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Post by ethanmuse93 on Dec 24, 2018 8:23:28 GMT
This evening my wife and I were going around to a few places in northeastern Oklahoma and found ourselves browsing in a comic book store. The employee on duty was a young woman, probably in her mid-to-late 20s, and it became immediately clear that she was a fellow Whovian. We kept up a conversation with her as we browsed and she was clearly a very experienced fan of both Classic and New Who. I had my eye on their copy of Wiped! Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes by Richard Molesworth and nearly bought it. As we kept browsing and talking she brought up the subject of missing episodes. My wife isn’t as knowledgeable about the history of Classic Who and missing episodes as I am because she never became a fan until the Matt Smith era but I listened attentively as this young woman said things that just seemed too good to be true.
If I remember the timeframe correctly, she told us of how she spent four months intensely researching the missing episodes online. Apparently near the end of those four months, she claimed to have accidentally stumbled across a website dedicated to missing episodes that had a listing of everything currently known to exist. She was shocked because she knew the number of lost episodes was 97, yet this particular website listed the number as being significantly smaller than that, and that it had all known Hartnell and Troughton episodes posted for online viewing on their site. She said that she got through all of the Hartnell era and was less than halfway through the Troughton era when the website was discovered and shut down by the government. But she told me that she watched all but about 20 of Hartnell’s episodes (44 are currently listed as missing) and specifically told me that she watched all of Marco Polo on this website and that some of DMP is still missing. I asked her if what she saw was telesnap recons or complete episodes and she said they were all complete with no telesnaps.
As we were leaving she said that she was going to be looking online some more in hopes that whoever was running that previous website might start up a new one and post everything from the previous one on it and would be willing to share with us when/if she found it. She did say some things that caused me to seriously question her credibility (and possibly her sanity since, for starters, she thought The Purge was a good idea), but my wife said some things to me in the car after we left that got me thinking. She was as skeptical as I was, but suggested that maybe this woman could very well be nerdy/geeky enough to know how to access something I’d never heard of but she called the dark web, and that if she was telling the truth then whatever she was looking at was sure to be on the dark web and not anywhere that regular people would ever know of its existence.
Has anyone else here ever heard of anything like this online?
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Post by adamjordan on Dec 24, 2018 9:34:25 GMT
Complete Bollocks.
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Post by Greg H on Dec 24, 2018 9:40:06 GMT
Hi Ethan! Well, if this was a thing, the likelihood is that it would have gone around fandom like wildfire. Doctor who fans have always circulated the vaguest rumour, even in the days before the internet I have met a few people myself over the last 30+ years who have made a few claims of this or that and so far 100% of them have turned out to be wishful thinking and sometimes, to be blunt, a manifestation of their mental health differences. I would have a look anyway, but to be honest with you, my opinion is that the chances of this being a 'real' thing are around none. Keep us posted with what you find out
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Post by scotttelfer on Dec 24, 2018 13:04:19 GMT
Shame it wasn't me that found it, otherwise we'd all be sitting watching dozens of newly recovered episodes right now because first thing I'd be doing is heading for Marco Polo getting the screen capture going and recording, then at the same time on my other computer and getting started on The Reign of Terror. Phone up a friend of mine getting The Space Pirates done with instructions to start working backwards while I cover the front just in case it goes down in the mean time.
You've just stumbled on someone who was either winding you up or has some serious mental health issues. I refuse to believe anyone that spent months looking for missing episodes would on finding them decide to Netflix and chill rather than attempt to make a copy, especially if they have enough technical knowhow to get on the dark web.
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Post by Hugh Pearson on Dec 24, 2018 13:27:19 GMT
Is Oklahoma one of the states that has legalised the recreational use of marijuana / cannabis?
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Post by Lucy Wagner on Dec 24, 2018 14:48:51 GMT
Yeah, sounds pretty unlikely. I even consider Richard's Christmas song convincing Santa to bring back MEs more likely than a complete collection of MEs being uploaded online, even in the dark web, without even rumours of it spreading like a wildfrie... or an omni rumour. The DW fanbase, especially since the reboot, has more than plenty of nerds and geeks, some of which are also into Classic/Missing Who or at least know of it. It would be very unlikely that she'd be the only one able to find it then, since she claimed to have found it, not even being "invited" or anything. Just found it. That would have been something plenty of people would have been capable of then. Plus, every normal person would have tried to capture at least some record or proof, even if only a few screenshots of MEs which aren't known Telesnaps. Plus, the instances who could have taken it down in some ways don't sound really likely too... "The government" would make no sense at all. We're talking about a weird scifi show and are not in one. The Uploader himself... why should he, after uploading it in the first place? The BBC/rightholder... let's ignore the question of "how?" there for moment. Even if they could pull that of...there's no way the Beeb wouldn't have already stated to commercially use the MEs. They'd probably screen Toymaker or FoS after the Morecambe and Wise screening on boxing day. And another person/hacker seems pretty random, now doesn't it?
Nothing in that story makes sense or adds up. She was probably just trolling/having her fun with you. Or she belives something her mind made up, which would be even more concerning. Either way, there's probably nothing to it. Although, if she could proof me wrong, I'd be more than happy to admit my mistake before downloading my seven episodes of Marco Polo. But that's sadly not going to happen....
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Post by ethanmuse93 on Dec 24, 2018 15:34:22 GMT
Thanks for the replies, everyone. And yeah, we both definitely questioned her sanity (like I said, she thought the Purge was a good idea, and she also was telling my wife about her Game of Thrones cosplay and how in costume she looks EXACTLY like Cersei Lannister despite the fact that she’s short and fat and blonde and Lena Heady...isn’t). And since I am currently writing a book on the above-average number of encounters I have with crazy people, I think she just gave me a new chapter:-)
And I seriously doubt that Oklahoma is one of the states that legalized marijuana. It’s one of the most conservative states in the country. A decade ago in Oklahoma it was still legal to shoot and kill anyone simply for trespassing on your property and I haven’t heard of that law changing.
And as for “the government” thing...that was simply my wording to summarize it because what she actually said was far, far stupider. She said she was part-way through the Troughton episodes on this website when the UN wiped the Internet clean in order to stop this website from sharing the lost episodes.
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Post by Robbie Moubert on Dec 24, 2018 15:41:39 GMT
You only have to think about her claim for a few seconds before it falls apart. Absolute nonsense.
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Post by Greg H on Dec 24, 2018 16:24:57 GMT
And as for “the government” thing...that was simply my wording to summarize it because what she actually said was far, far stupider. She said she was part-way through the Troughton episodes on this website when the UN wiped the Internet clean in order to stop this website from sharing the lost episodes. Ah yes, the UN, traditional enemies of doctor who fans everywhere. I heard they were personally responsible for Sylvester McCoy's tenure as the doctor. Anyway, here's a little song for the Oklahoma fantasist
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Post by ethanmuse93 on Dec 24, 2018 16:34:31 GMT
I just remembered another story she told us last night. Apparently David Tennant was scheduled to appear at a convention in a neighboring state. Someone in Tulsa found out about it and asked if he’d be willing to come and give a lecture at their university. He agreed and didn’t charge anything to come. She heard about it three weeks in advance and got to attend.
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Post by Lucy Wagner on Dec 24, 2018 21:16:54 GMT
And as for “the government” thing...that was simply my wording to summarize it because what she actually said was far, far stupider. She said she was part-way through the Troughton episodes on this website when the UN wiped the Internet clean in order to stop this website from sharing the lost episodes. Ah yes, the UN, traditional enemies of doctor who fans everywhere. I heard they were personally responsible for Sylvester McCoy's tenure as the doctor. Anyway, here's a little song for the Oklahoma fantasist Probably in revenge for their representation in Capaldi's last season... just a few years in advance ;-)
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Post by scotttelfer on Dec 24, 2018 21:53:50 GMT
Ah yes, the UN, traditional enemies of doctor who fans everywhere. I heard they were personally responsible for Sylvester McCoy's tenure as the doctor. Anyway, here's a little song for the Oklahoma fantasist Probably in revenge for their representation in Capaldi's last season... just a few years in advance ;-)
I mean they did send a very strongly worded letter to BBC Wales demanding that their name be removed from the UNIT acronym.
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Post by tom rogers on Dec 24, 2018 22:18:32 GMT
(Snip) And as for “the government” thing...that was simply my wording to summarize it because what she actually said was far, far stupider. She said she was part-way through the Troughton episodes on this website when the UN wiped the Internet clean in order to stop this website from sharing the lost episodes. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! And it sounds about right for Oklahoma ...
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Post by John Wall on Dec 24, 2018 23:04:04 GMT
If something sounds too good to be true it probably is.
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Post by nathangeorge on Dec 24, 2018 23:44:19 GMT
I'm always wary of people telling me Who-related things they think I want to hear. Ever since 1990 when my schoolfriend told me a new series of Doctor Who was due to start on Wednesdays on Channel 4. Three weeks I turned on Channel 4 at the time he said, and eachtime I was dissopointed. In my defence I was 6 years old at the time but I learnt a lesson. Some people, for reasons known only to themselves, like to spin tales like this. The reasons why mystify me but it happens.
(Btw, I got a slight measure of revenge on my school friend by scaring him for weeks over a story I made up about a "haunted" tree in the field next to our school. He learnt a lesson too; don't mess with a Who fan)
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