Lost Doctor Who Episode Found

JSDopefish writes "In an event that most Doctor Who fans thought couldn't happen, another lost episode of Doctor Who has turned up. It's Episode Two of the 1965 William Hartnell serial, 'The Dalek Masterplan.' No word yet as to how it will be released, this news is just breaking today apparently. This is great news for fans, as the last time a lost episode was turned up was in 1999, and most folks had given up hope there were any others left to be discovered. For those who don't know, in the '70s the BBC routinely junked old stories. Not just Dr Who, but all their shows. Repeats and sales weren't an issue then. There's something like 115 or so lost Doctor Who episodes total."

Comments

Re:Dalek's operating system?

[fermion]

I think the software was the Kaleds. Like so much old scifi, there was really no concept of electronic circuits capable of branching, loops, and error correction. At best, it was a Babbage machine. More than likely, it was on the level of a mid-20th-century tank, albeit one with lasers. The technological innovation, and basic function, of a Dalek was to provide life support for the mutated life forms. The practical purpose was to provide an attack vehicle. The organics were in complete control of the vehicle.

The question we can ask is were the Daleks meant to live forever, or was there some facility for biological reproduction of the software. We know the original facility that grew the mutated kaleds and produced the containers was destroyed. Presumable another facility was created, as we know that the original produced could not have produced the numbers that were to later antagonized the universe.

In summary, this is a really dorky and embarrassing post. My only defense is that I grew up with dr. Who. I will not date myself by indicating how much of my life the series covered. I think we need a poll of our most embarrassing trivia knowledge.

Re:I've always...

[DJTodd242]

Man, I'm gonna have a field day with this thread.

http://nitro9.earth.uni.edu/doctor/lost/lost.htm l

Essentially, after the episodes were initially transmitted they were stored in a warehouse. As the early 70s approached the re-saleability of old black and white shows was decided to be essentially nil. So, the tapes and films were scheduled to be destroyed. Old cellulose is a bit of a fire hazard.

Many old shows like Z-Cars and Softly, Softly were destroyed as well.

They're being recovered VERY slowly these days, as all of the foreign stations that episodes were sold to have been searched, etc. The above URL explains a lot.

Re:collection

[NanoGator]

"Old, low-quality B&W TV footage wouldn't take up anywhere near the same space as a modern show shot in color and on (reasonably) high-quality film."

Actually, old low-quality footage, in many ways, would be worse. Though the imagery would be considerably softer (easier to compress), it'd also be noisier as well. The more noise to the scene, the harder of time the compressor has getting a decent pixel-per-data-rate ratio. They would undoubtedly have to use some modern technology to make the footage useful. Noise reduction, image stabilization, etc.

I don't you'd get that many more minutes of acceptable quality on the DVD. This is especially true if they're going to go through the effort to restore as much of the footage as possible. Remember, DVDs are supposed to be very clear. They'll try to adhere to that.

However, I think you'd be absolutely right if we were talking about internet downloads. I wish the BBC would consider taking the early seasons of Dr Who and allowing me to watch them for a modest subscription fee. I would whip out my cc right now to do that. Heck, I might even install RealPlayer!

Re:collection

[TomV]

26 seasons of, on average, 13 hours each. There's some debate in fandom about the box set approach.

At present, we get single stories (mostly 4-6 half hour episodes per story) per DVD, with heavy restoration / rework by the BBC's Restoration Team (descratching, cleaning up the soundtrack, a wondrous process called VidFire developed by Peter Finklestone to restore the original smooth 50 fps video look to grainy 25 fps film stock, on The Ark In Space and Dalek Invasion Of Earth, alternative CGI'd versions of some of the grottier FX), plus usually a good hour or so of extras, commentaries, old documentary footage, newly filmed documentaries and so forth.

It takes a while to make a package that lavish, and I for one would be very disappointed to see the approach change to 'slap it all onto disc as quick as possible for a quick buck'.

Also bear in mind that only two seasons of Doctor Who were Arc-based (Season 16 'The Key To Time' and Season 23 'Trial Of A Time Lord'). Otherwise it's all standalone stories.

Though the 12-part "Daleks' Masterplan" and the ten-part "War Games" could be considered Arc-y, they're not complete seasons.

Only 108 lost episodes to go. It's 5 years since 'The Lion' was found, so we should have the lot back by 2544, just in time for the Dalek-provoked Galactic War against the Draconian Empire ;)