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Over 100 Missing Episodes of Doctor Who Located

Posted by timothy on from the as-a-result-of-time-travel dept.

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."

24 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. This is still not actually confirmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:This is still not actually confirmed by findoutmoretoday · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No problem, being a fan is talking about the series, not watching them. I even secretly hope it's not true, otherwise I have to wade through hundred passed episodes.

    2. Re:This is still not actually confirmed by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

      If it turns out to be a cache of old I Love Lucy episodes, the BBC will have some 'splainin to do.

  2. Interesting. by Delusion_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Interesting. by Shimbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      It's a tabloid newspaper, on a Sunday, when all the journalists are at home, and they just make shit up instead. I'm going for 100% untrue, until proved otherwise. Fan sites seem completely dismssive also.

    2. Re:Interesting. by stud9920 · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      Generally, when you skip a year or so, the same conversation is still ongoing. So watching an episode per season is enough

    3. Re:Interesting. by Delusion_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because copying data is exactly what the internet is for. If this "incredible level of infrastructure" - the internet, the power grid, and modern computing - ever goes away, I'll have much bigger concerns than idly thinking about the fact that someone out there has a hard drive with Dr. Who episodes that they can no longer watch.

      Short of that sort of civilizational collapse, that content is effectively around forever.

      It took three years for OiNK to archive 200,000 torrents. It took nine months for the biggest of the trackers that OiNK's closure caused to get to that point, six more months to double to 400,000, and has grown since.

      So, yes, I have faith that either the internet will archive this content adequately, presuming the shit doesn't hit the fan so hard that video entertainment and the preservation of history is the least of our worries.

    4. Re:Interesting. by gallondr00nk · · Score: 4, Informative

      I also wonder what condition the reels will be in.

      Someone on another thread discussing old Doctor Who episodes pointed out that early tape stock was an absolute nightmare to keep in decent condition, and the expense was sufficient enough that the BBC decided it was too expensive.

      It wasn't that they just carelessly throwed their archives away.

    5. Re:Interesting. by NoMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      Someone on another thread discussing old Doctor Who episodes pointed out that early tape stock was an absolute nightmare to keep in decent condition, and the expense was sufficient enough that the BBC decided it was too expensive.

      But these would be (if they existed, which they probably don't) distribution copies for foreign broadcasters, not the original tapes.

      These distribution prints - which were 16mm film, not tape - were passed from country to country, usually ending up in the tail ends of the empire in Africa & Asia. They were supposed to have been returned or destroyed at the end of their tours, but it wasn't unusual for them to be put into storage, grabbed by local staff for their own archives, or sold on the sly to broadcasters in neighbouring countries.

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    6. Re:Interesting. by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's a tabloid newspaper, on a Sunday, when all the journalists are at home, and they just make shit up instead. I'm going for 100% untrue, until proved otherwise. Fan sites seem completely dismssive also.

      The proof is in the pudding, but I will point out that the tabloid newspapers tend to have better fact checking than the mainstream news because of the risk of getting sued for libel. It's unlikely that somebody'll sue them for reporting incorrectly that episodes of Dr. Who have been recovered, but they employ people to verify facts because it's *very* likely that somebody'll sue them if they report that Celebrity X got arrested after a 3-hour high speed police chase, and that they were high on cocaine, completely naked, and had a dead hooker in the boot at the time.

    7. Re:Interesting. by Dogtanian · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's unlikely that somebody'll sue them for reporting incorrectly that episodes of Dr. Who have been recovered

      Hence the increased possibility that if they had to make something up to fill space they decided to go for this instead of something involving Harry Styles, Hazell Dean, a lorryload of quaaludes and a goat.

      The proof is in the pudding

      No, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".

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    8. Re:Interesting. by Dogtanian · · Score: 3, Informative

      The first episodes of Monty Python weren't received that well when first aired either, if things had gone differently those could also have been lost.

      Apparently the BBC *did* consider erasing the Monty Python master tapes.

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    9. Re:Interesting. by BigBadBus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I talked to the head of the TV department at the British Film Institute in 1993; he used to be head archivist at the BBC. He told me that the BBC would send staff overseas to check that their material wasn't being shown outside of its allotted contractual period.

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    10. Re:Interesting. by BigBadBus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Its because the different departments of the BBC didn't speak to each other. Occasional filmed episodes of many TV shows wound up at the BBC Film Archives, but BBC Enterprises held just about all the original kinescopes/films for overseas sales. When BBC Ents decided it didn't want their episodes, they didn't bother to check with the archives whether they would want them instead of ditching them. BBC Ents held videotape copies of the original shows, but the master tapes were held by the Engineering Department who would wipe and reused the tapes after a number of years.

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    11. Re:Interesting. by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In other words, the episodes would be lost forever if not for blatant copyright infringement.

  3. Mailed to the BBC in a blue envelope by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Funny

    With a note that read. "You're welcome; please be more careful next time. -The Doctor"

  4. Re:3 month old rumour by narcc · · Score: 4, Funny

    is this what passes for news on /. now ?

    Look at it this way: The news is only three months old, there isn't a dup on the front page (yet), and it's from a sleazy tabloid rather than a blog about someones blog about a sleazy tabloid article they saw on reddit.

    I'd say it's a step forward!

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  5. Re:Childish fad by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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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  6. Re:WHO by sjwt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, The World Health Organization does care..

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  7. I don't believe it by BigBadBus · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  8. What a damp blanket you must be: by Hartree · · Score: 4, Informative

    "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"?

  9. We don't remember what we saw, only what we felt. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Human memory is a funny thing. It does not really remember what we saw, except for a few savants with photographic memory. What we generally remember is what we felt. I will cit two personal examples.

    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

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  10. Re:We don't remember what we saw, only what we fel by Tapewolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  11. More news by BigBadBus · · Score: 4, Informative

    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 :(

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