Should the master tape for Dimensions in Time be wiped?

[Deleted]

Just thought I'd play Devil's Advocate here, take the side of the BBC Engineers who used to wipe master tapes of programmes, and objectively ask: what on earth does the purpose of keeping Dimensions in Time on its master tape serve? The Restoration Team made this statement regarding it's DVD release:

Dimensions in Time was an insert in the BBC's Children in Need charity telethon. As the artistes taking part gave their time free of charge it was agreed that BBC Worldwide (then BBC Enterprises) would never seek to exploit it commercially in any form.

So, if the tape is never going to be required for a decent restoration job for DVD or Blu-ray, why on earth keep it? Surely this is a case of ordering the erasure of this tape (under: Of no further interest), to create some much needed valuable shelf space?

For those that do want it, the story is always going to be available online:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQCeMIQpFBc

So, it's not a case of a lost story, just really a question of why keep the master tape?

What are people's thoughts on this? Is this a case where wiping something can be justified?

[Robert Lia]

Its still a performance of the actors. Keep it for posterity. Who knows the rules might get changed 20 or 30 years down the line on a release of it. Even so you want to save the original master for posterity even if it cant and wont be seen again.

[garygraham]

It'll be out of copyright one day.

As for it always being online. Who knows? And in the future people may not have their own physical copy (such as a DVD) of things like that.

I reckon very little will survive from this digital era outside of archives. Most people don't back up effectively and are even less likely to long term. We might think that companies such as YouTube will keep everything. But they won't. I wonder if all those GeoCities websites still exist at Yahoo or somewhere?

[timmunton]

Definitely keep it & preserve it in optimum nick:

I'm sure there must be legal & ethical ( ie to be in the spirit of the original not-for-profit agreement ) ways of having it restored & released onto disc - as with a lot of things it probably just takes a bit of imagination to get the ball rolling :

Of the top of my head here's an idea :
It appears on a disc of other material ( eg 5 Doctors/Survival/ McGann movie or wherever - I mention these 3 as they have a chronological connection or thematic similarity to DIT ) -

The release on disc is apportioned in terms of the complete running time of its main feature plus the DIT special feature :
If DIT is say 10 percent of that running time then 10 percent of all profits from the release go to the CIN charity -
possibly the percentage might be increased a lot to account for the rarity draw of DIT to buyers; say from 10 to 30 percent of the profits for example :


Then - as long as the main feature is something that would be deemed to be very likely to sell quite well even without DIT ( so that profit isn't being made in a sort of roundabout way from DIT ) then I don't see how this could be deemed to be against the spirit of the non-profit agreement.


The legal issues are a different matter - I have no idea whether such a method as I have suggested would comply with all relevant legal requirements; & it would be interesting if any other forum members can shed any light on that aspect.

On a personal note I've watched DIT, two, maybe three times at most, & ( having prepared myself with a large pinch of mental salt before hand ) quite enjoy it ( despite loathing Eastenders ).
I think I enjoyed it because the tackiness of the soap characters & related baggage, mixed up with Who, although still rather tacky & incongrous, is certainly surreal & quite entertainingly absurd ( though they could have made the first two Doctors element a bit less of a condescending-seeming afterthought ).

The only really lamentable thing is that this lump of entertaining somewhat cheesey absurdity, seems to then have been taken as the actual template for the truly deplorable, almost 180-degrees gross distortion of the essence of Doctor Who which is
( imho of course ) the glorified soap of new-Who as confected by RTD & his successor !

...which somehow, unlike DIT, instead of being met mainly with derison, was greeted in most quarters as some sort of messianic aesthetic success!!

[samnurden]

It'll be out on DVD, someday. But like you said, it's online, so it'll never be gone, gone. I think companies have well and truly learned not to destroy anything after situations like ours with the missing episodes.

[zaqwilson]

I saw it once. Can probably go the rest of my life without seeing it again, but don't wipe it. It exists. It was broadcast. We have lost enough through short sightedness. Future generations may desire it. New who fans need to be able to look back and see it if they choose. Take the bad with the good.

To me its similar to the Star Wars Holiday Special in a way. If wiped, it might take on mythical status and be perceived as far superior to the reality. Easy to destroy, hard to create (or recover). Just because I believe its lacking in quality, im sure there are others who adore it for one reason or another.

I think we should not tempt fate with further wiping. Lets preserve what we have. Having less than stellar productions extant help us to value the good ones even more. I must add, that sometimes train wrecks are hard to watch ...but... sometimes you just cant turn away....

[garygraham]

Sept 7, 2018 2:30:48 GMT timmunton said:

The only really lamentable thing is that this lump of entertaining somewhat cheesey absurdity, seems to then have been taken as the actual template for the truly deplorable, almost 180-degrees gross distortion of the essence of Doctor Who which is
( imho of course ) the glorified soap of new-Who as confected by RTD & his successor !

...which somehow, unlike DIT, instead of being met mainly with derison, was greeted in most quarters as some sort of messianic aesthetic success!!

So true! The easiest less-painful thing is to not think of it as Doctor Who at all. In the same way we ignore the 1960s Tom and Jerry cartoons. 

[Mike Biggs]

Sept 7, 2018 2:25:31 GMT garygraham said:

It'll be out of copyright one day.

As for it always being online. Who knows? And in the future people may not have their own physical copy (such as a DVD) of things like that.

I reckon very little will survive from this digital era outside of archives. Most people don't back up effectively and are even less likely to long term. We might think that companies such as YouTube will keep everything. But they won't. I wonder if all those GeoCities websites still exist at Yahoo or somewhere?

Exactly right. Although the terms last a ridiculous amount of time, copyright isn't forever.

There is the Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/web/) which attempts to archive the internet - although who knows how long that will be around (22 years so far though). The old geocities website were captured by a number of different places before they were shut down.

[Andrew Knight]

I voted for it to be wiped as a matter of personal taste. It was actually billed as a brand new adventure (not a 'skit' as commentators have labelled it over the years), then served up as a pantomime mash up with Eastenders - the most prosaic and life-defeating show on the box that was, I hasten to add, a major reason for the 1985 hiatus due to a need for additional funding. Talk about adding insult to injury. And as for the spitting image puppets of Hartnell and Troughton... has there ever been another time when the programme we love was brought so low? Still, I believe there are laboratories where smallpox is being preserved. So do as you will, but leave me out of it.

[timmunton]

Andrew Knight said :

"... has there ever been another time when the programme we love was brought so low?"

Unfortunately so: ie the 2005+ era; at least in the opinion of myself & Gary Graham ( see postings above ).