Slashdot Mirror
Over 100 Missing Episodes of Doctor Who Located
MajikJon writes "The BBC junking policies of the '60s and '70s resulted in the loss of hundreds of episodes of the classic series in its earliest years. Through the work of ardent fans over the succeeding decades, dozens of these lost episodes have been painstaking recovered and added back into the BBC archives. Now, it seems, the searchers have struck the mother lode. According to the Wikipedia, there are currently 106 missing episodes of the serial. If reports are correct, we may finally get to see all the episodes."
The BBC have not confirmed this and it has been rumoured already for months now, hardly an exclusive by the Sunday People as the article claims, but maybe there is a chance the BBC will say something about these rumoured negoiations this time.
I'm not a fan of the series in any incarnation, but assuming the report is accurate, I'm thrilled that those that are fans may finally be able to dig a little deeper into the archives.
And thanks to the internet being the world's most effective copying machine, if these episodes do release, we'll never have to worry about this particular series going dark again.
I'm always a little intrigued by some of the other long-running shows where archival is not (at the time) a financially sound move. I have to wonder exactly how many episodes of, say, daytime soap operas are lost. Many? Most? The airing schedule on some of the longest-running is so frequent that catching up from a series from beginning to end (if it were possible) would take 6 or so years if you tried to plow through at 40 hours a week.
With a note that read. "You're welcome; please be more careful next time. -The Doctor"
http://bleedingcool.com/2013/06/13/wqill-doctor-who-have-a-very-special-surprise-for-us-in-november
Printed in a sleazy tabloid newspaper with no corroboration ?
/. now ?
I don't think so somehow, is this what passes for news on
I;d love it to be true but even looking in to the article there are a lot of comments about this being and old fake story
All the BBC has to do is get the aliens that are watching them right now to turn on their tivos. Of course in another 50 years some might mistake this for a Dalek and come to earth with guns blazing! Or they might think that a Dalek compiler is where they are being manufactured and just blast Mountain View from outer space instead to save the poor enslaved earthlings from them.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
Obvious troll is obvious, but depending on where you set your standards, all science fiction, all fiction, or even the wonder of life itself is reserved for "for adolescents who never grew up". Put another way:
"We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and we cannot possibly live for a moment without it." - Pascal
1) Make fake episode
2) record it on old VHS
3) send it to BBC
5) Bet on how long it takes for BBC to realize
4) ????
6) Profit
Tomb of the Cybermen
Episodes 1 & 2
Episodes 3 & 4
"This is a really big deal for the BBC and is set to make them millions from the sale of the DVDs."
Hopefully the BBC doesn't make a penny selling anything related to these episodes. The BBC didn't want them. They shouldn't have them.
"Through the work of ardent fans over the succeeding decades," who were EVERY SINGLE ONE committing the "Theft" of piracy and costing the world trillions of dollars in lost revenue...
But the BBC aren't willing to join the dots here, are they. I guess that when this is all said and done, the BBC will take this hard work by ardent fans taken over decades and sell it and tell the fans to buy their stuff back. If it's stealing the work of peons, that's just capitalism!
And no note about how this destruction indicates that they have been destroying public property (the public domain) which, if they hadn't been using the force of law to ensure that they were the only ones who were allowed copies, would not have been a problem: other people could have done it. Here, nobody else is alllowed, therefore the entire responsibility belongs to the copyright owner.
But destruction of property is not a crime when you're powerful, it's just "Well, these things happen".
adolescents who never grew up
That's me!
The only people that want to be seen as grown up are people who aren't.
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Yes, The World Health Organization does care..
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This rumour started off in the summer as "90 missing episodes found" and even some big name fans were taken in by it, but the BBC (and those in a position to know and/or find out) always rubbished it. The story seems to be this: in the summer, someone in Africa (probably an old TV company, but a private collector has also been mentioned) sent a large package of old TV material to a company in the UK. The shows were to be remastered from old, obsolete formats into something that could be played with modern technology, something that the company specialised it. Somehow this news got picked up by the Dr.Who fraternity who made 2+2=106. So, almost certainly its a case of "move along, nothing to see here."
At any rate, if Ethiopia has got anything, they never bought the broadcast rights to the Troughton era, so all we'd have to recover at best would be a handful of Hartnells, but still better than nothing.
BUT just suppose the rumour is true, could the BBC have kept it quote for all these months? Ostensibly yes. The two episodes found in 2011 were "found" in the summer but this was a well kept secret until "Missing Believed Wiped" at the British Film Institute in December. Even the programme said they would be showing "1960s BBC Science Fiction" with no mention as to what it was. No one had a clue until much closer to the event. And when "Tomb of the Cybermen" was found in 1991, the BBC put out a cover story that it was simply four episodes of an already existing story. The secret was apparently kept hidden for at least a few weeks; all other missing episode "finds" have been quite quickly reported.
Lastly, a little plug for my own website about the missing episodes of Dr.Who.
My web domain.
Dr. Where?
"Who really cares? Some old grainy black and white kinescopes? BFD. The artistic merit compared to the childish cult-like following is nil. Dr. Who is for adolescents who never grew up. It is like cabbage patch dolls or beanie babies."
Dear heavens, isn't it horrible that someone might get enjoyment out of something you don't particularly like.
Do you also blow out candles on adult's birthday cakes and then sternly lecture them about how "That's just for kids"?
people who aren't
Are we talking fast clones, androids or shape-shifting aliens masquerading as humans?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
When I was in seventh grade I saw a movie with a typical bollywood number set on the Moon. Craters and boulders and stuff with the leading pair dancing and singing. I remembered it as a magnificent big set. After some 40 years I happened to see the same sequence, in an old is gold DVD set. The set was cheesy, tacky, at most 40 feet by 30 feet, craters were of just two sizes, nearly perfect circles, in a kind of semi uniform spacing. The leading pair looked horribly over made up. The only thing that was still great was the song. I was humming it for a couple of days. [*]
Whan I was young my dad used to take to the bank and I used to think the tellers were sitting on very tall chairs behind impossibly tall counters. Turns out that was just the perspective of a child who has to look up at everything. Once I grew up these counters seemed quite normal, at most 4 or 4.5 feet tall.
The point is, even if we unearth all those missing 106 episodes, the actual episodes might not stand up to all the hype and expectation heaped up on them.
[*]: For the Desis out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6UeorX-aVo
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Black and White?
I actually prefer The Goon Show. Which is monophonic audio-only radio broadcasts.
I used to have a 19" Black and White console (wooden cabinet) television. In a way I wish I still did.
BBC used to wipe all their shows. Which means after airing it once, they would erase or record the tapes over with something else with no thought to archiving them for future generations. This was a short sighted and incredibly stupid move by the BBC as well U.S. broadcasting corporations at the time . Thus hundreds and thousands of hours of valuable, classic entertainment were erased and gone forever with the flick of a switch based on poorly conceived management decisions. Much of Johnny Carson's classic Tonight Show from the 50's to the 60's were also wiped as well as many other classic shows including sports shows like the Super Bowl and the World Series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiping The subject of wiping is not limited to just video tape. The worst management decision of all time had to be when the suits at ABC/Dunhill decided to throw entire master recording tapes in the garbage to save a little money in the early 70's. Thus original session tapes, multi-tracks, outtakes and master single mixes were just thrown away, gone forever. This was done without informing the artists or their management. This is why you will never hear original master recordings by Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf or The Mama and the Papas . All that remained were the analog album masters which were mastered and Equalized for vinyl. Hell even the single mix of "Magic Carpet Ride" is a different take altogether than the album version and the single mix is only available on the original 45 rpm vinyl and no master exists of the single mix.
As watching Star Trek TOS re-runs. And possibly as painful as watching $YourFavoriteSciFiShow in 20 years. :)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Horton hears them.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
The point is, even if we unearth all those missing 106 episodes, the actual episodes might not stand up to all the hype and expectation heaped up on them.
'Tomb of the Cybermen' actually did, for me, at least. I thought it was a rather slick production given the budget. Other stuff from that era is distinctly variable in quality (e.g. the little city model in 'The Krotons' which I honestly thought was supposed to be a heap of stones).
Nostalgia doesn't really enter into it for me because I never got to see the original broadcasts. In actual fact I only got into Dr. Who really when they repeated the Tom Baker episodes in the 90s and I found them to my liking.
The Doctor's crack at Jamie's kilt in 'Tomb of the Cybermen' did it for me.. XD
It's depressingly true. The people who have grown up simply look on at the "childish" passion with envy. Sometimes envy masked with disdain, but unmistakable envy.
The exceptions to this rule are the people who are truly dead inside.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Dr. Who is for adolescents who never grew up. It is like cabbage patch dolls or beanie babies.
Better that than apparently being in a rush to get old and die.
or murican football, oopps sorry forgot thats the official religion after Jeebus
seems like the bbc should look at http://watchseries.lt/serie/Doctor_Who_(1963) and http://watchseries.lt/serie/doctor_who they are quite easy to find
While it is very interesting that the missing episodes may be found, in reality, many of the early versions of Doctor Who are just painful to watch. Poor dialogue, agonizing slow pacing, terrible direction, etc, etc. If the BBC truly wants to revive the old episodes of Doctor Who, take the audio tracks (note: audio from EVERY episode survives) and created an animated series. Clean up the story lines and create something worth watching again.
The BBC's old policy is being partially blamed on the actors unions of the time. They didn't want reruns without having the actors repeat the performance and had an agreement limiting replays. Once that limit was reached, the recording was useless.
Thinking about how technology TAKES JOBS AWAY... just imagine if such policies continued... we would employ scores more actors than we do today; the big stars wouldn't get paid as much but they'd have to work more hours. We still have theater shows and without technology, TV and Movies would be more like that - fancy mindless FX would naturally be toned down... and actors would get sick of repeating vapid lines/characters... Cartoons would likely become bigger...possibly, as they could be a work around for the limitations.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Lol. My douche older brother almost literally masturbates to baseball. Yet he makes fun of me for liking warhammer 40k and other sci fi/fantasy stuff. He's also almost 40 and still gets drunk 3+ times a week and has no family. I have an awesome wife and an amazing 5 month old son. But "I'M" the loser. rofl. Enjoy your overpaid arrogant prick douche bag druggies chasing a ball around fuck face.
Maybe they'll find the Apollo 11 originals in the stack
Table-ized A.I.
Many of them involve an evil cactus as the villain.
Undoubtedly, to people who have no life and are as bad as the most diehard of Star Trek fans/nutcases this is very important. Granted, "Doctor Who" is a cultural icon and it's nice that a big gap in the series has been rediscovered. However, I would be getting much more excited if, for example, some more lost or portions of fragmentary works of Archimedes were rediscovered.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
If it wasn't going to be necessary because nobody could copy it, why the fuck were there laws against it?
"The exceptions to this rule are the people who are truly dead inside."
Londo Molari in Babylon 5:
"Something my father said. He was old, very old at the time. I went into his room, and he was sitting alone in the dark, crying. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "My shoes are too tight, but it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance." I never understood what that meant until now. My shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance."
Yeah, and they say Ethiopia has the Ark of the Covenant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant#Ethiopia
I suspect both reports are equally true.
Though it's interesting to see that with Tomb of the Cybermen, not everyone felt that way:
Personally I love the early Doctor Who episodes, especially Tomb of the Cybermen, but I have to be honest that the quality of some of these early episodes is very hit and miss, and while some are great, classic pieces of television, others have really not aged well.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
The point is, even if we unearth all those missing 106 episodes, the actual episodes might not stand up to all the hype and expectation heaped up on them.
Indeed. The show was much more firmly aimed at kids back in those days, compared to the more adult aim of recent years. Viewers accustomed to seeing the current show would be flabbergasted with those early episodes. It's the same show in name only.
Sig for hire.
Maybe the poster was musing that the reels were found in the garbage, mushed up with some pudding cups.
The Radio Times, the BBC's listing magazine, has run an article saying that two "episodes" have been found, but when a BBC spokesman was asked for details, they were blanked. It looks like the BBC aren't talking to the BBC ... again! Now the Mirror newspaper is weighing in again, saying that there will be a big press conference in a London hotel on Tuesday evening, and the material will be made available to buy on iPlayer on Wednesday. A couple of friends have said its two Troughton "stories" but no one in the BBC is saying anything official. Make of that what you will :(
My web domain.
Except for the TV and the film versions.
I see absolutely no reason to believe the episodes have been found apart from, really, the old adage about smoke and fire. And, to be honest, I’ve never put too much stock in that. I see people making stuff up all too frequently to believe smoke needs anything more than somebody willing to blow it. Talking of which
if the BBC (or any other entity fitting a similar description) would lose the ability to copyright anything in the future due to their "losing" our cultural heritage?
The absolute audacity in claiming perpetual copyright and then not saving the material... should be grounds for prosecution. Criminal and civil.
Just hope they don't get sued in the likes of 20 million a tape...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
My grade 4 teacher was crazy about the original Doctor Who, he said that he watched it from the beginning and recorded every episode. He used to bring them in to class and we would watch them. Over the course of one year we must have seen at least 50 episodes, and they were all sequential. I wonder if he was lying about having the entire series on tape. Surely he would have said something. Weird.
It will be pretty cool listening to them in Amharic, it might finally make more sense.
Nullius in verba
My guess -- a trove of Troughton material has turned up in Nigeria that includes a big chunk of season 5; some of which the BBC already has, much of which it doesn't. (But I still hope it's 75 missing episodes from Zambia...) ;)
It's sort of like when I saw Voltron on Netflix. I remembered loving that show back when I was a kid. So I played the first episode to relive the wonderful days of my youth. Only I was suddenly watching a show riddled with plot holes (I give some leeway for kids cartoons, but these were huge), bad character motivation, and really cheesy lines. It was horrible. I don't know if the first few episodes were just always that bad and it got better or if my memory of their quality has been "enhanced" by being a kid at the time. Either way, I'd prefer to remember the good Voltron times and not the horrible show that I've since realized it was.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I would not have known otherwise.. looks like all these issues of checking through /. issues has finally paid off. Who needs to know about our impending doom? When we get to see more William Hartnell in all his grumpiness? Happy days are here again lalala...
It was sold off years ago.
that bounced back off a planet and were picked up by a radio telescope? I seem to recall hearing something about this 5-6 months ago.
The BBC press release has now been postponed to the end of the week.
Who really cares? Some old grainy black and white kinescopes? BFD. The artistic merit compared to the childish cult-like following is nil. Dr. Who is for adolescents who never grew up. It is like cabbage patch dolls or beanie babies.
Grow up? Why the fuck would anyone want to do that?!?
This being grown up deal is highly overrated...
The BBC News website has a story on it seemingly confirming that some number of episodes have been bound and will be revealed at a press conference later this week.
It's always possible this is one part of the Beeb not being in sync with the other, but it looks like it's more than just idle rumors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24448063