Simon Collis
Member
I have started to dream of lost things
Posts: 536
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Post by Simon Collis on Mar 24, 2018 23:59:52 GMT
Based on the fact they were the only copies shipped out? Do we have any records on how many were created (struck from the negatives)? Viewing copies? It is entirely possible they were from the returned set, but this too is an unknown. You know what they say about "assuming"..... If Australia had bought it, it would have then been viable for others. They didn’t.... Just to play devil's advocate the other way round (I love contradicting myself), we thought that most of series 1 of the Avengers wasn't telerecorded, as it wasn't sold abroad. Yet there's been a couple of episodes recovered recently that shouldn't, in theory, exist. I like to think there's hope, and people with more specialist knowledge and experience are out there hunting for these things. And hopefully, if they are around, they will turn up. Maybe one day I'll get to see "The Feast Of Steven", some more episodes of "Out Of This World", and some others of "Not Only But Also" - then maybe I'll be able to watch a David Attenborough wildlife documentary without feeling angry at the man the whole time (which, yes, is very irrational and silly, but I can't help that. I'm not really an emotionless cyberman, even if I do have a history of making very silly jokes about it...)
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Mar 25, 2018 3:05:58 GMT
This "cult of documentation" is stupid, given that we know not everything was officially documented and not all official documentation was kept.
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Post by John Wall on Mar 25, 2018 19:06:12 GMT
This "cult of documentation" is stupid, given that we know not everything was officially documented and not all official documentation was kept. That’s right, but let’s put things in context. There was far more than Dr Who. Lots of programmes were being sold all round the world - there were probably thousands and thousands of prints around. To make a print - from a negative - has a cost for the media and developing and someone’s time. For Dr Who the foreign sales and broadcasts have been very thoroughly investigated. Of course listings in newspapers, etc were prepared and printed before transmission so if there was a late change it might not have happened. Notwithstanding all of that in any system involving people.......Niuff said! There may well be more prints of MEs around and it’s possible that more prints of some things were struck - and not documented - but I wouldn’t anticipate large numbers. The possibility of something as a “favour” can’t be eliminated but not many had personal 16mm equipment and there’s a limit to how many can be “lost” in the system.
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Post by Ralph Rose on Mar 25, 2018 22:13:57 GMT
The fascinating thing about the missing episodes is that there will never be a 100% certainty that every avenue has been searched. There is a possibility that there are no more missing episodes left in existence as of this date. It's also possible that the Feast of Steven may have been telerecorded, as a theorized blanket policy.
Could there have been more than one set of copies of Masterplan struck in anticipation of other sales, only to have it fall through?
So with all the uncertainty, I stand on the caution of hope. I know that there are episodes lost forever, and I hope there are some still around waiting to be discovered.
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Post by Luke Sherlaw on Mar 25, 2018 23:18:23 GMT
The fascinating thing about the missing episodes is that there will never be a 100% certainty that every avenue has been searched. Whilst "fascinating" is one word for it, I think "Painful" would be equally as fitting. I know John has already mentioned the term "clutching at straws" in here, well, what i'm about to say may be interpreted as just that by some people on here: another thing that perhaps naively gives me hope is just the randomness of what we have. Why do we have The Underwater Menace episodes 2 and 3 but not 1 and 4? Surely if someone were to salvage them before destruction (assuming all episodes were available to them), they'd take all 4 (this mindset would apply even to non-fans of the show) if all 4 were available to take. Conversely...some people would probably believe that episodes 1 and 4 would be the best to take. I know this idea is more tenuous in the UK where junking dates were erratic and some episodes from the same serial were sometimes junked months or years apart, but I feel it's more solid for copies sent abroad: If some of the copies sent abroad were to be returned to the UK for destruction, wouldn't all of the episodes from a particular serial be sent back in one batch? i.e all prints would be together at the point just before they were meant to be shipped back. This means that all episodes from a serial may have been available to an employee that chose to save the prints, thus surely in at least one case where an employee saved episodes that were meant to be junked...they saved all episodes from that particular serial. They may have then found their way onto the collector circuit etc. I hope I made at least some sense!
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Post by John Wall on Mar 26, 2018 10:45:02 GMT
A few of the “orphan” episodes seem to have been “liberated” from those returned from Australia in the mid 70s for destruction. As I’ve noted previously they seem to be like Krynoid pods - they travel in pairs. It would appear that cans were piled up somewhere awaiting destruction and someone passing by picked up a couple - probably those on the top of the pile. Depending upon when they passed determined what they got. I suspect they had a bag, briefcase, etc that only had room for a couple of cans. They may have had a friend, relative, etc who collected 16mm films. Airlock and UM2 seem to have “escaped” that way and then passed through several owners before Ralph Montagu recovered them from a collector who didn’t know they were missing.
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Post by Chris Wilkinson on Mar 26, 2018 10:48:11 GMT
The fascinating thing about the missing episodes is that there will never be a 100% certainty that every avenue has been searched. Whilst "fascinating" is one word for it, I think "Painful" would be equally as fitting. I know John has already mentioned the term "clutching at straws" in here, well, what i'm about to say may be interpreted as just that by some people on here: another thing that perhaps naively gives me hope is just the randomness of what we have. Why do we have The Underwater Menace episodes 2 and 3 but not 1 and 4? Surely if someone were to salvage them before destruction (assuming all episodes were available to them), they'd take all 4 (this mindset would apply even to non-fans of the show) if all 4 were available to take. Conversely...some people would probably believe that episodes 1 and 4 would be the best to take. I know this idea is more tenuous in the UK where junking dates were erratic and some episodes from the same serial were sometimes junked months or years apart, but I feel it's more solid for copies sent abroad: If some of the copies sent abroad were to be returned to the UK for destruction, wouldn't all of the episodes from a particular serial be sent back in one batch? i.e all prints would be together at the point just before they were meant to be shipped back. This means that all episodes from a serial may have been available to an employee that chose to save the prints, thus surely in at least one case where an employee saved episodes that were meant to be junked...they saved all episodes from that particular serial. They may have then found their way onto the collector circuit etc. I hope I made at least some sense! You'd be surprised. The serials we do have fit into a mostly consistent pattern; it's only the orphan episodes that shake it up. Nearly all of the serials we have today were either found at the BBC Film Library in 1977, Villiers House in 1978, or the BFI. The Underwater Menace only has two of its episodes in existence because only one episode (#3) was in any one of these three repositories (in this case, the Film Library). The other episode (#2) was recovered from a private collector, and as with many of these orphan prints, its likely that they were saved from junking by certain BBC staff. It's the same case with many of the other serials.
The fact that these orphan episodes are so sporadic is because not all episodes of a particular serial may have been available for taking by BBC staff. Depending on how the junking process worked, it seems as though episodes were bundled into piles after being sorted through (and marked with the infamous red destruction sticker) and then left at the doors of the building ready for the bin lorry to come along and take them. Having been sorted through, there is no guarantee that the episodes in one particular bundle all belonged to the same serial.
As for the second point, the answer is not necessarily as it depends on whether the film prints could all be located in time and centrally stored for a bulk return. I wouldn't be so sure on the availability of prints either, as it depends exactly how many fell into the hands of the employee to start with - if several people are tasked to do the same job, only one of them may have been responsible for saving the episodes. Secondly, it depends how many they could reasonably get away with concealing - it would be hilarious to imagine a BBC employee running out to their car with a huge pile of Doctor Who prints about to be junked being chased by security! You must remember as well that these episodes were junked over a long period of time, making them easier to 'save'. Pick out one or two episodes every few months, and you might get away with it.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Mar 27, 2018 10:11:12 GMT
In short, if you're going to nick something that's supposed to go in the bin, do it quickly and in such a way that the items won't be missed. You might not want to take the risk of sorting through the whole pile. (At ABC Perth they often left unwanted items in the staff lounge before dumping them. All unofficial of course. No programme material, though.)
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Post by John Wall on Mar 27, 2018 10:42:57 GMT
In short, if you're going to nick something that's supposed to go in the bin, do it quickly and in such a way that the items won't be missed. You might not want to take the risk of sorting through the whole pile. (At ABC Perth they often left unwanted items in the staff lounge before dumping them. All unofficial of course. No programme material, though.) Absolutely, you’re passing and you grab a couple of cans and put them in your bag - few seconds.
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Post by zaqwilson on Mar 28, 2018 1:17:23 GMT
In short, if you're going to nick something that's supposed to go in the bin, do it quickly and in such a way that the items won't be missed. You might not want to take the risk of sorting through the whole pile. (At ABC Perth they often left unwanted items in the staff lounge before dumping them. All unofficial of course. No programme material, though.) Absolutely, you’re passing and you grab a couple of cans and put them in your bag - few seconds. Dumpster Diving, or skip surfing is what is deemed as a trip to "Pick 'n' Save!" A quick rescue is a few seconds, but sometimes, just sometimes there's gold in that there trash and requires much rooting around... provided your not averse to the embarrassment.
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Post by Dan Kolb on Jul 19, 2019 2:46:08 GMT
The fascinating thing about the missing episodes is that there will never be a 100% certainty that every avenue has been searched. Then Phil's search will NEVER end...and we will never get to hear the fascinating stories of his travels, much less see any discoveries since he's waiting until the search is done to reveal all.
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Post by Dan Kolb on Jul 19, 2019 2:49:02 GMT
A few of the “orphan” episodes seem to have been “liberated” from those returned from Australia in the mid 70s for destruction. As I’ve noted previously they seem to be like Krynoid pods - they travel in pairs. It would appear that cans were piled up somewhere awaiting destruction and someone passing by picked up a couple - probably those on the top of the pile. Depending upon when they passed determined what they got. I suspect they had a bag, briefcase, etc that only had room for a couple of cans. They may have had a friend, relative, etc who collected 16mm films. Airlock and UM2 seem to have “escaped” that way and then passed through several owners before Ralph Montagu recovered them from a collector who didn’t know they were missing. Personally, I'd be crawling around on the floor locating the key episodes like Power ep1. If someone questions, I'd just say "Safety inspection sir. This "EE 1" can is a tipsy-looking safety hazard so I'll have to remove it to another location". Hmm..my car boot looks pretty safe...
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Post by Sue Butcher on Jul 20, 2019 3:11:49 GMT
If it was obvious that one of the cans waiting for the bin lorry was a Dalek episode, you might expect a picker to take it. But so far only Evil 2 has been returned from the Troughton junkings.
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Post by Dan Kolb on Jul 20, 2019 5:18:30 GMT
If it was obvious that one of the cans waiting for the bin lorry was a Dalek episode, you might expect a picker to take it. But so far only Evil 2 has been returned from the Troughton junkings. True. Obviously, factors involved are statistics, desirability and opportunity. More copies offer more chances to grab any given item while desirability dictates that the key episodes were a top target but opportunity is the factor we simply can't guess. Was our light fingered Larry (bless him), unfortunately, absent the day that x went through the system? I wonder if anyone tried to interview the people in those positions that might know what got carried off or what definitely was destroyed (using voice/face disguise if needed). I think it could be a very interesting conversation.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 20, 2019 10:08:48 GMT
A few of the “orphan” episodes seem to have been “liberated” from those returned from Australia in the mid 70s for destruction. As I’ve noted previously they seem to be like Krynoid pods - they travel in pairs. It would appear that cans were piled up somewhere awaiting destruction and someone passing by picked up a couple - probably those on the top of the pile. Depending upon when they passed determined what they got. I suspect they had a bag, briefcase, etc that only had room for a couple of cans. They may have had a friend, relative, etc who collected 16mm films. Airlock and UM2 seem to have “escaped” that way and then passed through several owners before Ralph Montagu recovered them from a collector who didn’t know they were missing. Personally, I'd be crawling around on the floor locating the key episodes like Power ep1. If someone questions, I'd just say "Safety inspection sir. This "EE 1" can is a tipsy-looking safety hazard so I'll have to remove it to another location". Hmm..my car boot looks pretty safe... 45 years ago very few knew what was “key” or even what was missing. Afaik the first published list of stories was in the RT 10th anniversary special in 1973 and it was a few years after that that Sue Malden and Ian Levine got involved.
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