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Post by Matthew Kurth on Jun 10, 2014 2:12:12 GMT
Every now and then the discussion of missing episodes circles back to Ian Levine's side of the story when it comes to Pamela Nash, Sue Malden, "The Daleks", et al. This was originally presented in an interview conducted by Gary Leigh published in two parts across DWB #103 & #104 in July-August 1992. Details from the interview were included in a broader piece on the missing episode saga in an article written by Richard Molesworth for The DWB Compendium published in 1993. But since I'm not aware of the original interview being available anywhere else at this time, I've scanned both parts of it and made it available HERE.
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darcysmart
Member
"...Comes from an outside influence. Unless this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin."
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Post by darcysmart on Jun 10, 2014 4:10:37 GMT
Excellent read. Thanks for posting.
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Post by mattplace on Jun 10, 2014 4:35:14 GMT
Agree excellent read. Very interesting
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Post by Ronnie McDevitt on Jun 10, 2014 10:52:10 GMT
Remember finding this a fascinating read at the time but considered it a mistake and rather vindictive of Ian to name Pamela Nash who I heard recieved death threats as a result. Then again perhaps I am being cynical as he mentions plenty of other people during the course of the article but I still question his motives.
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Post by johnforbes on Jun 10, 2014 11:53:40 GMT
Excellent read, but like others have posted, he really does lay into Pamela, yet she was ONLY doing her job. Imo the bitterness is unwarranted.
Would I also be correct in thinking that "the seventeen" assorted eps from abroad that were taken home as being "rescued" by a BBC employee, are the same eps (and the same employee) as the employee who duped the eps and subsequently sold them ?
What surprises me the most however, is that IL was part of a group of super-fans yet all of whom knew nothing whatsoever about film prints of DW being sold at film fairs and such since the mid 1970's. Really made me smile that.
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Jun 10, 2014 12:33:34 GMT
Remember finding this a fascinating read at the time but considered it a mistake and rather vindictive of Ian to name Pamela Nash who I heard recieved death threats as a result. Then again perhaps I am being cynical as he mentions plenty of other people during the course of the article but I still question his motives. Am the only one in thinking that innocent people receiving death threats over a fictional TV character is quite possibly one of the most stupidest acts on this Earth?Or is this just some sort of collective fan myth,that people don't really do this and it's just some fabricated knee-jerk reaction to bad news?Because it seems to me that in doing so,these individuals go against the very nature of the programme they feel so intensely about!
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Post by Rob Moss on Jun 10, 2014 12:51:31 GMT
Given the bile I've seen directed at the poor woman on internet forums over the years, I can quite believe that there could have been death threats...
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Post by Simon Jailler on Jun 10, 2014 13:00:16 GMT
Remember finding this a fascinating read at the time but considered it a mistake and rather vindictive of Ian to name Pamela Nash who I heard recieved death threats as a result. Then again perhaps I am being cynical as he mentions plenty of other people during the course of the article but I still question his motives. "Leopards" & "spots" are a few words that spring to mind. You can't fault him for consistency.
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Post by Matthew Kurth on Jun 10, 2014 13:10:35 GMT
Remember finding this a fascinating read at the time but considered it a mistake and rather vindictive of Ian to name Pamela Nash who I heard recieved death threats as a result. I have mixed feelings about this. The interview depicts Ms. Nash as being the focus of Ian's ire, and as we've seen on Twitter since then, once Ian decides he's mad at someone he unloads with both barrels. So on the one hand, I'm fairly certain that Pamela Nash treated Ian cooly and perhaps even rudely. But if Ian suddenly burst into my office in an ecstasy of righteous indignation and called my job performance into question I'm sure I would have gotten curt and defensive too. All that being said, Ms. Nash is guilty of short-sightedness at the very least. The BBC Engineering side of things is pretty well documented in terms of why VT was erased and recycled, but the BBC Enterprises side still seems murky to me. Ian indicates that the film purge was Nash's idea and that it was done without proper authorization from management within the BBC. I've heard people defend her actions in that the prints in question were no longer commercially viable so she had no reason to retain them. That's fair enough, but I don't think I've yet heard a refutation that the junking program either wasn't her idea, or that she did in fact have sufficient authority to destroy the films, or whether the programs were offered back to the BBC beforehand.
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Post by johnforbes on Jun 10, 2014 13:38:46 GMT
Remember finding this a fascinating read at the time but considered it a mistake and rather vindictive of Ian to name Pamela Nash who I heard recieved death threats as a result. I have mixed feelings about this. The interview depicts Ms. Nash as being the focus of Ian's ire, and as we've seen on Twitter since then, once Ian decides he's mad at someone he unloads with both barrels. So on the one hand, I'm fairly certain that Pamela Nash treated Ian cooly and perhaps even rudely. But if Ian suddenly burst into my office in an ecstasy of righteous indignation and called my job performance into question I'm sure I would have gotten curt and defensive too. All that being said, Ms. Nash is guilty of short-sightedness at the very least. The BBC Engineering side of things is pretty well documented in terms of why VT was erased and recycled, but the BBC Enterprises side still seems murky to me. Ian indicates that the film purge was Nash's idea and that it was done without proper authorization from management within the BBC. I've heard people defend her actions in that the prints in question were no longer commercially viable so she had no reason to retain them. That's fair enough, but I don't think I've yet heard a refutation that the junking program either wasn't her idea, or that she did in fact have sufficient authority to destroy the films, or whether the programs were offered back to the BBC beforehand. I otoh think that PN is guilty of NO short-sightendess whatsoever. I really don't think she is going to throw BBC content away off her own bat just for the hell of it. If people want to blame anyone other than BBC management, they should imo be blaming Equity. Back in the day the unions had a lot of power. Equity also had a lot. Hence the strict code the BBC had to adhere to re screening eps of Dr Who. Basically, to keep their actors and actresses in work, Equity would prefer no repeats of any programmes whatsoever. No coincidence that in the UK, Dr Who eps were screened once and that was it. Pity the UK didn't have the US's syndication system.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2014 16:29:12 GMT
Great article. It really dose hit home how much Ian Levine has saved. I had no idea about the Curse of Peladon episode 3 being in such awful condition. If anything I admire him much more after reading that article.
I know a lot of people seem to enjoy Ian bashing but this man is a true friend of Doctor Who and without him I doubt we would have much early Doctor Whos in the archive.
One of the great tragedies of this tale is that we were a few years away from the first commercially available video. But that is BBC bureaucrats for you .
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Simon Collis
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I have started to dream of lost things
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Post by Simon Collis on Jun 10, 2014 18:33:04 GMT
Thanks for that Matthew, that's a really good, clean, readable scan there. Very interesting article. I especially like the "we know they made 24 prints of each episode", which we've since learned isn't the case. But it does remind us that there still might - just might - be prints lurking out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered...
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Post by Richard Bignell on Jun 10, 2014 19:02:09 GMT
All that being said, Ms. Nash is guilty of short-sightedness at the very least. The BBC Engineering side of things is pretty well documented in terms of why VT was erased and recycled, but the BBC Enterprises side still seems murky to me. I don't think Pamela Nash is guilty of any such thing. You have to bear in mind that the storage facility for BBC Enterprises telerecordings was not some purpose built archive. It was a small windowless room in Villiers House fitted out with Dexion racking. It's only function was to house the current stock of programming that was selling at that particular moment, so there was absolutely no point in filling the space with dead stock, the rights to which had expired. Think of it in these terms - over a three month period in 1972, when the Doctor Who telerecordings were first being disposed of, Enterprises sold and distributed 3534 separate programmes covering 360 different series. The BBC yearbook covering that year indicates that they were despatching an average of 1600 films and videotapes each month. With that in mind, I think it's quite clear why they couldn't hang onto material indefinitely. I'm afraid that's just Ian talking total nonsense, not for the first time in that interview. Nash was one of several people who authorised the telerecordings be made in the first place and it was her job to manage the programme supply stock. She didn't need authorisation from anyone to dispose of BBC Enterprises bought and paid for stock that was no longer selling.
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Post by brianfretwell on Jun 10, 2014 20:31:55 GMT
Also I'm sure I remember a newspaper article in the '70's saying that the BBC were going to reduce duplicate copies of programmes. Which to me indicates that some of the losses were due to individual areas thinking that other copies had been kept, but not checking before destroying.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Jun 10, 2014 20:42:42 GMT
Nobody was really thinking that way, though. The mindset was simply not to keep hold of the vast majority of programming. Each department knew full well that Engineering were constantly looking to wipe the master videotapes and huge lists were regularly sent to department heads and the organisers for them to release as many as possible for erasure. The Enterpises telerecordings were not looked as being archival copies, they where there for the purposes of overseas sales and there wasn't any archive to keep them in anyway. That wasn't the purpose of the Film Library and the former employees of the library have confirmed in the past that they wouldn't have had any interest or desire in taking the Enterprises off casts, even if they had been offered to them.
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