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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"
Printed in a sleazy tabloid newspaper with no corroboration ?
/. now ?
I don't think so somehow, is this what passes for news on
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
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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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.
"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"?
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
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.
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 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."
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.