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Reverse Engineering Doctor Who Into Color

Posted by timothy on from the like-time-travel-for-real dept.

Lanxon writes "In 1967, the BBC set about junking its Doctor Who archive: a moment sci-fi fans wish they could travel back in time to prevent. There are 108 vintage episodes missing, but since 1978 a number have been rediscovered as 16mm black-and-white films. The BBC shot many of these series in color, but made monochrome copies for countries such as Australia, where many TV companies were still broadcasting in greyscale. The reels had sat in archives since. Now, the Doctor Who Restoration Team, an independent group contracted by the BBC, is using a new technique to regenerate The Doctor in color."

7 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. color by slash.dt · · Score: 5, Funny
    The BBC shot many of these series in color

    Since this is the BBC, they shot *none* of them in color but many of them in *colour*....

    1. Re:color by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm from North America. Canada to be precise. And I would like you yanks to learn to spell as well. =)

    2. Re:color by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, there are more English speakers in the USA than in England... So? We Win!

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      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  2. Rev the wrong thing by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can they reverse engineer the scripts instead? Color or black and white, those old episodes are damn unwatchable. We'd be better off giving Wikipedia descriptions of the episodes to the writing staff of Golden Girls. Those old droning 5-part episodes would be turned into 22.5 minutes of tightly scripted comedy starring Bea Arthur as the Doctor. And any of the other old hags as K-9.

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    Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    1. Re:Rev the wrong thing by tuffy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Color or black and white, those old episodes are damn unwatchable.

      108 of them are, at least.

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      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

    2. Re:Rev the wrong thing by Sulphur · · Score: 4, Funny

      When they started rerunning the old episodes in Australia a few years back I really enjoyed them. The acting wasn't real good, the fight scenes (fist fights etc) were so bad they were funny, and the strings holding up the dalek's spaceship were visible and it rocked side to side, but I still really enjoyed them.

      They had not mastered String Theory at the time.

  3. There's Good News and Bad News... by Lev13than · · Score: 4, Funny

    The good news is that they've figured out how to restore colour to the B&W negatives. The bad news is that it requires Kodachrome processing...

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    When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire