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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"
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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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"?
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 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.