Well, I turned out to be right on the original story. :)
As for the latest news, BBC Worldwide itself has not yet confirmed or denied this (according to doctorwhonews.co.uk). Purportedly there will be a press conference Tuesday. I will hold off assuming anything until then.
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The current state of play seems to be that there was some truth in the rumours that circulated over the summer, but that the BBC managed to keep a lid on things to plan a surprise to coordinate with the 50th celebrations. As usual, the press has got a little over-excited and left a stain on the rug and so the BBC are going to have to announce things early.
The current state of play seems to be that there was some truth in the rumours that circulated over the summer, but that the BBC managed to keep a lid on things to plan a surprise to coordinate with the 50th celebrations. As usual, the press has got a little over-excited and left a stain on the rug and so the BBC are going to have to announce things early.
That sounds like a reasonable assumption, at least.
Big BBC press conference tomorrow, followed by the release of material from two stories on Wednesday and an event at the BFI on Wednesday evening (which is not currently listed to mention DOCTOR WHO, but that might change). Rumour has it that the material will come from ENEMY OF THE WORLD and WEB OF FEAR.
It certainly sounds like considerably more than 'just' two episodes have been found, though I doubt it's the previously-rumoured 90. What is being indicated at the moment is maybe nine - five episodes of ENEMY OF THE WORLD and four of THE WEB OF FEAR - with possibly something also recovered from MARCO POLO. Beyond that we don't know yet.
THAT JUST MADE MY WEEK!
To see my favorite Doctor, Patrick Troughton, shine in the stories that really made the Doctor the success it became is a dream come true =]
Troughton & Hines, the best Doctor and Companion team ever, had so many excellent stories most of which have been lost for years...
I hope they can get The Abominable Snowmen together, the first appearance of The Great Intelligence (as it has returned recently) would make an excellent addition to my Amazon wishlist!
The Wheel in Space would be nice to see too, first time the Doctor goes by the name John Smith (as dubbed by Jamie).
Next up, MARCO POLO. Sources are saying - in some cases the same sources as who correctly predicted the return of the previous episodes - that a fan in the 1960s recorded the serial off the TV and this has been preserved, but without sound. Fortunately, several audio recordings of the whole thing exist, so that can be fixed.
This may sound ludicrous, but the first commercial home recording equipment was actually released in the UK in 1962. It allowed you to record onto 16mm spools of film. The blank spools of film were astronomically expensive, which prevented the system from taking off. However, some limited recordings of classic programmes have come up this way.
I'd stay sceptical for now, but after the same sources were proven right about the last lot it does have some credence.
Chief Technical Officer
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Man, I dunno:
This new discovery is all down to a dedicated fan who spent ages recording the episodes back in the sixties.
"Ages"? 25 minutes per week for 7 weeks?
The recording - which is a silent film... [snip] ...The fan had been holding onto these tapes for a long time and when the BBC found out about the tapes...
Which is it—"a film" or "tapes"?
There are already audio recordings of the episodes so the Beeb have had to match everything up. There are some gaps in the audio so it has been a painstaking process.
Where there are gaps in audio they are going to be re-recorded using contemporary actors who sound as close to the original actors as possible.
I'm not aware of any gaps in the existing audio for Marco Polo. In fact, I'm pretty sure there aren't, because off-air recordings were recovered from *two* separate sources.
Since the discovery of the cine film, the recordings have been carefully restored and transferred onto broadcast tape by BBC Worldwide.
Why the heck would they transfer them to broadcast tape? I'd expect them to transfer them to 4K digital.
Yeah, this is sadly sounding a little off.
Man, I dunno:
I agree with that.
The recording - which is a silent film... [snip] ...The fan had been holding onto these tapes for a long time and when the BBC found out about the tapes...Which is it—"a film" or "tapes"?
Maybe the films were at some point telecined to tape, and that's what the fan has been holding onto?
Since the discovery of the cine film, the recordings have been carefully restored and transferred onto broadcast tape by BBC Worldwide.Why the heck would they transfer them to broadcast tape? I'd expect them to transfer them to 4K digital.
If it is on tape and not on 16mm, maybe there's no point in going to 4K, in terms of image quality? If it's on 16mm, or specifically, 16mm shot with the system Werthead mentions, again, there may not be much of a gain to be had by scanning it at 4K rather than at 1920x1080. (HDCAM SR tape is 1920x1080. Broadcast tape is digital.)
Yeah, DOCTOR WHO was almost entirely shot - location shooting up to about Season 20 or so excepted - on tape. The sole exception is SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE, which was 100% made and even mastered on film. That's why SPEARHEAD is the only classic WHO story released on Blu-Ray, because you can extract a HD (or even a 4K) image from film, but video is stuck in its original resolution; the extra information needed for HD is simply not there. You can upscale it a bit, but not much before pixellation sets in.
As for the MARCO POLO thing, several fan sites (including those right about the previous missing story) have suggested that it is in error: MARCO POLO has been found, but in Ethiopia by the same guy who found the last lot, following up fresh leads resulting from that find. The rumour is that several episodes of THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN have also been founded recorded at home. This makes more sense because it's highly implausible that someone sitting at home with expensive recording equipment would record all of a 7-part historical story belonging to a new TV series, whilst it's more likely they would record part of an epic Dalek story three years into the series with 'Dalekmania' at its very height.
However, whilst I can buy MARCO POLO being found (it's by far the most widely-sold, still-missing story and statistically is much more likely than almost any other serial to be found), TDMP sounds like wishful thinking to me.
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Chief Technical Officer
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As for the MARCO POLO thing, several fan sites (including those right about the previous missing story) have suggested that it is in error: MARCO POLO has been found, but in Ethiopia by the same guy who found the last lot, following up fresh leads resulting from that find.
Reading between the lines from the source I trust, I think the leads currently being followed are pointed toward The Abominable Snowmen, The Wheel in Space, and Episode 3 of The Web of Fear—all of these are theorized to have traveled to Nigeria along with the recently recovered episodes from Web of Fear and Enemy of the World.
Reading between the lines from the source I trust, I think the leads currently being followed are pointed toward The Abominable Snowmen, The Wheel in Space, and Episode 3 of The Web of Fear
If so, that will make me very, very happy indeed.
Certainly the positive thing is that all the indications are more episodes have been found. Not another 81 on the top of the nine just returned - that seems to have died off - but it seems another 10-20 could be in the offing.
I think if they had more, even if they were not ready to be released, they would have announced them all at the same time.
It depends on the situation. Basically, Phil Morris - an independent TV archiver and researcher - is travelling around Africa looking for these missing episodes. He's the first person to physically go out there and specifically look for this stuff. This was catalysed by the discovery that there had been 20 missing episodes at a TV studio in Sierra Leone before it was destroyed in the civil war.
So you have a situation where, if episodes are found, negotiations have to be undertaken between Morris and the TV stations for access. Then if Morris finds and buys stuff off them, it then has to be returned to the BBC and the BBC need to buy it back (which is also an involved process). Then the BBC needs to spend weeks analysing the film to see if it can be restored and brought up to release quality. If it can't, then announcing anything would be premature. Then they have to spend 3-4 weeks restoring each episode, during which time other problems might come up.
Basically, the BBC doesn't want to say, "We've found 30 missing episodes!" in case they have to come back and later say, "Sorry, 12 of them were damaged beyond repair." That's how we end up with rumours swirling around for months before anything is confirmed.
Interesting. Apparently Phil Morris, who found the previous nine episodes, told actor Julian Glover that there will soon be some 'good news' for him. Glover played Scaroth in DOCTOR WHO's CITY OF DEATH (as well as General Vreers in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and currently Grand Maester Pycelle on GAME OF THRONES) but his earliest role on the programme was playing King Richard the Lionheart in the Hartnell story THE CRUSADES, of which two episodes remain missing.
Several WHO sites who ran this story have all mysteriously pulled it, which usually only happens at the BBC's request. This adds credence to the rumour that THE CRUSADE's two missing episodes are among whatever ones have been found.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Interesting. Apparently Phil Morris, who found the previous nine episodes, told actor Julian Glover that there will soon be some 'good news' for him. Glover played Scaroth in DOCTOR WHO's CITY OF DEATH (as well as General Vreers in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and currently Grand Maester Pycelle on GAME OF THRONES) but his earliest role on the programme was playing King Richard the Lionheart in the Hartnell story THE CRUSADES, of which two episodes remain missing.
Several WHO sites who ran this story have all mysteriously pulled it, which usually only happens at the BBC's request. This adds credence to the rumour that THE CRUSADE's two missing episodes are among whatever ones have been found.
Well...
•If it's the print of The Crusade believed to have been last screened in Zambia, we already have all of the episodes that were sold along with it.
•If it's one of the prints last believed to be screened in Ethiopia, Mauritius, or Gibraltar, it was in a group that would have included Marco Polo and The Reign of Terror, along with a lot of existing episodes.
(I'm assuming it wouldn't be one of the prints last believed to have been screened in Australia, New Zealand, or Jamaica, because none of the three have any reason to be in Africa, and the New Zealand and Australia prints are very likely to have been destroyed.)
Phil Morris is very unconvincing in this interview. He mentions, unprompted, that some episodes were film-recorded, that others might come back from overseas and WHO fans shouldn't lose hope. He also says very specifically, "We're at 97 at the moment," with a grin.
The location of the episodes is also interesting. The 'omnirumour' (that 90 episodes - including the 9 reported already - have been found in different locations) includes the idea that some of the TV stations in Africa and Asia less-than-scrupulously sold the episodes on for personal profit after reporting to the BBC they had been destroyed, in which case they could show up anywhere. But that could just be a clue to justify the rumour. Certainly nothing substantive backs that up.
There's absolutely no gain in transferring an oldstyle video signal to High Def... the pixels simply aren't there. Episodes like that will just be released in standard DVD format.
Correct, although the DVD team has apparently reported some moderate gain in quality by transferring the image to blu-ray and remastering as much as they can. More to the point, they can fit more episodes onto a disc which allows for better and slimmer packaging. In some cases, like the newly-recovered episodes, they can also add special features that were missing from the originals.
If SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE and the new series Blu-Rays have sold well enough, I think the BBC will look seriously at a Blu-Ray release. They'd have to do it in a way that appeals to new fans though, because the existing ones are unlikely to double-dip (or, for older fans who bought a lot of the VHS tapes in the 1980s and 1990s, triple-dip) given there won't be a big quality increase.
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If SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE and the new series Blu-Rays have sold well enough, I think the BBC will look seriously at a Blu-Ray release. They'd have to do it in a way that appeals to new fans though, because the existing ones are unlikely to double-dip (or, for older fans who bought a lot of the VHS tapes in the 1980s and 1990s, triple-dip) given there won't be a big quality increase.
I believe they were able to make a blu-ray of Spearhead because it was filmed on 35mm (and is the only episode to have been recorded such). Anything that was filmed on video or that has only a 16mm transfer source won't gain anything from being on blu-ray other than the aforementioned efficiency of packaging and content per disc. Honestly, those are enough for me, and I'd gladly pay again for a single blu-ray set of each Doctor or even just each season of the classic series. If they can get a full season of the 2005 series in a slim blu-ray case for the new boxed set, I imagine they can get a full Hartnell or Troughton season in the same packaging, and those contained far more minutes of programming. The lower resolution should make the difference in time mostly a wash.
This whole story reminds me of an episode of storage wars, going to odd places trying to find something very rare amidst a bunch of crap. And of course the thrill of the huge payoff.
I can't imagine Dr. Who is the only sho with "lost episodes".
What about the original Battle Star Galactica? I mhave never seen them in DVD and in only one place saw a few episodes in VHS. Managed to scoop up the "Gun on Ice Planet Zero' but never in 100 or more HMV type stores have I ever seen them again.
But I am sure somewhere in Brazil there is a TV station hanging on to them in a closet.
What about the original Battle Star Galactica? I mhave never seen them in DVD and in only one place saw a few episodes in VHS. Managed to scoop up the "Gun on Ice Planet Zero' but never in 100 or more HMV type stores have I ever seen them again.
But I am sure somewhere in Brazil there is a TV station hanging on to them in a closet.
It's been out on DVD for a while. Here for example.
This whole story reminds me of an episode of storage wars, going to odd places trying to find something very rare amidst a bunch of crap. And of course the thrill of the huge payoff.
I can't imagine Dr. Who is the only sho with "lost episodes".
What about the original Battle Star Galactica? I mhave never seen them in DVD and in only one place saw a few episodes in VHS. Managed to scoop up the "Gun on Ice Planet Zero' but never in 100 or more HMV type stores have I ever seen them again.
But I am sure somewhere in Brazil there is a TV station hanging on to them in a closet.
Original BSG is on Netflix Instant Watch.
There are other shows with missing episodes, a lot of BBC television from the 60s was lost in the same purge that effected Doctor Who. They just don't have nearly as many dedicated fans. For example, the entire first season of the Avengers is missing, but nobody (ok, I'm sure someone out there does) cares because Steed was the sidekick and they didn't have a female sidekick then.
Yeah, I think the next biggest show to have missing episodes after WHO is probably DAD'S ARMY, one of Britain's most beloved sitcoms (it's certainly the only 1960s/70s sitcom with episodes still airing in primetime on the main BBC channels today, which is remarkable). And there's only three missing episodes from that show, so it's much less of a problem. THE AVENGERS is probably the next-most-significant after that.
I think the process in the USA was restricted to very early programmes (from the 1950s) and live sports events and chat shows. Dramas seem to have - mostly - survived intact because the USA cottoned onto the value of repeats and syndication much earlier than the UK (rather fortunately for the likes of STAR TREK and THE TWILIGHT ZONE).
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Chief Technical Officer
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I can't imagine Dr. Who is the only sho with "lost episodes".
Not even close. Just spotlighting some of the "most wanted":
Here is a list of notable British TV series with missing episodes. There's plenty more than that, though, and even that second list is incomplete (as any list will always be).
Though the BBC was particularly thoughtless with respect to the things they wiped, they weren't the only people who failed to archive things.
Here is a list of missing movies. (And here is the British Film Institute's list of 75 "most wanted" lost movies.)
There are also lost radio shows, including almost two dozen performances by the Beatles (the ones marked with an X in the leftmost column here).
Speaking of The Beatles, they appear in Doctor Who in the Hartnell story "The Chase" by way of a clip taken from the show Top of the Pops. That episode of Top of the Pops is itself lost, so the clip in Doctor Who is the currently only surviving recording of that performance.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Anything that was filmed on video or that has only a 16mm transfer source won't gain anything from being on blu-ray....
Not strictly true, at least for buyers of NTSC DVDs like you and I...
With the exception of the TV Movie*, every Doctor Who episode made starting with The Enemy of the World (1968) right on through to The Next Doctor (2008) used a standard that potentially offers more resolution than our US DVD transfers**. The classic series episodes during that period used 625-line PAL (which actually has 576 lines of picture content), and the modern series episodes during that period used 576i digital video. NTSC DVDs offer 480 lines of picture content.
The new Series 1–7 Blu-Ray Gift Set includes 1080p upconversions from the 576i episodes, so even through those episodes weren't shot in HD, those Blu-Rays are able to reveal the full resolution of the source material, which the US DVDs do not.
*The TV movie used 525-line NTSC, which has 483 lines of picture content, so the US DVD gives you pretty much all you're going to get.
**That potential would not exist for episodes where the original master has been lost and the best surviving source did not capture the full resolution of the original.
***
Also, even though nearly every episode of the classic series used videotape for the broadcast masters, many of those stories used film for location work and for special effects shots, and some of that film still exists and could be rescanned in HD and coupled with upconverted video for a Blu-Ray release. (Mouse over the image of Peter Davison on this page to see what rescanning did for Castrovalva...)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Anything that was filmed on video or that has only a 16mm transfer source won't gain anything from being on blu-ray....Not strictly true, at least for buyers of NTSC DVDs like you and I...
With the exception of the TV Movie*, every Doctor Who episode made starting with The Enemy of the World (1968) right on through to The Next Doctor (2008) used a standard that potentially offers more resolution than our US DVD transfers**. The classic series episodes during that period used 625-line PAL (which actually has 576 lines of picture content), and the modern series episodes during that period used 576i digital video. NTSC DVDs offer 480 lines of picture content.
I should really mention that a far more reasonable way to get access to that extra resolution is just to buy a region-free DVD player and get the PAL DVDs.
Anything that was filmed on video or that has only a 16mm transfer source won't gain anything from being on blu-ray....Not strictly true, at least for buyers of NTSC DVDs like you and I...
Woohoo, finally being in the UK pays off for me! :)
Several emails have been recovered from the British Film Institute thanks to a Freedom of Information request. That means these are definitely legit.
Email 1 is fairly innocuous, mentioning the two stories confirmed to be back. However, it does say later on that there will be a 'more extensive' revelation about the find, suggesting that more episodes have indeed been found.
Email 2 is more interesting. This confirms that a larger number has been discovered than the ones already at the BBC. The number at the BBC has been redacted, but based on comments all around this may be the 9 already returned (or 11, counting the two new copies of episodes that already existed in the BBC archives). The email agrees this number may be as high as 90, but only going by rumour.
The BFI is providing important support to the recovery effort and is a handy PR conduit, but it should be noted that it is not an intimate part of the negotiations between the BBC, Morris and the TV stations in question. From this, we can ascertain that 'more' episodes have been found than have been announced so far, but not the extent of them. More concerning is that the state of the episodes remains unclear: more may have indeed been found but it's possible that only the 9 revealed so far are usable.
DWA is tracking the rumours and reports in detail. Their latest report is about the other TV shows (other than WHO) which have been found.
The next likely time for an announcement is on 21 December when a big event is held at the BFI in London. However, it is believed that if there is an announcement, it will be more about other 1950s and 1960s shows other than WHO (the writers Galton and Simpson who did a lot of work with Tony Hancock are attending, so some of his missing work may have resurfaced).
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Chief Technical Officer
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I am very confident that at the time Enemy of the World and Web of Fear were announced, they had nothing solid other than than some new leads to pursue.
I should add to that: I still believe that that was the case at the time, but I also currently believe that the situation has probably changed since then.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Email 2 is more interesting. This confirms that a larger number has been discovered than the ones already at the BBC. The number at the BBC has been redacted, but based on comments all around this may be the 9 already returned (or 11, counting the two new copies of episodes that already existed in the BBC archives).
It says it's redacted due to a "Section 41 exemption," which you can read about here. Section 41 says "For information to be 'confidential' it must also be ‘inaccessible’ in the sense of not being in the public domain or a matter of public knowledge. Whether information is in the public domain is a question of degree; it will depend on the circumstances and the extent of public knowledge at the time when disclosure is requested."
So, if the disclosure request was made *before* the official press release, that number *could* be 9 or 11... but if it was made after, it *can't* be 9 or 11.
Got a Tweet back from DWA. The FOI request was made on 9 November, so quite some time after the official press announcement on 10 October.
That suggests it is indeed a higher figure.
* smokes pipe of speculation, raise eye-brow and says, "A-ha!" *
Apparently the BFI event on 21 December is unlikely to talk about WHO and will instead discuss other finds, including the three missing episodes of DAD'S ARMY (quite possibly Britain's most popular sitcom of all time) that have been found. To be honest, that's going to be huge in of itself, if true. The BBC will be tripping over themselves to get out a 'complete series' box set ASAP.
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Apparently the BFI event on 21 December is unlikely to talk about WHO and will instead discuss other finds, including the three missing episodes of DAD'S ARMY (quite possibly Britain's most popular sitcom of all time) that have been found. To be honest, that's going to be huge in of itself, if true. The BBC will be tripping over themselves to get out a 'complete series' box set ASAP.
Jones: Don't panic, I said DON'T PANIC!
<grabs Wilson>
Didn't you hear me, I said DON'T PANIC!
<cue mass panic>
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Well, we DO have a couple of Doctor Who's afficionados in our gaming group ;-)So, when do we know the truth about all that ?
Doctor who has never been popular here, but after reading you, it might just be my thing.
Yeah, but strangely enough, I won't classify you guys as "mainstream" for some unknown reason :)
The full contents of the haul have not yet been revealed, but it is highly believed to include the three missing episodes of Dad's Army and 'more' missing episodes of Doctor Who, though how many remains unknown. Episodes of Steptoe and Son and Hancock's Half Hour are also rumoured to be in the pile.
Doctor Who superfan Ian Levine has also confirmed that he has recovered five episodes of Doctor Who from Taiwan, where they were - bizarrely - stored after being shown to visiting American GIs during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, all five of the episodes were additional copies of ones already extant in the BBC archives, but still, it was a good lead and raises hopes there is still more stuff out there.