or archive purges. People like Jan
Vincent-Rudzki and David Stead have discovered bits and bobs, as have
Andrew Pixley and David Howe. Some of it is frequently contradictory. We
have to apply a little common sense to all the evidence. But where
evidence doesn't exsist, it seems pointless to invent it. Ian Levine's
statlement that the 1978 inventory of the BBC film library showed only one
unaccounted for episode - Masterplan 4 - proves beyond dispute in my eyes
that 'Blue Peter' never had the episode from the film library in the first
place. If this is the case, the whole fan myth of the episode not being
returned to the film library blows up completely. Accept it. 'Tenth
Planet' 4 is gone for good!
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Richard Develyn <r...@nwpeople.com> wrote in article
<36514837...@193.195.181.30>...
> On 16 Nov 1998 11:01:18 GMT, dbj...@ebor.york.ac.uk (Dominic Jackson)
> wrote:
>
> > I
> >have to say I agree with Ian Levine - there are 110 episodes of Dr Who
> >that DO NOT EXIST and hence cannot be found.
>
> I think that's a bit strong - coming from anyone. How can he possibly
> know that. Furthermore, on a purely practical level, what is the use
> of promoting that sort of opinion. Isn't it better to maintain guarded
> optimism?
Ian has had 20 years of healthy optimism, but as the years go by, returns
get fewer, leads dry up and trails go cold, then common sense prevails.
> Let me chuck in a few optimistis points.
>
> 1. None of us _really_ know what happened at the BBC in the 60s and
> 70s - at least, no one has ever presented me a picture which explains
> _all_ the evidence we have had to date.
Well, I thought I had painted as comprehesive picture as possible in the
DWM articles. What evidence can you not reconcile??
> In particular I have never heard a theory which explains, in
> describing how and why episodes fell into private hands at all, why
> there might not be further ones to be found from collectors.
Maybe that's because there are very good reasons why it's not discussed in
public. Without going into too much detail, film prints left the BBC prior
to junking - basically they were stolen!! And as criminal acts and those
who carried them out are a very delicate subject at the best of times, a
certain degree silence is maintained on the subject in public. But
questions are asked, and the answers given lead those in the know to
believe that most itmes that went walkies has been accounted for.
> What I would need to see as resonable evicence would be something
> like a BBC document reading "Went to trash Evil of the Daleks but
> couldn't find episode 2".
No documentation for film junkings at BBC Enterprises are known to exsist.
Videotape Wipe forms are available for Hartnell / Troughton / Pertwee
2-inch tapes, but these are contradictory.
> What we tend to hear instead is:
>
> - only a handful of episodes _could_ have been rescued from the BBC
> - we have recoved a handful of episodes from private collectors
> - therefore there are no more to be found
>
> This, I believe, is a corruption of the founding, and I think still
> largely inductive, syllogism:
>
> - only a handful of episodes have been recovered from private hands
> - therefore only a handful were rescued from the BBC
>
> I don't believe there is enough in the first statement to allow me to
> conclude the second. There are too many unanswered questions. I'd like
> to know how these episodes escaped, and how they ended up in boot
> sales, Mormon Halls, or simply private shelves. The true stories, not
> just conjecture.
Some stories can just not be traced back any further - the car boot
discovery of 'Evil' 2 and 'Faceless' 3 for example. Those that can be
explored have been.
Without wishing to sound arrogant, I doubt that anyone could match the
endeavors of Ian Levine, Paul Vanezis and Steve Roberts. Any new leads
that come up - like the recent domestic video discoveries a few weeks back
- are explored. But to hope with no foundation is unreasonable.
> 3. Finally, we have no evidence that any episode, including Masterplan
> 7, was destroyed including all its copies.
Huh?? I would have thought that the lack of the episodes themselves is
evidence enough?
> Up until the time that Tomb was recovered we might have thought
> otherwise. Though even then, let us not forget that Australia was sent
> negatives, and that it is possible to strike prints from prints.
Certainly some episodes were sent as negatives, but we can't be sure this
was true for *all* material. But ABC has not kept any of them - this is
known.
> But the Tomb story I find particularly interesting.
>
> Every foreign TV station had to return some pice of paperwork
> indicating that their print of an episode had been destroyed. It is a
> depressing fact that the number of "destruction" slips tallies up with
> the number of copies made in a very large number of cases. As far as
> we know (knew) all copies of these episodes had gone.
>
> Including Tomb.
>
> It's return cast doubt on these slips as forming destruction evidence.
Where are these 'destruction slips'??? We've never been able to find any
of this paperwork??
> I believe that in typical bureaucratic inefficiency the staff at
> foreign TV stations simply signed and returned these slips, thinking
> to themselves that they'd get round to destroying the episodes later.
>
> After all, why should they go to the trouble of actually doing the
> deed, any more than they subsequently went to the trouble of searching
> for the episode. I expect they view the whole issue with indifference.
>
>
> So my conclusion from all this is this:
>
> a) We can no more say that a missing episode DOES NOT exist any more
> than we can say it DOES. We just don't know.
>
> b) We have very little idea how episodes came into private hands at
> all so we don't know which or how many episodes might still be held
> this way.
>
> c) We can only say that we are -unlikely- to find more missing
> episodes from foreign TV stations if we continue the same approach.
> New minds, lateral thinking, fresh hope, could all yield fresh
> results.
>
> When high-profile hard working well connected dilligent individuals
> throw up their hands and yell "I Give Up" it is tempting to be
> infected with their pessimism. But this has happened in human history
> many times.
>
> And history has shown us that there are always new people willing to
> take up old challenges. Some may well succeed. The important thing, I
> think, is not to give up hope.
I disagree. Never stop looking, exploring and asking. But a refusal to
accept that the material has been destroyed for good is an obsticle in
searching, not a benefit.
Richard
Richard Develyn
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>Ian has had 20 years of healthy optimism, but as the years go by, returns
>get fewer, leads dry up and trails go cold, then common sense prevails.
Common sense is not the antithesis of healthy optimism. I'm sure Ian
has been using common sense for 20 years. It is simply that as time
goes by optimism wanes because of lack of results, but even this only
indicates that a particular approach is failing.
>Well, I thought I had painted as comprehesive picture as possible in the
>DWM articles. What evidence can you not reconcile??
The evidence that missing episodes survived. We come to this here:
>Maybe that's because there are very good reasons why it's not discussed in
>public. Without going into too much detail, film prints left the BBC prior
>to junking - basically they were stolen!! And as criminal acts and those
>who carried them out are a very delicate subject at the best of times, a
>certain degree silence is maintained on the subject in public. But
>questions are asked, and the answers given lead those in the know to
>believe that most itmes that went walkies has been accounted for.
You know more that I.
Do you therefore know either
a) what items which went walkies haven't come back
b) what items definately did not go walkies.
>> What I would need to see as resonable evicence would be something
>> like a BBC document reading "Went to trash Evil of the Daleks but
>> couldn't find episode 2".
>
>No documentation for film junkings at BBC Enterprises are known to exsist.
>Videotape Wipe forms are available for Hartnell / Troughton / Pertwee
>2-inch tapes, but these are contradictory.
That seems to support my theory that we cannot know for certain was
has definately gone. Like I said above, you are more knowledgeable on
this than I. Yet I note that you said "most" items that were saved
have been accounted for, which is a marked difference to saying 110
episodes no longer exist.
Without knowing the same facts as you, I cannot argue with you. I
accept your valued opinion, but I reserve judgement since I'm missing
the facts that I neeed in order to engage you in a constructive
argument.
>Some stories can just not be traced back any further - the car boot
>discovery of 'Evil' 2 and 'Faceless' 3 for example. Those that can be
>explored have been.
I'm sure you have been most dilligent. And I'm grateful for it. But
like I said above, there's still too much I don't know before I will
accept that the episodes are definately gone.
> Certainly some episodes were sent as negatives, but we can't be sure this
> was true for *all* material. But ABC has not kept any of them - this is
> known.
They must have struck a positive from the negative to view and censor
it (?) - did they return the negatives or the positives.
That aside, sending negatives implies that ABC had a wider
distribution in mind (doesn't it?). Do we know how many prints they
struck?
Whether we do or don't I find the fact that they were sent negatives
encouraging. It's not any sort of evidence, but it provides me with
some foundation for hope.
>Without wishing to sound arrogant, I doubt that anyone could match the
>endeavors of Ian Levine, Paul Vanezis and Steve Roberts. Any new leads
>that come up - like the recent domestic video discoveries a few weeks back
>- are explored.
You may well be right, and I take my hat off to them. But consider
this: the most significant recovery we've had recently has been Tomb.
What did Ian, Paul and Steve have to do with that?
> But to hope with no foundation is unreasonable.
Whether there is sufficient foundation is a matter of opinion. There
is no evidence one way or another. I continue to hope for the reasons
I have outlined. The fact that we could have had this same
conversation 6 years ago and Tomb then showed up also encourages me.
>> 3. Finally, we have no evidence that any episode, including Masterplan
>> 7, was destroyed including all its copies.
>
>Huh?? I would have thought that the lack of the episodes themselves is
>evidence enough?
Not at all. Otherwise how come anything turned up.
>Where are these 'destruction slips'??? We've never been able to find any
>of this paperwork??
This was explained to a friend of mine by JVR. I suppose you could ask
him.
In any case, if this is wrong, then it simply seems to point to there
being less evidence of the destruction of episodes that I had thought.
>I disagree. Never stop looking, exploring and asking.
I agree with this bit.
>But a refusal to
>accept that the material has been destroyed for good is an obsticle in
>searching, not a benefit.
I've no idea what you mean by that. Surely -accepting- that the
material has been destroyed for good would be an obstacle to
searching. You'd just stop, wouldn't you. Or have I missed something?
What is the danger which you see in taking a cautiously optimistic
stance?
Richard
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Richard, is that necessarily the case? Is it not possible that BP
> *didn't* return it, but it was still listed as For Sale because no-one
> had actually checked whether it was there or not?
> I don't want to sound like I'm clutching at straws (and I, for one,
> think we'll never see TP4), but it seems to me to be a bit of an
> assumption to take the paperwork at face value when, in so many offices,
> such paperwork is frequently a botch job at best.
I doubt that Enterprises would have sent their master negative to Blue
Peter-it's more likely that IF Blue Peter had a copy, it was a mere
viewing print (like the 40 odd viewing prints that wound up in the Film
Library).
Richard Molesworth
Richard Develyn <r...@nwpeople.com> wrote in article
<3651a73d...@193.195.181.30>...
[snip]
> Do you therefore know either
>
> a) what items which went walkies haven't come back
> b) what items definately did not go walkies.
Some people have more of an idea than I do, and quite frankly, I much
prefer the 'ask no questions' policy when it come to tracking episodes.
That's not to say that the questions aren't asked. Just not by me.
[snip]
> That seems to support my theory that we cannot know for certain was
> has definately gone. Like I said above, you are more knowledgeable on
> this than I. Yet I note that you said "most" items that were saved
> have been accounted for, which is a marked difference to saying 110
> episodes no longer exist.
Whether it went walkies or went in the skip, it's still not there. And as
it's clearly impossible to *know* every item that took a walk, and who was
holding the lead (as it were), then tracing it becomes a tad impossible.
either way it's gone for good.
[snip]
> >Certainly some episodes were sent as negatives, but we can't be sure
this
> > was true for *all* material. But ABC has not kept any of them - this
is
> > known.
>
> They must have struck a positive from the negative to view and censor
> it (?) - did they return the negatives or the positives.
>
> That aside, sending negatives implies that ABC had a wider
> distribution in mind (doesn't it?). Do we know how many prints they
> struck?
Well, a wider distribution in that there were regional variations in the 4
/ 6 (sources differ) regions showing DW in Austalia in the sixties. It
seems logical that ABC preferred negs to be supplied so as they could
strike 4/6 copies for regional transmission. But none of these negs
survive at ABC - Damian Shanahan has looked into it. Ironically the only
ABC neg known about is 'War Machines' 2, and that only exists 'coz it 'went
walkies' from ABC in the sixties.
> You may well be right, and I take my hat off to them. But consider
> this: the most significant recovery we've had recently has been Tomb.
> What did Ian, Paul and Steve have to do with that?
Nothing at all. But what did anyone have to do with that? Nothing!
No-one can influence these flukes.
[snip]
> I've no idea what you mean by that. Surely -accepting- that the
> material has been destroyed for good would be an obstacle to
> searching. You'd just stop, wouldn't you. Or have I missed something?
>
> What is the danger which you see in taking a cautiously optimistic
> stance?
If nothing else, people who blindly hope against hope that the episodes all
exist 'somewhere' instantly lack any credability in the TV world. And
credibility is one of the most important assests you can have if you are
looking to double-check facts or irregularities.
Richard
Chilli Pa
>film or offered for overseas sale ('Masterplan' was only offered as an
>11-part story, but was never actually screeded abroad, although ABC in
>Australia did view the 11-part story and deemed it unsuitable for
>transmission). Once the 405-line 2-inch tape of the episode was destroyed,
>then it was gone forever.
>
No one has ever told me but exactly why wasn't it telerecorded. Was it because
it had Christmas stuff in it?
"Well now I know you're mad. I just wanted to make sure."
The Doctor; Tomb of the Cybermen ep 4
Dominic Jackson
>>Sort of - it was (as far as can be ascertained) never telerecorded onto
>>film or offered for overseas sale ('Masterplan' was only offered as an
>>11-part story, but was never actually screeded abroad, although ABC in
>>Australia did view the 11-part story and deemed it unsuitable for
>>transmission). Once the 405-line 2-inch tape of the episode was destroyed,
>>then it was gone forever.
>>
>
>No one has ever told me but exactly why wasn't it telerecorded. Was it because
>it had Christmas stuff in it?
>
I would say this is most likely the reason. Enterprises did not feel the
episode was a saleable prospect and so did not ask for a telerecording to
be made from it.
Cheers,
Dominic
Alan Burns
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>If nothing else, people who blindly hope against hope that the episodes all
>exist 'somewhere' instantly lack any credability in the TV world. And
>credibility is one of the most important assests you can have if you are
>looking to double-check facts or irregularities.
I don't think I've seen very many posts in this thread from people
'blindly hoping against hope.' On the contrary, what I see is much
more akin to guarded optimism than blind hope. Most of the debate
here has been quite reasoned and thoughtful on both sides, and just
because a number people happen to disagree with you doesn't mean
they're a bunch of crackpots.
There are more than enough loose ends and unanswered questions for
reasonable minds to disagree. You have your beliefs and your
interpretations of events (or lack thereof), and that's fine. But for
you to insinuate that anyone who chooses to remain optimistic about
such a grey area lacks any credibility is just plain wrong.
Regards,
Alan Burns
aburns <at> olemiss <dot> edu
University of Mississippi School of Law
http://www.olemiss.edu/~aburns
Ken Carriere
Alan Burns wrote in message <3651f6f...@news.ebicom.net>...
>I don't think I've seen very many posts in this thread from people
>'blindly hoping against hope.' On the contrary, what I see is much
>more akin to guarded optimism than blind hope. Most of the debate
>here has been quite reasoned and thoughtful on both sides, and just
>because a number people happen to disagree with you doesn't mean
>they're a bunch of crackpots.
>
>There are more than enough loose ends and unanswered questions for
>reasonable minds to disagree. You have your beliefs and your
>interpretations of events (or lack thereof), and that's fine. But for
>you to insinuate that anyone who chooses to remain optimistic about
>such a grey area lacks any credibility is just plain wrong.
LOL Do you realize who you're replying to?
If I may be presumptuous enough to leap to Richard's defence:
(a) you're putting words into his mouth (eg, "crackpots")
(b) you're completely misunderstanding his point. Go back and read it again.
I'm sure no one would be happier to have episodes returned than Richard
(well, maybe I would). He's right: unless you approach the stations and
people completely professionally, you won't get anywhere, because they'll
think you're a lunatic!
Station manager: I've checked my archives, and there's no Doctor Who.
Me: There has to be. Go check again.
--Ken
Alan Burns
<kcar...@email.msn.com> wrote:
>LOL Do you realize who you're replying to?
I realize fully well who he is, and I'm quite aware of his position.
What does that have to do with tact? Am I not allowed to have an
opinion because he works for the BBC?
I don't dispute anything factual that he has said, nor would I ever
attempt to. In fact, I reluctantly agree with him that more
recoveries are extremely unlikely, just purely as a matter of everyday
experience. But you don't win a debate by saying that anybody who
doesn't share your perspective lacks credibility. There are people
who are credible, and there are people who are not credible, and how
they personally feel about the likelihood of recovery has nothing to
do with it. How they go about it determines credibility.
>If I may be presumptuous enough to leap to Richard's defence:
>
>(a) you're putting words into his mouth (eg, "crackpots")
I don't think I am. I think the implication was pretty clear that
anyone who chooses to be hopeful instead of pessimistic falls under a
large umbrella of people who will never be taken seriously -- i.e.,
people who 'blindly hope against hope.' The problem is that he lumped
everybody who thinks there might be more episodes into one group and
threw out some pretty derogatory rhetoric about them. There is, as
Richard Develyn pointed out, a middle ground of cautious, reasoned
optimism that he doesn't seem willing to acknowledge.
I read it as a veiled insult to a lot of people who I think are pretty
intelligent and I have a lot of respect for, and who have done a
tremendous amount for Doctor Who. I've read Richard's posts for a
very long time now, and I have absolutely no doubt that that wasn't
really what he meant, but the rhetoric just didn't come across very
well and there had to be a better way to make the point. You have to
be careful making those kinds of sweeping generalizations about
people. That's all I was pointing out.
I'll go back to lurking now. :-)
Richard Molesworth
Alan Burns <abu...@NODAMNSPAM.olemiss.edu> wrote in article
<36530ec6...@news.ebicom.net>...
Ken - thanks for the reasoned comments, I couldn't have put it better
myself (in fact I didn't, or we wouldn't be having this debate).
Alan, Richard, et al - Ken is right, I would be extremely pleased if Ian
and myself were proved wrong, and more missing material turned up. But
realistically it is not going to happen.
And whilst in the fan community it is perhaps acceptable to have a guarded
optimisitc approach (use Deja News to have a look at the thread I started
re: Hong Kong last month for example). In TV terms, other people do treat
you as a 'crackpot' if you drone on about missing Doctor Who. Adam Lee is
a good example. You could just see his eyes glaze over every time he was
appraoched with the words 'Have you tried XXXX Television to see if they
have any Doctor Who..??'
You have to be cuter than that!! For a start, always, always talk about
missing BBC material in general!
And while there has been reasoned debate on the subject (something which is
worth encouraging) there has also been a large proprtion of rubbish, both
in fanzines, at conventions and on this newsgroup. I'm talking those who
insist TP4 must exist 'coz Blue Peter lost it, that 'Power' was shown in
Africa in the late 80's shortly before the TV station in question was burnt
down, that mssing episode clubs thrive on illicit film prints and doughnut
parties, and that JNT somehow managed to conjure up missing material for
the benefit of incoming Doctors.
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Alan Burns <abu...@NODAMNSPAM.olemiss.edu> wrote in article
<36530ec6...@news.ebicom.net>...
> I realize fully well who he is, and I'm quite aware of his position.
> What does that have to do with tact? Am I not allowed to have an
> opinion because he works for the BBC?
Ermmm.... I don't *actually* work for the BBC. I just advise them from
time to time.
Richard
Damian
Richard Molesworth wrote in message
<01be1234$68f5ef60$4455e4d4@molesworth1>...
>Certainly some episodes were sent as negatives, but we can't be sure this
>was true for *all* material. But ABC has not kept any of them - this is
>known.
Actually, it is the negative's vault at the ABC which is the only one that I
have been unable to search. Many Sixties episodes were screened
simultaneously in different states in Australia - indicated by the ABC's
film history cards and negatives were received for many of them. The current
head of film archives is convinced there is no DW left in that vault but she
is basing this on records that were compiled years before she joined the
ABC. Records that I can prove are full of errors! I've still been unable to
convince her to let me look - or to look herself. I've checked the positives
vault which seemed to have no Who but because this main vault checked nil
I've probably given people the impression that the search at the ABC is
over - it isn't.
There's also one other collection of films that I have become aware of at
the ABC that are probably going to prove even harder to get into as they are
not held by the archives.
I'm hoping to use the local hype from the Ice Warriors release as an excuse
to get further into the machinations of the ABC.
I'm slowing turning over the stones...
[If it turns out I can't use diplomacy to get further into the vaults, under
the Freedom of Information Act I can have the vaults independently
searched - but this is through a long legal process which is very
confrontational and *very* expensive.]
>> It's return cast doubt on these slips as forming destruction evidence.
The film history card for The Celestial Toymaker 4 - The Final Test states
that the rights expired in 11.2.74. Someone else has scrawled on the card
"Sent back to BBC 24.1.84". This happened well after the ABC wrote, in 1983,
to the BBC's Steve Bryant that no episodes existed at the ABC. Many cards
indicate that episodes were "destroyed" but many say "expired"....
Some have the word "destroyed" crossed out and "expired"
inserted..............
Damian Shanahan
Richard Develyn
I understand, Richard, what you say about credibility, and about
people who let their enthusiasm for recovery run away with them. I
agree with you.
I remember being caught up with that same feverish longing some years
ago, and threads of that remain within me still.
In fact I started working on the reconstructions partly to exorcise
those feelings, and that in itself carried with it my own tacit
assumption that if episodes were going to come back they wouldn't be
coming back soon.
However, being now of a saner disposition (:-)), it appears to me that
little has changed since before the recovery of Tomb. I remember Gary
Leigh writing at that time (what were no doubt echoes of Ian Levine's
thoughts) that it was very unlikely that any more episodes would be
found.
If it could happen then, it can happen now.
Or, of course, maybe it wont.
I take issue with anyone who says such-and-such DOES NOT exist or DOES
exist equally. I know that in this newsgroup people are fighting fire
with fire, but so far this thread has been sensible.
Evidence doesn't come into it, IMO. There is only longing, pessimism
and optimism. If we can transcend these then we reach the realm of
simple practicalities, which is really where I started:
What is the best attitude to have if we are to maximise our chances of
success?
Extreme optimism damages credibility (as you rightly point out).
Extreme pessimism drains motivation (in fact extreme optimism does
this too as your unnaturally high expectations are constantly dashed).
So I propose guarded optimism. I do not accept that anything is gone
forever, and I continue to hope that more will be found (by fluke, if
nothing else). However I also accept that it's possible nothing will.
It's been a funny 5 years since Tomb came back. We've found missing
audios as well as crystal clear ones, the telesnaps, and a whole host
of clips from all manner of sources.
When I consider that Web of Fear is the story I would most like to see
found, yet the recovery of the audios and telesnaps is, for me, a
better find than that, then it doesn't seem to me to have been such a
barren period after all.
Who knows what the next 5 years will bring ...
(Is that extreme optimism? or guarded? :-) )
Richard
David Herrick
> Whether it went walkies or went in the skip, it's still not there.
> And as it's clearly impossible to *know* every item that took a walk,
> and who was holding the lead (as it were), then tracing it becomes a
> tad impossible. either way it's gone for good.
But surely if you knew an episode went walkies there would be a
possibility (however small) that it still survived, whereas if you knew
an episode had gone in the skip there would be absolutley no chance?
This is the best thread I've read in ages - a really good debate. I
think I agree with Richard D. I will be amazed if any more episodes
turn up, but at the same time unless it's proven to me that every single
copy of every single missing episode has been destroyed, there's always
a chance that there are a few more out there and that they might be
returned. I know the chance are tiny - but hey, plenty of people play
the lottery every week (which shows the difference between zero
probability and incredibly small, but still positive, probability).
It's enough to give me little hope, but not enough for any real
expectations.
Dave
JeffWorks
missing ones have been found, in a way. For one thing, recons allow existing
footage (such as the first three eps of "Tenth" to be released. Also, the
telesnaps, I believe, provide a good reproduction. Consider: Mike Cura took
photos every 20 seconds, did he not? Video is 24 frames per second, so that
looks pretty close, there. I haven't seen any of the telesnap reproductions.
Anyone out there?
I have been trying to find out how to buy the recons, but the web pages for
them don't list an address. One mentioned "Brian Pearce" but only had his NJ
address, not email. Any suggestions?
I also found the Dr. Who Appreciation Society's address, but it didn't say
anything about any books it had published, and there's one I really want. Any
ideas there?
Thanks!
o--c
___
| _ _ _ | | _ _ _
| |_ |_ |_ | | | | | |_| |/|_ --c
|_| |_ | | |_|_| |_| | \ |\ _|
Building the foundations for a spookier tomorrow...
Ben Woodhams
>Also, the telesnaps, I believe, provide a good reproduction. Consider: Mike Cura took
>photos every 20 seconds, did he not? Video is 24 frames per second, so that
>looks pretty close, there.
Er, no it doesn't. That's 1 photo for every 480 frames. Enough to follow
the story, most of the time; not nearly enough to give you the
impression that you're watching a moving image.
Dominic Jackson
> The reconstructions, though not the real episode, make me feel like the
>missing ones have been found, in a way. For one thing, recons allow existing
>telesnaps, I believe, provide a good reproduction. Consider: Mike Cura took
>photos every 20 seconds, did he not? Video is 24 frames per second, so that
>Anyone out there?
Firstly the name of the photographer was JOHN Cura! Secondly, he took
about 60 or 70 pictures from an episode - i.e. about one every 30 seconds,
or perhaps one or two from each scene. Your units are a little confused:
1 photo every 30 seconds is nowhere near the same rate as one photo every
1/25th (0.04) of a second (which is effectively what the original film
recordings would have been!) You won't find the telesnap reconstructions
are like film, only a little slower moving!!!
> I have been trying to find out how to buy the recons, but the web pages for
>them don't list an address. One mentioned "Brian Pearce" but only had his NJ
>address, not email. Any suggestions?
The web pages do not list an address for very good reasons, and the tapes
are NOT for sale - they are distributed free of charge (assuming you
supply a good quality blank tape and stamps for return postage). Take a
look at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~telesnapguy/
On this site, perhaps in a side bar on one of the pages, you will find
links to forms to fill in as appropriate to your country (i.e US/UK/Aus).
When you fill one of these out with your name, e-mail laddress and any
comments you may have, you will be e-mailed back with details of a web
page to look at giving clear instructions on who to contact for the tapes
in your country. Or if you can't find the forms, e-mail Robert, the owner
of the site, tell him which country you're in and if you ask very nicely
I'm sure he'll give you a pointer in the right direction :-)
Cheers,
Dominic
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:jeff...@aol.comhormel> wrote:
> The reconstructions, though not the real episode, make me feel like the
> missing ones have been found, in a way. For one thing, recons allow existing
> footage (such as the first three eps of "Tenth" to be released. Also, the
> telesnaps, I believe, provide a good reproduction. Consider: Mike Cura took
> photos every 20 seconds, did he not? Video is 24 frames per second, so that
> looks pretty close, there.
Excuse me? 24 and 1/20th are quite different numbers -- if your
figures are correct, the telesnaps represent only 1 in every 500
or so frames, and nor are they good enough quality to reproduce
the original image with any exactitude.
> I also found the Dr. Who Appreciation Society's address, but it didn't say
> anything about any books it had published, and there's one I really want. Any
> ideas there?
Yes, the site is very difficult to extract this information from.
Try looking in some of the pages to do with the Celestial Toymaker,
but even then, there's nothing explicit. It's slightly annoying.
--
Graham Nelson | gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom
kcar...@tvguide.ca
"Richard Molesworth" <rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> You have to be cuter than that!! For a start, always, always talk about
> missing BBC material in general!
Touchdown! That's the A #1 rule I've learned. Whenever I've dealt with people
in certain positions in Canada, I always refer to the "BBC archives" and "no
BBC show produced before 1970 exists in full." Even if pressed for titles
I'll say, "Avengers, Top of the Pops (with all the Beatles appearances!), and
Doctor Who" and maybe even "some televised classic plays."
If you just say, "Doctor Who" you unfortunately get lumped in with the mass
general sci-fi crowd (ie, a bunch of lunatics). Although, personally, I only
really want Who episodes. Who the hell is Ian Hendry anyway? :-)
No matter, though. Still haven't found anything. :-(
--Ken
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Alan, Richard, et al - Ken is right, I would be extremely pleased if Ian
> and myself were proved wrong, and more missing material turned up. But
> realistically it is not going to happen.
ISTR EXACTLY the same thing being said in 1991, before Tomb returned!
And again, despite the fact that several sources of clips have appeared.
> And while there has been reasoned debate on the subject (something which is
> worth encouraging) there has also been a large proprtion of rubbish, both
> in fanzines, at conventions and on this newsgroup. I'm talking those who
> insist TP4 must exist 'coz Blue Peter lost it, that 'Power' was shown in
> Africa in the late 80's shortly before the TV station in question was burnt
> down, that mssing episode clubs thrive on illicit film prints and doughnut
> parties, and that JNT somehow managed to conjure up missing material for
> the benefit of incoming Doctors.
What is all this about Power being shown in Africa? I guess it's
probably round things, but I'd be fascinated to know just what the
rumour does say!
Alan Burns
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>Alan, Richard, et al - Ken is right, I would be extremely pleased if Ian
>and myself were proved wrong, and more missing material turned up. But
>realistically it is not going to happen.
I think that's a fair position, and one I pretty much agree with,
although I admit I don't know as many details as some others here. I
never for a moment doubted your desire to recover more episodes,
though.
Just so we're all on the same sheet of music, let me go ahead and
throw in what my belief actually is: Given the way these things have
been all over the map in the past (i.e., yard sales, church basements,
etc) without good explanation of how they got there, I think the smart
money would probably be on there being at least a couple more out
there in someone's dusty attic or film collection. It would be
terribly arrogant to believe that just because we haven't found them,
they can't exist. Those are famous last words. What is depressingly
low, though, is the likelihood of ever actually finding any of them.
If they haven't turned up after 30+ years, it seems likely that they
probably never will for one reason or another. But they certainly
won't turn up if everybody follows your advice and gives up.
>In TV terms, other people do treat
>you as a 'crackpot' if you drone on about missing Doctor Who. Adam Lee is
>a good example. You could just see his eyes glaze over every time he was
>appraoched with the words 'Have you tried XXXX Television to see if they
>have any Doctor Who..??'
>
>You have to be cuter than that!! For a start, always, always talk about
>missing BBC material in general!
That's all fine, and I'm sure you're absolutely correct. You would
certainly know. But what you're talking about is just a simple matter
of procedure and etiquette, and it doesn't have anything to do with
what the searcher believes the odds of success to be. Just because
you don't come out and say that to the archivist doesn't mean that you
can't hope to find anything.
An avid believer and a non-believer who ask the exact same questions
will get the exact same answers. I just don't see why you're out here
telling people they can't have any hope. I don't see anything
productive in that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with hoping or
believing, as long as you play your cards right.
>And while there has been reasoned debate on the subject (something which is
>worth encouraging) there has also been a large proprtion of rubbish, both
>in fanzines, at conventions and on this newsgroup.
Indeed. And I've enjoyed hearing your explanations of the real facts.
I think it's a valuable service that you're in a unique position to
provide. But while it's one thing to educate people about the facts,
it's another thing entirely to go that extra step and tell them how
they should feel about it.
Dominic Jackson
[Power/Africa rumour]
>
>What is all this about Power being shown in Africa? I guess it's
>probably round things, but I'd be fascinated to know just what the
>rumour does say!
This rumour basically states that someone definitely saw Power of the
Daleks broadcast in Ghana in 1986 (IIRC). The BBC supposedly contacted
the station in question only to find that their entire archive had been
destroyed by fire in 1988.
This and many other rumours are available in a handy compendium form
courtesy Paul Lee's 'Missing Without Trace' article...
Cheers,
Dominic
Daniel Frankham
>The film history card for The Celestial Toymaker 4 - The Final Test states
>that the rights expired in 11.2.74. Someone else has scrawled on the card
>"Sent back to BBC 24.1.84". This happened well after the ABC wrote, in 1983,
>to the BBC's Steve Bryant that no episodes existed at the ABC. Many cards
>indicate that episodes were "destroyed" but many say "expired"....
> Some have the word "destroyed" crossed out and "expired"
>inserted..............
Watching Doctor Who on the ABC in the early 90s (at 4:30am every
weekday) it was clear that the Tom Baker episodes they were
broadcasting were the same ones they'd shown in the 80s. (This was
obvious because the episodes had the same cuts; in the time since the
cuts were made, the need to censor programs had ceased, so they were
clearly the tapes they'd cut back in the early 80s when they had to
censor stuff.)
This was despite the fact that the ABC's rights to some of those
episodes had expired since the early 80s. For instance, by the time of
the early 90s, the ABC only had the rights to the 1980s episodes; when
they wanted to screen 'Who every weekday for a whole year in about
'92, the BBC granted them a kind of special dispensation to screen
some of the Tom Baker episodes, rather than have to rescreen the 80s
episodes immediately after having just finished them.
The point of this long preamble is that in the late 80s and early 90s
the ABC was evidently keeping their Doctor Who episodes, even after
their rights to screen them had expired. So my question is, was there
ever an official change in policy about keeping shows, or did the ABC
always tend to keep programs they thought they might buy repeat rights
for in future?
===========================================================================
"Listen, you miserable, no-talent hack," she hissed. "Transline owns you
from the balls up. If you give us any more trouble we'll have you working
in the Gothic Romance factory under the name Rosemary Titmouse. Now go
home, sober up, and get a work on _Dying Earth X_" - Dan Simmons, Hyperion.
Daniel Frankham
>In article <01be12d0$05968280$4455e4d4@molesworth1>,
> "Richard Molesworth" <rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> missing BBC material in general!
>
>in certain positions in Canada, I always refer to the "BBC archives" and "no
>BBC show produced before 1970 exists in full." Even if pressed for titles
>I'll say, "Avengers, Top of the Pops (with all the Beatles appearances!), and
>Doctor Who" and maybe even "some televised classic plays."
And then they think "Hmmm, this guy thinks _The Avengers_ was a BBC
show? Gues he doesn't know much about telly, then." :)
And one of the Beatles appearances on _TOTP_ does survive: a clip of
them performing "Ticket to Ride" was used in some other BBC show in
1965.
BTW, is it true that *no* pre-1970 BBC show exists in full? I knew it
was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
depressing.
Dominic Jackson
wrote:
[Top of the Pops]
>
>And one of the Beatles appearances on _TOTP_ does survive: a clip of
>them performing "Ticket to Ride" was used in some other BBC show in
>1965.
>
That show being the clip in The Chase of the Beatles performing on the
Time Space Visualiser. Presumably the original show audience could dance
slightly better than Ian could :-)
>BTW, is it true that *no* pre-1970 BBC show exists in full? I knew it
>was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
>depressing.
>
Presumably you mean of TOTP. I'm sure the Kaleidoscope guide indicates
some sixties episodes exist in full, but only a handful. However Steve
Phillips has previously commented that the guide is not particularly
accurate in this area, ISTR however he was suggesting that MORE material
exists than Kaleidoscope list.
The Guide states that all shows after mid-1976 exist and there are also
some 'oddities' - shows that say, exist with no sound, or exist with all
the live tracks mute. Again I'm not sure how accurate this is.
Cheers,
Dominic
Tlotoxl
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>
>SV7 <EAC4719.S...@ssu.edu> wrote in article
><3650B6...@ssu.edu>...
>> Mr. Molesworth,
>>
>> So where do you think TP4 is today? I would dearly love for that one
>> story to be released in full someday. Is there still hope?
>
>All evidence points to the following: after the wiping of the 405-line
>2-inch master videotape of the episode, BBC Enterprises were left with the
>only copy of the episode on 16mm film (which they leant to Blue Peter in
>1973). Sometime after 1974 (when Enterprises last offered the story for
>sale overseas) the Enterprises copies of all 4 episodes were burnt, and it
>was not 'till the 1978 audit of the BBC film library was it discovered that
>duplicate films of parts 1- 3 remained. TP4 was erased / burnt over 20
>years ago.
>It will NEVER be seen again.
>Richard.s
But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? and why keep duplicates of
1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!, Hong Kong has no
archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
*EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
= not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
turn up.
Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
recorded?
- -
You`re bucket`s been kicked baby
------------
MAldr55305
>recordings of Space Pirates 2
I seem to have missed something. When did this happen? Can someone fill me in?
I know that it already exists, but all the same...
By the way, did anoyone see after one of the Dad's Army repeats of the
existing B&W episodes an appeal for home recordings of the missing Dad's Army
episodes? Couldn't there be a better appeal covering all TV series with missing
episodes, perhaps targeting those who are likely to have had recorders at the
time?
MA
MA
Richard Molesworth
Tlotoxl <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<36535036...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? <
Probably viewing prints ordered up the Production Office or other BBC
departments for research purposes or the like. Being films, they were then
probably sent to the Film Library, which held them until in 1978 it became
the Film and Videotape Library.
> and why keep duplicates of
> 1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
> raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
There is no indication that there was a duplicate of part 4 made at the
same time as the other three (in fact, all three prints could have been
struck at different times). Certainly, at no time was a print of part 4
passed to the Film Library.
> Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
> indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
> any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
Which 2 episodes have been *stolen*??
> The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
> best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
> Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
> hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!,
But BBC Enterprises isn't part of the *real* BBC. It has only been in the
last few years that BBC Enterprises tapes and films have been logged onto
the Film and Videotape Library catalogue. And 'Ice Warriors' shows how
things can still go *wrong* - the film tin that yeilded episode 1 was
labelled up as episode 2!! There was no record of these films still being
at Villirs House - the same as there was no way of knowing that the
'Masteplan' 1 film sequences would turn up in a tin though to old those of
part 2. Yes, things like this - and Hong Kong - happen, but there is/was
*no* way of knowing beforehand or instigating events that would result in
these finds. A certain amount of serendipity comes into play, and will may
do so again in the future, but it can not be influenced. And until it
happens, there seems very little point in sitting about hoping it will..
> Hong Kong has no
> archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
Yup!
> For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
> *EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
> never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
> = not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
> turn up.
It turns up that these tapes only survived because the series was a
co-production, and the American co-Producers kept NTSC copies. Trouble
was, no-one at the BBC remembered it was a co-production. If it was DW, it
would be a different story, but not much attention / effort seems to be put
into finding non-DW missing material. Shame.
> Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
> when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
> currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
> recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
> example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
> recorded?
Hong Kong was buying all the Troughton stories (apart from 'Power' oddly
enough) in 1969/70.
Sierra Leone purchased a batch of stories including 'Galaxy 4', 'The Myth
Makers', 'The Massacre', 'The Celestial Toyroom', 'The Savages' and 'The
Smugglers' late in 1970.
Ethiopia purchased 'The Crusade' in 1971, with 'The Reign of Terror' and
'Marco Polo' just before then.
New Zealand finished its run of Troughton stories with 'The Wheel in Space'
in 1971.
Algeria purchased some Hartnell stories in Dec 73, but it doesn't look like
any 'missing' ones were in that batch.
Gibralter was buying serials such as 'The Abominable Snowmen', 'The Ice
Warriors', 'The Enemy of the World', 'The Web of Fear', 'Fury from the
Deep', 'The Wheel in Space', 'The Invasion' and 'The Space Pirates' in 1972
and 1973.
Singapore purchased all stories from 'Galaxy 4' through to 'The War Games'
(bar 'Mission' and 'Masterplan') around 1972/3.
'The Invasion' was repeated in Austalia in 1971, and 'The Space Pirates' in
1973.
Mexico showed a run of 56 Hartnell' episodes in 1973, but again doesn't
appear to have shown any actual 'missing' stories.
Zambia purchased (amongst others) 'The Web of Fear' in 1973 and 'The Enemy
of the World' in 1974.
Nigeria was buying 'The Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear' in 1974.
Now, call me crazy, but does anyone out there think the BBC ought to get
round checking with the apropriate stations exactly what happened to these
purchases???
Richard
Tim Roll-Pickering
> But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? and why keep duplicates of
> 1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
> raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
IIRC, there are several of stories that the Film Library held copies of
all bar one or two episodes of. I may be mistaken, but The Dominators
was held, apart from episode 3 (which ISTR is a 35mm print, yet none of
the articles I've read mention this going missing), The Invasion without
episodes 1 or 4, The Krotons without episode 4 or the Seeds of Death
without episode 3. It's likely that all the episodes they held for one
story came in at different times. The Film Library made no serious
effort to gather ANY complete stories-IIRC the only ones held were
100,000 BC because it had been shown at a DWAS convention and Spearhead
from Space as it was made on (colour) film.
> Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
> indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
> any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
Which '2' episodes have been 'stolen'? It's clear that The Daleks'
Master Plan: The Traitors was never returned by Blue Peter, but what
other episode can you prove has been stolen?
> The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
> best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
> Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
> hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!, Hong Kong has no
> archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
IIRC, the film cans at Villiers House had just been piled up in
corridors.
> For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
> *EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
> never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
> = not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
> turn up.
> Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
> when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
> currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
> recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
> example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
> recorded?
This one is heavily open to dispute. Paperwork is, as you say, unclear.
The two most recent ones I have heard suggested are The Mind of Evil (in
colour) in the USA in 1977/8 and The Power of the Daleks in Ghana in
1986 (which sounds incredibly suspicious since their archive supposedly
burnt down two years later).
Tim Roll-Pickering
> > with all the excitement about the home
> >recordings of Space Pirates 2
> I seem to have missed something. When did this happen? Can someone fill me in?
> I know that it already exists, but all the same...
The Restoration Team were put in contact with a guy who got hold of a
video recorder in at least 1968, and made HUNDREDS of recordings of
programmes. Amongst the material he has is a recording of the BBC
coverage of the first man on the Moon, which was previously one of the
BBC's top ten missing episodes.
A few Doctor Who recordings have been found in the collection, including
The Space Pirates Episode 2-the earliest surviving home recording from
the series, but curiously it's the one episode that survives! He also
has an episode of Frontier in Space in COLOUR-again the earliest known.
When the guy brought the recorder is uncertain, but the last I heard was
that the earliest recording found is the repeat of the first episode of
The Forsyte Saga (or The ForsTYe Saga, according to one BBC video
volume!) from circa August 1968, when the Dominators was first shown.
One tape is labelled 'Doctor Who episode 2' but has another Forsyte
episode on it now. The episode twos this could be are The Mind Robber,
The Dominators or (at a pinch) the repeat of The Evil of The Daleks, all
of which exist.
> By the way, did anoyone see after one of the Dad's Army repeats of the
> existing B&W episodes an appeal for home recordings of the missing Dad's Army
> episodes? Couldn't there be a better appeal covering all TV series with missing
> episodes, perhaps targeting those who are likely to have had recorders at the
> time?
Difficult to work out exactly who had recorders at the time, and more
importantly who kept their material-tapes were expensive then, and this
guy reportedly used whatever magnetic tape he could get his hands on.
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:kcar...@tvguide.ca> wrote:
> In article <01be12d0$05968280$4455e4d4@molesworth1>,
> "Richard Molesworth" <rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> > You have to be cuter than that!! For a start, always, always talk about
> > missing BBC material in general!
>
> Touchdown! That's the A #1 rule I've learned. Whenever I've dealt with people
> in certain positions in Canada, I always refer to the "BBC archives" and "no
> BBC show produced before 1970 exists in full." Even if pressed for titles
> I'll say, "Avengers, Top of the Pops (with all the Beatles appearances!), and
> Doctor Who" and maybe even "some televised classic plays."
Try mentioning Tom Stoppard's early plays for television.
If you really must mention science fiction, Nigel Kneale?
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:dan...@wantree.com.au> wrote:
> BTW, is it true that *no* pre-1970 BBC show exists in full? I knew it
> was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
> depressing.
Of course not, though it is a caricature of the truth. Many
if not most of the classic serial-style dramas, the six-part
adaptations of this or that, are lost altogether; most long-running
shows suffer some depredations. The holdings of "Z-Cars" are
erratic.
On the other hand, "The Forsyte Saga" (1968) exists in its
vast and splendid entirety.
Corey Klemow
=boggle=
Are you saying that *none* of these sources have been checked!? I thought all
the places that could be checked, had been! (Hence your pessimism elsewhere in
the thread.)
Ken Carriere
Daniel Frankham wrote in message <36542424...@news.wantree.com.au>...
>On Wed, 18 Nov 1998 21:41:52 GMT, kcar...@tvguide.ca wrote:
>>In article <01be12d0$05968280$4455e4d4@molesworth1>,
>> "Richard Molesworth" <rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>And then they think "Hmmm, this guy thinks _The Avengers_ was a BBC
>show? Gues he doesn't know much about telly, then." :)
>
Doh!
Still, some Avengers shows are missing...
--Ken
Ken Carriere
Graham Nelson wrote in message ...
>In article <36542424...@news.wantree.com.au>, Daniel Frankham
><URL:mailto:dan...@wantree.com.au> wrote:
>> BTW, is it true that *no* pre-1970 BBC show exists in full? I knew it
>> was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
>> depressing.
>
>Of course not, though it is a caricature of the truth. Many
>if not most of the classic serial-style dramas, the six-part
>adaptations of this or that, are lost altogether; most long-running
>shows suffer some depredations. The holdings of "Z-Cars" are
>erratic.
>
>On the other hand, "The Forsyte Saga" (1968) exists in its
>vast and splendid entirety.
Yeah, but you get more attention if you say no BBC show exists in its
entirety. And I crave attention. :-)
--Ken
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> > For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
> > *EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
> > never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
> > = not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
> > turn up.
>
> co-production, and the American co-Producers kept NTSC copies.
But then it turns out that somebody also recorded them off-air,
here in Britain, on a late 1960s video recorder, and that the
tapes were preserved and first came to light only a few weeks
ago. Moral: it's surprisingly difficult to destroy information
once it has been broadcast. We now have two independent sources
for something once thought irretrievably lost.
I don't think many (if any) more episodes of Who will be recovered,
but we should count our blessings, really: we have photographs of
essentially every broadcast scene and near-perfect audio recordings
of every episode. I believe there is a surviving clip from almost
every story (usually of somebody being stabbed to death, but never
mind). This is a wholly remarkable tally.
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:dam...@mpx.com.au> wrote:
> ... This was after massive federal funding cuts forced them
> to re-enter old videotapes into useful blank stock. (The drop-out on new
> episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas is appalling!!!)
Substandard quality "Bananas in Pyjamas"... Appalling.
Damian
Daniel Frankham wrote in message <365420d6...@news.wantree.com.au>...
>On Wed, 18 Nov 1998 21:14:37 +1100, Damian wrote:
>
>>The film history card for The Celestial Toymaker 4 - The Final Test
states
>>that the rights expired in 11.2.74. Someone else has scrawled on the card
>>"Sent back to BBC 24.1.84". This happened well after the ABC wrote, in
1983,
>>to the BBC's Steve Bryant that no episodes existed at the ABC. Many cards
>>indicate that episodes were "destroyed" but many say "expired"....
>> Some have the word "destroyed" crossed out and "expired"
>>inserted..............
>The point of this long preamble is that in the late 80s and early 90s
>the ABC was evidently keeping their Doctor Who episodes, even after
>their rights to screen them had expired. So my question is, was there
>ever an official change in policy about keeping shows, or did the ABC
>always tend to keep programs they thought they might buy repeat rights
>for in future?
Yes, the ABC tended to keep programmes they thought they might buy repeat
rights to. After January 1984, the ABC was freed from having to submit
material to the Film Censorship Board but didn't bother to obtain fresh
unedited copies for later screenings. Of course, as Deadly Assassin was
rated a clear Adults Only and a cut never attempted by the Censorship Board
the ABC obtained a fresh copy from the BBC for this story for screening in
the mid-to-late Eighties. In fact, it was mid last year (while I was there
actually doing research) that the instruction came through to wipe
videotapes of Who. This was after massive federal funding cuts forced them
to re-enter old videotapes into useful blank stock. (The drop-out on new
episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas is appalling!!!) As Foxtel now have the
rights to screen Dr Who and the ABC have no current intention to ever
rescreen the show, the massive amount of tapes were a target. I personally
think that the junkings were purely a measure for the Archives to be seen to
be doing there bit towards helping the ABC's current financial crisis. The
tapes are old and surely cannot be up to broadcast quality. Not many
national broadcasters in the civilised world are using up to 20 year old one
and two inch videotape! Several episodes have been put aside where defects
exist on BBC masters and these are still going to be sent back to the Beeb
to see if they are of better quality. I am *assured* that nothing missing
was wiped in this recent purge.
Damian Shanahan
Luke Curtis
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>
>Tlotoxl <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
><36535036...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>
>> But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? <
>
>Probably viewing prints ordered up the Production Office or other BBC
>departments for research purposes or the like. Being films, they were then
>probably sent to the Film Library, which held them until in 1978 it became
>the Film and Videotape Library.
>
>> and why keep duplicates of
>> 1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
>> raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
>
>There is no indication that there was a duplicate of part 4 made at the
>same time as the other three (in fact, all three prints could have been
>struck at different times). Certainly, at no time was a print of part 4
>passed to the Film Library.
so the film library only stored film prints that other depertment may
have struck for viewing, so for instance if was a producer back in
the 70`s wanting to see the first regeneration sequences, the archive
would not strike prints of all 4 episodes, just Tenth Planet 4 so
thats why it only had odd episodes?
>
>> Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
>> indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
>> any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
>
>Which 2 episodes have been *stolen*??
>
the 2 episodes that were bought (quite legally i`m sure) from
bootsales Evil 2 & Faceless Ones 3 cannot possibly have got out from
the BBC legally, i`m sure we would have found the sale documents at
the BBC if they were, therefor logically they must have been removed
without permission - QED stolen - or am i giving the BBC to much
credit by assuming they would have recorded any sales for royalties
payments etc.
>> The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
>> best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
>> Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
>> hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!,
>
>But BBC Enterprises isn't part of the *real* BBC. It has only been in the
>last few years that BBC Enterprises tapes and films have been logged onto
>the Film and Videotape Library catalogue. And 'Ice Warriors' shows how
>things can still go *wrong* - the film tin that yeilded episode 1 was
>labelled up as episode 2!! There was no record of these films still being
>at Villirs House - the same as there was no way of knowing that the
>'Masteplan' 1 film sequences would turn up in a tin though to old those of
>part 2. Yes, things like this - and Hong Kong - happen, but there is/was
>*no* way of knowing beforehand or instigating events that would result in
>these finds. A certain amount of serendipity comes into play, and will may
>do so again in the future, but it can not be influenced. And until it
>happens, there seems very little point in sitting about hoping it will..
>
i`n not expecting it to happen, but what i`m saying is that because it
cannot be proved that all existing episodes have been destroyed that i
can at least hope for another Tomb style find.
>> Hong Kong has no
>> archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
>
>Yup!
stupid question but...has anybody looked closer to home with, say, BBC
Wales, Scotland & NI which freqently have diffrent trannmission times
than the rest of the UK, and may have had copies to show it at
different transmission times?
>
>> For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
>> *EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
>> never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
>> = not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
>> turn up.
>
>It turns up that these tapes only survived because the series was a
>co-production, and the American co-Producers kept NTSC copies. Trouble
>was, no-one at the BBC remembered it was a co-production. If it was DW, it
>would be a different story, but not much attention / effort seems to be put
>into finding non-DW missing material. Shame.
seems to all come back to paperwork, we can`t seem trust any paperwork
the BBC has - how do we know that the stories where sold to other
countries and not recorded?
>
>> Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
>> when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
>> currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
>> recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
>> example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
>> recorded?
>
>Hong Kong was buying all the Troughton stories (apart from 'Power' oddly
>enough) in 1969/70.
>
>Sierra Leone purchased a batch of stories including 'Galaxy 4', 'The Myth
>Makers', 'The Massacre', 'The Celestial Toyroom', 'The Savages' and 'The
>Smugglers' late in 1970.
>
>Ethiopia purchased 'The Crusade' in 1971, with 'The Reign of Terror' and
>'Marco Polo' just before then.
>
>New Zealand finished its run of Troughton stories with 'The Wheel in Space'
>in 1971.
>
>Algeria purchased some Hartnell stories in Dec 73, but it doesn't look like
>any 'missing' ones were in that batch.
>
>Gibralter was buying serials such as 'The Abominable Snowmen', 'The Ice
>Warriors', 'The Enemy of the World', 'The Web of Fear', 'Fury from the
>Deep', 'The Wheel in Space', 'The Invasion' and 'The Space Pirates' in 1972
>and 1973.
>
>Singapore purchased all stories from 'Galaxy 4' through to 'The War Games'
>(bar 'Mission' and 'Masterplan') around 1972/3.
>
>'The Invasion' was repeated in Austalia in 1971, and 'The Space Pirates' in
>1973.
>
>Mexico showed a run of 56 Hartnell' episodes in 1973, but again doesn't
>appear to have shown any actual 'missing' stories.
>
>Zambia purchased (amongst others) 'The Web of Fear' in 1973 and 'The Enemy
>of the World' in 1974.
>
>Nigeria was buying 'The Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear' in 1974.
with missing episodes being shown as late as `74 i think there is a
realistic possibility of home recordings being kept, i know they are
poor quality, expensive etc. but a wealthy fan of the program *may*
have recorded the program of TV in say Nigeria but not know of the
recordings rariety value - after all Nigeria is not lightly to have a
local DWAS group is it!! - are there old video systems clubs like
there are film collecting clubs??
>
>
>
>Now, call me crazy, but does anyone out there think the BBC ought to get
>round checking with the apropriate stations exactly what happened to these
>purchases???
>
with all the money that Tomb must have made for Enterprises /
Worldwide i`m surprised they haven`t looked into the missing stories
and asked about - it may just be me but i`m *slightly* more lightly to
buy a copy of Web of Fear than Planet of Fire, and heres a wild guess,
i`m sure i`m not the only one!!!
>Richard
Richard Molesworth
Luke Curtis <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<36549f35...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> so the film library only stored film prints that other depertment may
> have struck for viewing, so for instance if was a producer back in
> the 70`s wanting to see the first regeneration sequences, the archive
> would not strike prints of all 4 episodes, just Tenth Planet 4 so
> thats why it only had odd episodes?
At the moment this is the best explanation that fits the facts, although we
will perhaps never know the reason why such an eclectic choice of episodes
were kept by the film library.
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Luke Curtis <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<36549f35...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> the 2 episodes that were bought (quite legally i`m sure) from
> bootsales Evil 2 & Faceless Ones 3 cannot possibly have got out from
> the BBC legally, i`m sure we would have found the sale documents at
> the BBC if they were, therefor logically they must have been removed
> without permission - QED stolen - or am i giving the BBC to much
> credit by assuming they would have recorded any sales for royalties
> payments etc.
There were legitamate ways for film prints to leave the BBC and remain in
this country in the 60's and 70's. Only (once again) there is a dearth of
documentation available to follow this up. And once the paper trail goes
cold, there is nothing more that can be done. But I wouldn't assume these
particular episodes survive because of a criminal act.
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Luke Curtis <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<36549f35...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> stupid question but...has anybody looked closer to home with, say, BBC
> Wales, Scotland & NI which freqently have diffrent trannmission times
> than the rest of the UK, and may have had copies to show it at
> different transmission times?
This is one area that IIRC has been fully checked.
Richard
Richard Molesworth
Luke Curtis <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<36549f35...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> seems to all come back to paperwork, we can`t seem trust any paperwork
> the BBC has - how do we know that the stories where sold to other
> countries and not recorded?
Ahhh - we don't!!! There seems to be no actual records in the BBC / BBC
Enterprises that lists overeas sales. What we have found (usually due to
the dilligent researches of Andrew Pixley, Stephen James Walker and David
Howe) is secondary paperwork at the BBC's written archive or RAPIC.
Writers contracts, listing payments recieved when their stories have been
sold to a particular foreign broadcaster, or musicians contracts showing
the same. Sometimes memos to incumbent producers give more information
(prior to 'Whose Doctor Who' Philip Hinchcliffe requested and received a
story-by-story breakdown to date of all overeas sales of DW).
But often this paperwork is exteemely contradictory in nature!!
Richard.
David Herrick
> By the way, did anoyone see after one of the Dad's Army repeats of
> the existing B&W episodes an appeal for home recordings of the missing
> Dad's Army episodes? Couldn't there be a better appeal covering all TV
> series with missing episodes, perhaps targeting those who are likely
> to have had recorders at the time?
Talking of this, does anyone know if audio recordings of the missing
Dad's Army episodes exist, in the same way that the missing Who episodes
survive? I know I'm heading off topic somewhat...
Dave
kvanmer...@randmcnally.com
copies of a local TV guide from october 1976. It indicates that all six
episodes of "Mind of Evil" were shown on weekday nights in color according to
the description.
In article <365471...@ukc.ac.uk>,
Tim Roll-Pickering <t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
> Tlotoxl wrote:
>
> > But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? and why keep duplicates of
> > 1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
> > raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
>
> IIRC, there are several of stories that the Film Library held copies of
> all bar one or two episodes of. I may be mistaken, but The Dominators
> was held, apart from episode 3 (which ISTR is a 35mm print, yet none of
> the articles I've read mention this going missing), The Invasion without
> episodes 1 or 4, The Krotons without episode 4 or the Seeds of Death
> without episode 3. It's likely that all the episodes they held for one
> story came in at different times. The Film Library made no serious
> effort to gather ANY complete stories-IIRC the only ones held were
> 100,000 BC because it had been shown at a DWAS convention and Spearhead
> from Space as it was made on (colour) film.
>
> > Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
> > indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
> > any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
>
> Which '2' episodes have been 'stolen'? It's clear that The Daleks'
> Master Plan: The Traitors was never returned by Blue Peter, but what
> other episode can you prove has been stolen?
>
> > The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
> > best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
> > Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
> > hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!, Hong Kong has no
> > archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
>
> IIRC, the film cans at Villiers House had just been piled up in
> corridors.
>
> > For those still on the Negative side, look at Moonbase 3.
> > *EVERY* article i saw on the series prior to the recovery said flop,
> > never repeated, every possible avenue explored, not widly sold abroad
> > = not a hope in hell of a recovery. Then what happens? all 6 episodes
> > turn up.
>
> > Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
> > when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
> > currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
> > recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
> > example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
> > recorded?
>
> This one is heavily open to dispute. Paperwork is, as you say, unclear.
> The two most recent ones I have heard suggested are The Mind of Evil (in
> colour) in the USA in 1977/8 and The Power of the Daleks in Ghana in
> 1986 (which sounds incredibly suspicious since their archive supposedly
> burnt down two years later).
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> Luke Curtis <lu...@beckersgrn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
> <36549f35...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>
> > bootsales Evil 2 & Faceless Ones 3 cannot possibly have got out from
> > the BBC legally, i`m sure we would have found the sale documents at
> > the BBC if they were, therefor logically they must have been removed
> > without permission - QED stolen
>
> this country in the 60's and 70's. Only (once again) there is a dearth of
> documentation available to follow this up.
I also wouldn't necessarily believe the car-boot sale story at
face value. If I had to construct a scenario enabling me to
return an episode with no questions asked about how I came to
be in possession of it, I don't think I could do much better than
to spin a yarn about a car boot sale.
Well, unless it were to deposit the reels in the basement of a
Mormon church and then alert the authorities.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> I don't think many (if any) more episodes of Who will be recovered,
> but we should count our blessings, really: we have photographs of
> essentially every broadcast scene
'Every broadcast scene'? There are still a LOT of characters and scenes
that no photos exist of.
> and near-perfect audio recordings
> of every episode. I believe there is a surviving clip from almost
> every story (usually of somebody being stabbed to death, but never
> mind).
All bar five stories have professional clips surviving. The five that
don't are: Marco Polo (of all the stories, it would have to be this
one!), Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers (though some 8mm off air
footage exists), The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve and The Savages
(again 8mm footage exists, along with the telesnaps).
> This is a wholly remarkable tally.
Can it be matched by a similar show that lasted at least elevn years
from this period?
Daniel Frankham
>On Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:02:26 GMT, Daniel Frankham <dan...@wantree.com.au>
>wrote:
>>BTW, is it true that *no* pre-1970 BBC show exists in full? I knew it
>>was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
>>depressing.
>Presumably you mean of TOTP. I'm sure the Kaleidoscope guide indicates
>some sixties episodes exist in full, but only a handful. However Steve
>Phillips has previously commented that the guide is not particularly
>accurate in this area, ISTR however he was suggesting that MORE material
>exists than Kaleidoscope list.
>
>The Guide states that all shows after mid-1976 exist and there are also
>some 'oddities' - shows that say, exist with no sound, or exist with all
>the live tracks mute. Again I'm not sure how accurate this is.
Nah, I'd got the impression from the previous poster that no pre-1970
BBC series (at all, not just TOTP) was complete in the archives. I may
have misunderstood.
Dominic Jackson
>Tlotoxl wrote:
>
>> But where did the 1-3 duplicates come from? and why keep duplicates of
>> 1-3 but not 4? surely the fact the they had 3/4 of the story must
>> raise the question of where episode 4 of that duplicate print went.
>
>IIRC, there are several of stories that the Film Library held copies of
>all bar one or two episodes of. I may be mistaken, but The Dominators
>was held, apart from episode 3 (which ISTR is a 35mm print, yet none of
>the articles I've read mention this going missing), The Invasion without
>episodes 1 or 4, The Krotons without episode 4 or the Seeds of Death
>without episode 3. It's likely that all the episodes they held for one
>story came in at different times. The Film Library made no serious
>effort to gather ANY complete stories-IIRC the only ones held were
>100,000 BC because it had been shown at a DWAS convention and Spearhead
>from Space as it was made on (colour) film.
>
The Dominators episode three was 'recovered' from the BFI, along with the
other 4 episodes of the story (though as Tim says, the Film Library
already had copies off the other 4). Quite why the entire story was given
to the BFI I don't know - perhaps as an example of Dr Who/BBC output from
this time. Bear in mind that other 35mm prints were junked - e.g. The
Power of the Daleks :6 and The Wheel in Space :5. Even though they were
treated as being made on film, they still got junked, which is sad.
>> Also the fact that *at least* 2 episodes have been stolen
>> indicates to me that we can never say for sure that we will never find
>> any more full episodes, since we do not know the scale of the theft.
>
>Which '2' episodes have been 'stolen'? It's clear that The Daleks'
>Master Plan: The Traitors was never returned by Blue Peter, but what
>other episode can you prove has been stolen?
>
From his previous reply I think he was inferring that The Evil of the
Daleks :2 and The Faceless Ones :3 were stolen, since how otherwise could
they have ended up in the car boot sale. However as Richard Molesworth
has pointed out, it's very difficult to say precisely what else
disappeared in this manner as the paperwork is very insubstantial.
>> The fact that the BBC paperwork systen by all accounts seems to, at
>> best, chaotic gives me hope. Look at the Ice Warriors find, I assume
>> Villiars House was searched before 1988 yet they found Ice Warriors
>> hiding in a cupboard they didn`t even know about!!!, Hong Kong has no
>> archive records at all- the whole situation seems crazy.
>
>IIRC, the film cans at Villiers House had just been piled up in
>corridors.
>
But the Ice Warriors cans were in a disused cupboard it seems.
>
>> Here`s a question i haven`t seen asked let alone answered -
>> when was the last documented transmission around the world of a
>> currently missing episode? with all the excitement about the home
>> recordings of Space Pirates 2 what are the possibilites that for
>> example season 5 may have been shown abroad in, say, `71 and have been
>> recorded?
>
>This one is heavily open to dispute. Paperwork is, as you say, unclear.
>The two most recent ones I have heard suggested are The Mind of Evil (in
>colour) in the USA in 1977/8 and The Power of the Daleks in Ghana in
>1986 (which sounds incredibly suspicious since their archive supposedly
>burnt down two years later).
Indeed, remember the surviving colour footage from The Mind of Evil
originated from an off-air recording in the US from around this time
(1977-78). The Power story is now totally discredited I believe.
Cheers,
Dominic
MAldr55305
>>>was bad, but I didn't realise it was quite that bad... Very
>>>depressing.
>
For a start, The Forsyte Saga exists in full, and that's definitely pre 1970.
It's 1968 or 1969.
MA
Luke Curtis
wrote:
>Graham Nelson wrote:
off the top of my head Every Blue Peter survives (approx 4000
editions) , Every Coronation Street (40 odd years worth - ~ 4500
episodes) survives, every The Avengers bar the first season (IIRC)
exists...
-----------------------------
A change, of sigs, my dear -
and not a moment too soon
-------------------------.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Well, the rumor of "Mind of Evil" playing here in the USA is true. I have
> copies of a local TV guide from october 1976. It indicates that all six
> episodes of "Mind of Evil" were shown on weekday nights in color according to
> the description.
IIRC, it was only in 1977 when Ian Levine made arrangements for the
early Pertwees to be recorded, and *at least* the three colour clips
from episode 6 were taped about then, along with the Ambassadors of
Death. Although in both cases the problem is colour (the former has only
those three clips in colour, the latter has tracking problems), I'd say
that these were the most recent transmissions of material that now 'does
not exist'.
As for the Hartnells and Troughtons, who knows!
Waxvax
>years ago.
>
>It will NEVER be seen again.
You never know. Stranger things have happened. After all, Tomb Of The Cybermen
was supposed to be gone FOREVER a few years back.
___________________________________________________________
" By midnight, tonight, this planet will be pulled inside out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nick Cooper
<rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>You have to be cuter than that!! For a start, always, always talk about
>missing BBC material in general!
Quite aside from the fact that - in terms of TV history - the recovery
of certain single programmes would be culturally "worth" ten episodes
of DW. Hell, even within the context of Telefantasy, there are a lot
I'd trade off against whole' Who' stories!
Nick Cooper
["But it was here, it was all right here. There was a techno dance club...."
["Stan, you need to lay off the cough syrup, alright? Seriously, I'm worried
[about you, man!"
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
> > This is a wholly remarkable tally.
>
> Can it be matched by a similar show that lasted at least elevn years
> from this period?
The most sensible comparison, I think, is with "Z-Cars", both
because of its importance as a genre-creating programme
(Asa Briggs's definitive history of British broadcasting
devotes a chapter of volume V to a parallel discussion of
"Z-Cars" and "Doctor Who"), because it ran for a long time
in about the same period, and because it was scheduled as a
"strip" programme, running more or less weekly with brief
intermissions.
According to the Kaleidoscope archival listings, the present
state of affairs is approximately as follows:
1962 series: 14 out of 30 episodes are lost
1963: 27 out of 40 lost
1963: 6 out of 40 lost
1964: 17 out of 40 lost
1965: 8 out of 12 lost
Z-Cars then went into a more or less continuous run (it was
pretty much the "The Bill" of its day), and...
in 1967: 52 out of 85 lost
in 1968: 100 out of 100 lost
in 1969: 76 out of 100 lost
in 1970: 40 out of 90 lost
in 1971: 80 out of 80 lost
in 1972: 25 out of 50 lost
in 1973: 20 out of 34 lost
in 1974: 2 out of 20 lost
Z-Cars then lapsed back into a series format, and survived:
1974 series: 0 out of 30 lost
1976: 0 out of 13 lost
1977: 0 out of 13 lost
1978: 0 out of 13 lost
Now Z-Cars is not a show that nobody cares about, and a small
amount of effort has indeed been put into recovering some lost
episodes. Some of the early ones were, I believe, found in the
Cyprus TV archives, for instance. But just look at the extent
of the destruction in the late 1960s -- we consider that the
Troughton era of "Doctor Who" is ravaged, but of the contemporary
Z-Cars episodes, 230-odd out of 280 are gone. And I'll bet there
are no soundtracks, no telesnaps, no fan reconstructions, no
episode guides published in the high street, no conventions, no
interviews, no folk-memory, ... And no re-runs on "UK Gold".
Another point worth making is that the 1970s holdings are not
in a happy condition, either. It is seldom remembered now that
at the low point of the "Doctor Who" archives, in 1978 or so,
almost every Pertwee episode had been lost. The total recovery
of these episodes (well, barring the colour signal...) is itself
a remarkable achievement.
Flipping through the Kaleidoscope listings, one finds that 1973
is roughly the cut-off point for TV junking: archives are
generally intact after 1973, generally patchy between 1970 and
1973 and generally a mess before 1970. TV plays are in a worse
condition, with losses as late as 1978 to 1980. Prestigious
serials are sometimes in a better condition, with e.g. "The
Forsyte Saga" being a good example of well-archived black and
white drama.
For "telefantasy" fans, the latest significant loss is that of
almost all of the third and final series of "Doomwatch", which
was indeed in 1973.
In short -- I contend that "Doctor Who" fans have it lucky.
Tim Roll-Pickering
641 episodes in total so far. 447 missing from this period. That's 70%
missing.
Comapared to Doctor Who for this period (100,000 BC - Planet of the
Spiders).
381 broadcast episodes (excluding compilations and the repeat of The
Evil of the Daleks: Episode One with the additional voiceovers).
271 episodes remain. We are only missing 29% from this period.
> Z-Cars then lapsed back into a series format, and survived:
> 1974 series: 0 out of 30 lost
> 1976: 0 out of 13 lost
> 1977: 0 out of 13 lost
> 1978: 0 out of 13 lost
> Now Z-Cars is not a show that nobody cares about, and a small
> amount of effort has indeed been put into recovering some lost
> episodes. Some of the early ones were, I believe, found in the
> Cyprus TV archives, for instance.
IIRC, Paul Vanezis found the first eight episodes there whilst looking
for Who episodes, amongst 200 odd BBC programmes that were missing.
> But just look at the extent
> of the destruction in the late 1960s -- we consider that the
> Troughton era of "Doctor Who" is ravaged, but of the contemporary
> Z-Cars episodes, 230-odd out of 280 are gone. And I'll bet there
> are no soundtracks, no telesnaps, no fan reconstructions, no
> episode guides published in the high street, no conventions, no
> interviews, no folk-memory, ... And no re-runs on "UK Gold".
All I can recall was a BBC2 'Cops on the Box' evening a few years ago
that repeated an episode. Nothing more.
> Another point worth making is that the 1970s holdings are not
> in a happy condition, either. It is seldom remembered now that
> at the low point of the "Doctor Who" archives, in 1978 or so,
> almost every Pertwee episode had been lost. The total recovery
> of these episodes (well, barring the colour signal...) is itself
> a remarkable achievement.
Was it as bad as that? I thought precisely half the Pertwee episodes
survived in either the Film Library (Spearhead) or the Engineering
Department (60 odd other episodes).
> Flipping through the Kaleidoscope listings, one finds that 1973
> is roughly the cut-off point for TV junking: archives are
> generally intact after 1973, generally patchy between 1970 and
> 1973 and generally a mess before 1970. TV plays are in a worse
> condition, with losses as late as 1978 to 1980. Prestigious
> serials are sometimes in a better condition, with e.g. "The
> Forsyte Saga" being a good example of well-archived black and
> white drama.
Was that just because it was repeated in 1968?
> For "telefantasy" fans, the latest significant loss is that of
> almost all of the third and final series of "Doomwatch", which
> was indeed in 1973.
> In short -- I contend that "Doctor Who" fans have it lucky.
Well, I'm inclined to agree there.
MAldr55305
>condition, with losses as late as 1978 to 1980.
I didn't realise this. Specifically, which are missing?
MA
wanderer_w...@yahoo.com
wax...@aol.com (Waxvax) wrote:
> I, too, beg to differ. I am an avid Dr Who fan (like many that post here). To
> be able to see any "new" Who would be great. 110 episodes to never be seen
> disappoints me gladly.
> And, DWM reports that Ian Levine says that no others will show up. Well, I've
> never thought that Levine should be given TOP DOG Dr Who fan status.
He is the person who saved 158 episodes of the series from being destroyed,
and who has spent twenty odd years searching for others. That certainly gives
his opinion some credibility, though that videotape discovery could have made
him eat his words.
Graham Nelson
These tend to be rather miscellaneous and are productions by
ITV companies which, since they fluctuate as their franchises
come and go, have not always been the best archivers of their
work. The main offender is definitely ATV: perhaps they had
a fire, or something like that.
For instance, the omnibus ITV drama run "The Sunday Drama"
ran from May 1977 to September 1978, and all four of the ATV
productions for it have been junked. All five out of five
in the ATV series "Parables" (1978) are lost, too. And it is
ATV which has the distinction of broadcasting the very last
work of serious TV drama to be junked (that I'm aware of):
the prophetically titled
"Out of Sight, Out of Mind"
which was the ITV Playhouse for 19 May 1981.
It's not just ATV, though. BBC2's run of "Second City First"
plays is largely junked in 1977, and one 1978 play is gone too.
So are two from "Scottish Playbill" (1978). I'm not aware of
any BBC adult drama programme broadcast after 1978 which has
been junked. In any case, by the early 1980s the mothers of
lots of TV actors had bought video recorders, so it seems
unlikely that many programmes will be recorded by nobody --
even if they should be lost.
Graham Nelson
<URL:mailto:t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
> Comapared to Doctor Who for this period (100,000 BC - Planet of the
> Spiders).
> 381 broadcast episodes (excluding compilations and the repeat of The
> Evil of the Daleks: Episode One with the additional voiceovers).
Trivia point: do audio recordings exist of both versions of this
episode, with and without the voiceovers that is?
> > Now Z-Cars is not a show that nobody cares about, and a small
> > amount of effort has indeed been put into recovering some lost
> > episodes. Some of the early ones were, I believe, found in the
> > Cyprus TV archives, for instance.
>
> IIRC, Paul Vanezis found the first eight episodes there whilst looking
> for Who episodes, amongst 200 odd BBC programmes that were missing.
That's what I heard, too. I hope I'll be forgiven here for saying
that this is certainly a more important find than, say, "Evil of
the Daleks" would have been. Perhaps less widely loved, but more
important. (Imagine how we'd feel if the first 20 episodes of Who
were all lost, and then the first 8 were suddenly found. ...Well,
pretty narked by the awfulness of numbers 2, 3 and 4, I expect,
but all the same...)
Tim Roll-Pickering
"Richard Molesworth" <rmole...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> > so the film library only stored film prints that other depertment may
> > have struck for viewing, so for instance if was a producer back in
> > the 70`s wanting to see the first regeneration sequences, the archive
> > would not strike prints of all 4 episodes, just Tenth Planet 4 so
> > thats why it only had odd episodes?
> At the moment this is the best explanation that fits the facts, although we
> will perhaps never know the reason why such an eclectic choice of episodes
> were kept by the film library.
Are there any episodes, apart from the ones made as 35mm film prints (like The
Space Pirates: Episode 2), that we have ANY idea why they were kept. I thought
100,000 BC survived because it was shown at a DWAS convention.
Adam Richards
<CKl...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>> Now, call me crazy, but does anyone out there think the BBC ought to get
>> round checking with the apropriate stations exactly what happened to these
>> purchases???
>
>=boggle=
>
>Are you saying that *none* of these sources have been checked!? I thought all
>the places that could be checked, had been! (Hence your pessimism elsewhere in
>the thread.)
I think Richard is saying that none of these places has been
physically checked by the BBC (right?), which is pretty depressing.
From what I understand, it seems all the BBC has ever done is send a
few telexes, and they've only acted on a lead when dedicated fans like
Richard, Ian, Paul, et. al have brought them firm evidence that the
episodes are *definitely* sitting on those archive shelves, ready for
collection.
I too was shocked to hear that the Hong Kong archive in particular has
never been sorted through, after all the "missing episodes office"
stuff that was in DWB at the time of "Tomb"'s recovery (they bought
most of the Troughton stories except "Power", then claimed they had no
DrWho after returning "Web of Fear" 1 in the '70s, then what happens?
"Tomb" comes back from there over *ten years* later, and subsequently
all records pertaining to their other holdings are destroyed in a
fire), but when I exhibited my enthusiasm for getting this cleared up
it was not appreciated, and so I shut up about it. :(
It's really up the BBC archives: they have to act, if they care about
seeing their old programmes found. If they don't do anything, we're
not in any sort of position to do it for them - it's their call.
I don't want to tread on anyone's toes, but I am still annoyed that
the BBC archives can't or won't make sure there is nothing hanging
around in these places. I agree there might be no missing episodes
left out there, but then we don't know that for a fact, until the BBC
actually checks.
Is there anything the humble yet enthusiastic fan can do to shift the
BBC's intransigence? I suppose letters just get laughed at, do they?
Marcus Durham
<gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk> shared the following with us in
rec.arts.drwho:
[snip]
>The main offender is definitely ATV: perhaps they had
>a fire, or something like that.
ATV junked a hell of alot, but then again Lou Grade made many of his
programmes on the cheap, so what would he care about what happened to
them afterwards. I suspect he only cared about proper achieving if the
shows had market potential abroad. Granada have a complete run of
Coronation Street, the same can hardly be said of ATV and Crossroads
(for example). IIRC the first three years of that show were not even
taped, and even when they did tape it in later years it was made as if
it were live (with hilarious consequences).
Regarding finding more ATV material, I was told that Polygram now own
all the material and plan to move it to the USA. Very helpful of them.
--
Marcus Durham
The UMTSDW Homepage. News, reviews, locations and Bates.
http://www.zenn.demon.co.uk/drwho/drwho.htm
Dominic Jackson
wrote:
>
>off the top of my head Every Blue Peter survives (approx 4000
>editions) , Every Coronation Street (40 odd years worth - ~ 4500
>episodes) survives, every The Avengers bar the first season (IIRC)
>exists...
It's not every Blue Peter I'm sure - very early editions are missing.
They may not have been telerecorded from their live transmissions. The
key period is that when Biddy Baxter was the producer - she ensured that
many of her episodes were kept.
It has recently been discovered (possibly in conjunction with the pooling
of the Granada archive with those of LWT and Yorkshire/Tyne Tees) that
there are about 20 episodes of Coronation Street missing, from late 1961
IIRC. Look out for an article by me on this sort of thing in the next
issue of the Disused Yeti newsletter :-) Generally GRA have a very fine
record of preservation, though their 60s stuff is generally held as
telerecordings rather than videotape. It's quite amazing they kept so
much stuff: according to Sydney Bernstein's autobiography, things were
very tight in the early years of the company.
Of the first (26 episode) series of The Avengers all but one episode is
lost (about 8 episodes were transmitted live and were not recorded,
though).
Cheers,
Dominic
Dominic Jackson
wrote:
>In article <3656A8...@ukc.ac.uk>, Tim Roll-Pickering
><URL:mailto:t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Comapared to Doctor Who for this period (100,000 BC - Planet of the
>> Spiders).
>> 381 broadcast episodes (excluding compilations and the repeat of The
>> Evil of the Daleks: Episode One with the additional voiceovers).
>
>Trivia point: do audio recordings exist of both versions of this
>episode, with and without the voiceovers that is?
Yes - an audio of the repeated episode three with the technical problem
also exists, as taped by Graham Strong. See the end of the forthcoming JV
Wheel in Space reconstruction.
Usually only one episode of Z-Cars gets repeated, namely 'Happy Families'.
This is a pain in backside - this episode was repeated as part of the
BBC-2 'Cops on the Box' night, and also repeated a few weeks ago as a
tribute to its writer who died earlier this year. I feel sure other
episodes by this writer must exist as well, but when I complained to the
BBC around the time of the tribute repeat, I just got the standard 'Thanks
for writing and we've passed it on to our programme planners' reply.
However some b/w episodes have been released on BBC Video I think (though
whether they are still available is another matter) and some of the colour
episodes of Softly, Softly were repeated on UK Gold during the 'gold bar'
ear (i.e. between 1995 and 1997).
Cheers,
Dominic
Benjamin F. Elliott
>In article <36554B...@ukc.ac.uk>, Tim Roll-Pickering
><URL:mailto:t...@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
>> > This is a wholly remarkable tally.
>> Can it be matched by a similar show that lasted at least elevn years
>> from this period?
>because of its importance as a genre-creating programme
>(Asa Briggs's definitive history of British broadcasting
>devotes a chapter of volume V to a parallel discussion of
>"Z-Cars" and "Doctor Who"), because it ran for a long time
>in about the same period, and because it was scheduled as a
>"strip" programme, running more or less weekly with brief
>intermissions.
>
>According to the Kaleidoscope archival listings, the present
>state of affairs is approximately as follows:
>
Hmmm. Has anyone ever thought of airing the surviving episodes in the USA?
I've heard this show referenced, praised, and all sorts of things, but I've
never seen an episode. Given the US love for gritty cop shows and offbeat
novelties, the 200-some surviving episodes might do well over here. It
couldn't hurt, could it?
Maybe we could talk them into doing a weekday Doctor Who / Z-Cars hour.
Benjamin F. Elliott
Dominic Jackson
wrote:
>ATV junked a hell of alot, but then again Lou Grade made many of his
>programmes on the cheap, so what would he care about what happened to
>them afterwards. I suspect he only cared about proper achieving if the
>shows had market potential abroad. Granada have a complete run of
>Coronation Street, the same can hardly be said of ATV and Crossroads
>(for example). IIRC the first three years of that show were not even
>taped, and even when they did tape it in later years it was made as if
>it were live (with hilarious consequences).
Sir Lew Grade if you don't mind! :-) It is well known that ATV never
spent serious money unless they could sell the result to the US! (Witness
the ATV/ITC 'Thriller' series of the early to mid 70s). As I explain
elsewhere in this thread, GRA are missing about 20 episodes of Coronation
Street, but compare this with a grand total of 4 Crossroads episodes that
exist from the sixties and it seems wonderful. XRDS was on five nights
a week at one point as well, until the ITA demanded it be cut back - oh
for such regulation in the modern soap-tastic schedules!! All the Central
XRDS episodes exist but they're just not quite the same somehow :-)
>
>Regarding finding more ATV material, I was told that Polygram now own
>all the material and plan to move it to the USA. Very helpful of them.
>
After ATV went into its cocoon on 31st Dec 1981 and re-emerged as Central
the following morning, the PROGRAMMES archive was retained by the parent
company (the NEWS archive became the property of CEN). After various
take-overs and management buyouts this became the property of Polygram.
Alas they have shipped some tapes to the US. The word on the street is,
however, that Carlton were close to clinching a deal to buy the ATV
archive from Polygram - this would re-unite the ATV and CEN libraries for
the first time (albeit perhaps not in the ideal hands...)
The one advantage of the archive going to CAR would be that it would be in
safe hands (or at least, hands with access to deep pockets). There is an
awful lot of remastering that URGENTLY needs doing - apart from the ITC
filmed stuff (some of which, ironically, has been remastered) the 70s
stuff still exists on 2" tape... CAR would at least have the resources to
see that the remastering was done ASAP.
Cheers,
Dominic
M Johnson
> In short -- I contend that "Doctor Who" fans have it lucky.
Yes, the way you describe it, which is quite compelling, I think you are
right. It really is amazing that so many episodes of a "children's" show
from the 1960s are still available all these decades later. I'm glad I
have been able to acquire so many of them.
As well as being a fan of Dr Who, I am I collector of Eagle, a quality
British comic first published (long before I was born) in April 1950 and
closed 19 years later in 1969.
After years of collecting, I have *most* issues of Eagle from No 1 in
1950 through to 1964, and a smattering of issues from there to the end in
1969. But it has been hard work.
Lots of people just chucked out things they saw no value in keeping,
whether that be Eagle or television shows. In the case of Dr Who or Z
Cars, the BBC simply saw no value in preserving endless copies of what to
them was just another throwaway TV show. Who would ever have known, in
the mid-1960s, what a cult show Dr Who would be at the turn of the
century, and how valuable the sale of home videotapes of the programme
would be?
I mean, home video didn't even exist, and hadn't even been dreamed of,
even in Eagle, where I note that "pilot of the future" Dan Dare still
used typewriters, Morse code and cine film cameras in stories set early
in the coming century!!!!!
Adam Richards
<i.ba...@virgin.net> wrote:
>In the Missing Years documentary Ian Levine states pretty categorically that
>so far as he's concerned all the episodes that *can* be found, *have* been
>found, and that he believes there will always be 110 missing
>episodes..........
>
>Without wishing to prejudice any delicate negotiations that may or may not
>be taking place, would anyone care to comment? Others (Paul Lee for one,
>according to his article) do seem to think there are grounds to hope for the
>return of maybe two or three more........
So far, these are the only questions I have yet to see answered:
1. Regarding the search for missing episodes in foreign TV stations,
is there any hope that the BBC or BBC Worldwide could exploit a legal
loophole in the old BBC Enterprises sales contract, which states that
the episodes sold to foreign countries must be either returned or
destroyed? By my reckoning, the contract has a serious flaw: it should
only stipulate that the foreign station buying the episodes must not
ever show or sell the episodes after their rights to them have expired
- the destruction of them is and never was necessary. Let me put it
this way: if a TV station has kept BBC material, how exactly has it
hurt BBC Enterprises, so long as the station hasn't shown it or sold
it to someone else? What harm is the material doing to BBC Enterprises
just sitting on a shelf? I think this angle on the dilemma is
interesting, because it both preserves the BBC's rights over the
material, and lets stations who have kept material (for whatever
reason) off the hook.... This might be a weapon against intransigence
on the BBC's part. If they were to look at the old contract, and then
re-draw it, effective retroactively, it could possibly be presented to
foreign, non-partisan TV stations (e.g. Hong Kong) as part of an
official general amnesty.
2. regarding Richard's "big list" of foreign countries that bought
now-missing Dr.Who in the '60s and '70s (elsewhere in this thread):
Hong Kong
Sierra Leone
Ethiopia
Algeria
Gibralter
Singapore
Mexico
Zambia
Nigeria
I assume I'm right in drawing a conclusion from Richard's comments
that none of these places have been *officially* checked for BBC
material? My question is, assuming dedicated fans have looked into
this (Richard, Ian, Steve, Paul, et.al.), what has been the response,
if any, to queries from these TV stations?
3. Regarding those countries: is there any official line from BBC
Worldwide on *why* they haven't checked? I mean, have they ever given
actual reasons for their inaction, or is it assumed that they've
weighed up all the factors involved and decided it's just not worth
it?
4. "The Traitors" - has the person in the Blue Peter P.O. who signed
for it (naming no names) ever been asked, even casually (i.e. off the
record), where the episode ended up? I assume so, but as yet I've not
heard if there was ever a response to that question, let alone what
the response was.
5. I haven't read the fan-press in a little while. Has any of this
info on foreign TV stations (particularly the Hong Kong dilemma) been
publicised recently in DreamWatch or DWM? If so, were there any
interested responses from fans?
Apologies to anyone if these questions *have* been answered and I just
missed them. And I hope Richard and Steve will realise that I am only
asking to gain enlightenment on this subject - I am not assuming any
lack of effort or hard work on their part.
Thanks,
Adam
Richard Molesworth
Adam Richards <Ad...@roblang.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<365aaeb0...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> So far, these are the only questions I have yet to see answered:
>
> 1. Regarding the search for missing episodes in foreign TV stations,
> is there any hope that the BBC or BBC Worldwide could exploit a legal
> loophole in the old BBC Enterprises sales contract, which states that
> the episodes sold to foreign countries must be either returned or
> destroyed? By my reckoning, the contract has a serious flaw: it should
> only stipulate that the foreign station buying the episodes must not
> ever show or sell the episodes after their rights to them have expired
> - the destruction of them is and never was necessary. Let me put it
> this way: if a TV station has kept BBC material, how exactly has it
> hurt BBC Enterprises, so long as the station hasn't shown it or sold
> it to someone else? What harm is the material doing to BBC Enterprises
> just sitting on a shelf? I think this angle on the dilemma is
> interesting, because it both preserves the BBC's rights over the
> material, and lets stations who have kept material (for whatever
> reason) off the hook.... This might be a weapon against intransigence
> on the BBC's part. If they were to look at the old contract, and then
> re-draw it, effective retroactively, it could possibly be presented to
> foreign, non-partisan TV stations (e.g. Hong Kong) as part of an
> official general amnesty.
Firstly, the 'return or destroy' clause seems plausible, but having not
been able to find the contracts for any DW overseas sales at the BBC, the
truth of the matter is open to conjecture. BBC personnal have always
maintained that it was a clause, though. It's inclusion would be to
prevent material being screened after its rights have expired, and from
this point of view, I can understand perfectly the logic of the BBC in
making this stiplulation. And no matter what the BBC may say or do to
retract the clause now, it still leaves foreign broacasters in a dillemma -
do they sheepishly acknowledge they've broken their contract, or do they
save face and *pretend* they've junked it. The wrong sort of approach to a
foreign broadcaster made alert them to the fact they are holding onto
material they should have legally destroyed or returned by such-and-such a
date, maybe pushing a load of film prints towards the nearest incinerator!
> 2. regarding Richard's "big list" of foreign countries that bought
> now-missing Dr.Who in the '60s and '70s (elsewhere in this thread):
>
> Hong Kong
> Sierra Leone
> Ethiopia
> Algeria
> Gibralter
> Singapore
> Mexico
> Zambia
> Nigeria
>
> I assume I'm right in drawing a conclusion from Richard's comments
> that none of these places have been *officially* checked for BBC
> material? My question is, assuming dedicated fans have looked into
> this (Richard, Ian, Steve, Paul, et.al.), what has been the response,
> if any, to queries from these TV stations?
You think that list was big? It was only countries that bought 'missing'
DW from about 1970 onwards. You should see all the sales from 1963-69 that
I have managed to pin down!!
Basically, in 1984, the Beeb had 'The War Machines' and 'The Time Meddler'
handed to them on a plate from Nigeria. This prompted the only (to my
knowledge) the only attempt by the BBC in recent years to do anything about
overseas TV stations. A chap called Roger Brunskill at BBC Enterprises
faxed 20 TV stations around the world to see if they had any old DW. Now
my reckoning is that there have been around about 75 countries that have
purchased DW that I have found. I have also been told that Brunskill just
chose 20 stations at random - not even ones that might have purchased DW
were singled out. From this enquiry came 3 responses. One was from Iran
(the infamous 'What in the name of Allah are you talking about' reply,
which is highly apocryphal IMHO, especially as they purchased at least 9
Hartnell stories in 1967/8, including 'Marco Polo'). The second was from
the Ascension Islands who owned up to 16mm black and white films of all 6
episodes of 'The Sea Devils'. The third was from Cyprus, revealing (amongst
other extant episodes) parts 1,2 & 3 of 'The Reign of Terror'. And Paul
Vanezis had established the existance of these episodes some weeks prior to
Brunskill's involvement.
And that's it. Well, almost. While filming 'The Missing Years'
documentary, I had the opportunity to have a brief chat with Sue Malden,
which indicated that she had done significantly more than this during her
time as Archive Selector, but I didn't really have time to go into detail
with her.
Fans have made their own enquiries with TV stations themselves, but the
only significant dealings were Ian Levine's discovery of the Nigerian
episodes, and Vanezis's dabblings mentioned above.
> 3. Regarding those countries: is there any official line from BBC
> Worldwide on *why* they haven't checked? I mean, have they ever given
> actual reasons for their inaction, or is it assumed that they've
> weighed up all the factors involved and decided it's just not worth
> it?
They haven't got the time, resources, budget or inclination to do it.
Their job is to *sell* programmes, not retreive them. I imagine they would
assume this was a job for the Film and Videotape Library. Who have got
even less time, resources and budget. And who consider their job to be to
maintain their archive, bot to patch up the gaps.
> 4. "The Traitors" - has the person in the Blue Peter P.O. who signed
> for it (naming no names) ever been asked, even casually (i.e. off the
> record), where the episode ended up? I assume so, but as yet I've not
> heard if there was ever a response to that question, let alone what
> the response was.
Until it was mentioned by a post in another thread, I had no idea that
there was an actual 'J Smith' who could be pinned down to the 'Blue Peter'
production office in 1973. But bearing in mind that I can bearly remember
what I spent £157.68 on, for my last months expenses claim, then I doubt
anyone could remember what happened to an episode they had merely signed a
requesition for 25 years ago. It's not as if he would have ever physically
come into contact with the film or anything. My BBC sources tell me that
this avenue has been fully explored, anyway!
> 5. I haven't read the fan-press in a little while. Has any of this
> info on foreign TV stations (particularly the Hong Kong dilemma) been
> publicised recently in DreamWatch or DWM? If so, were there any
> interested responses from fans?
There has been nothing at all in the fan press - yet! I did a general
archive piece for DWM last year, though.
> Apologies to anyone if these questions *have* been answered and I just
> missed them. And I hope Richard and Steve will realise that I am only
> asking to gain enlightenment on this subject - I am not assuming any
> lack of effort or hard work on their part.
Course not - you just managed to catch Steve at a very bad time the other
month!!
Richard