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Post by Doug Wulf on Aug 17, 2007 9:56:19 GMT
Marco Polo only was also sent to Ghana, Iran, and Venezuela. Again, the same text can be used for all three. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I have it on good authority from someone who lived in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s that Dr Who did not screen there, on Channel 1, which was the only bordacster until the mid-1980s. The majority of programming that screened was American and locally made fare. Very little if any UK stuff was shown, and what little there was was mainly ITV or Granada rather than BBC. All foreign programming was dubbed into Farsi. I'm sure the two episodes sent to Iran by the NZBC in 1967 were audition prints, two random samples sent to see if Iran wanted to buy the series. It would seem they declined to do so. Of note, Freeman Agyemen's mother is Iranian. She might know for sure if/when Dr Who screened there! Jon Preddle Mauritius, Iran, and Zimbabwe seem particularly fruitless places to search. I list them out of a desire to try to be complete. Not much was sent to these places in the first place, in Mauritius and Iran the episodes may not even have been screened, and in Iran and Zimbabwe the current political situation does not make things any easier.
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Post by Doug Wulf on Aug 17, 2007 10:15:08 GMT
And is it Episode 4 of War Machines that is missing a bit of soldiers versus war machines footage? Besides the UK, what would be your guess at the list of countries that received UNEDITED prints of these two edited episodes? The other way to restore them would be to find the censored footage, but that would be in a TV archive somewhere and not with the general public. I would need a bit more info to add this to the correct lists, if so desired. A batch of cut Hartnells (including the afore-mentioned War Machines) was sent to Singapore from NEw Zealand in 1972. The cut Time Meddler was sent to Nigeria also by the NZBC, in 1973. Jon OK, so Singapore did not receive unedited prints (of both? stories) it would seem. At a rough guess, I would say that in addition to Nigeria, Time Meddler would also have probably been sent to: Australia New Zealand Singapore Zambia Sierra Leone the Caribbean (perhaps Barbados & Jamaica) perhaps also... Ethiopia Gibraltar I base this simply on where The Crusade and Galaxy 4 were sent. Nigeria received the edited print from New Zealand, but perhaps it travelled via some other country. In other words, the edited Nigerian print may have been bicycled to all the other countries on the list for all we know. The list for War Machines might be similar... Australia New Zealand Singapore Zambia Sierra Leone the Caribbean (perhaps Barbados) As you note, Singapore's print was editted in New Zealand. Thus, if you want to add Time Meddler and War Machines to the lists, the ones to add these to would be: UK Australia Zambia Sierra Leone the Caribbean (perhaps Barbados & Jamaica) And perhaps also for War Machines... Ethiopia Gibraltar Again, the benefit of such a find would amount to only a few seconds of film, but again... for the sake of completeness... By the way, I want to know more about what happened to the prints that Singapore screened. Is there anything known of whether these were destroyed, bicycled elsewhere, or returned to the UK?
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Post by Ash Stewart on Aug 17, 2007 13:47:40 GMT
I wrote to Mauritius a few years ago now asking about BBC shows in general listing examples of about 20 shows that had missing episodes. They replied stating that the only show they bought (whether that meant at all, or just from the list I'm not sure) was Dr Who and that they had no episodes of it in their archive.
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Post by Greg H on Aug 19, 2007 15:15:20 GMT
Writing to stations is probably a dead end really. If the ones that have been explored a bit have anything else it will probably be uncatalogued or mislabeled or in some obscure corner of their storage facilities I reckon. It would be nice to actually send people to check out all the foreign archives, but in most cases, probably not very practical really.
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Post by johnstewart on Aug 19, 2007 20:17:00 GMT
Writing to stations is probably a dead end really. If the ones that have been explored a bit have anything else it will probably be uncatalogued or mislabeled or in some obscure corner of their storage facilities I reckon. It would be nice to actually send people to check out all the foreign archives, but in most cases, probably not very practical really. I did this years ago. The only people who responded were the CBC who were very helpful. My enquiry covered far more than just 'Who' though; OOTU; Lift Off; Menace; etc.
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Post by Greg H on Aug 20, 2007 5:15:49 GMT
Theres so many awesome shows that are totally unrepresented in the British archives; it is a sin.
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Post by Daniel O'Brien on Aug 20, 2007 7:56:11 GMT
Theres so many awesome shows that are totally unrepresented in the British archives; it is a sin. Not so much a sin as a reflection of the attitudes and requirements of the time. The survival rate for 1960s 'Doctor Who' is quite good compared to many other shows of the era. I've no idea what may be lurking in African film/TV archives. I hope there's an official announcement before the year is out, even if the news is bad or inconclusive.
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Post by Greg H on Aug 20, 2007 11:15:00 GMT
Totally. It would be great to hear some news on the situation this year sometime. There are loads of 60s shows that have not a single episode in the archives, it would be nice to see a bit of that float to the surface, but I havent got a clue what was sold to Africa other than the obvious.....
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Post by Doug Wulf on Aug 20, 2007 15:41:15 GMT
Totally. It would be great to hear some news on the situation this year sometime. There are loads of 60s shows that have not a single episode in the archives, it would be nice to see a bit of that float to the surface, but I havent got a clue what was sold to Africa other than the obvious..... I certainly think that it is easy to get a reply back from an archives in the negative when the more accurate response would be "We don't know." It seems to be human nature to want to give an affirmative or negative reply, rather than to be non-committal. If the information is not known, officials may opt for a reply in the negative, "We no longer have these prints in our archives (... to the best of our knowledge ...as far as what our records state)." However, if any missing episodes still exist in audiovisual archives out there in the world, they will not be in any completely obvious place that is properly marked and catalogued. If they were, they would almost certainly already have been returned long ago to the BBC. Rather, they would exist in some location where some degree of chaotic or random storage conditions exist. Some degree of randomness exists even in the best maintained archives. Thus, film prints can turn up in the basements of churches that once served as archives or film trims from Fury from the Deep can be found in some unexamined film can. However, online descriptions of archives in Zambia, Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa seem to be the very best prospects precisely due to the disarray described to exist there. Even if nothing of interest officially exists according to whatever records are kept, there is at least a chance that something would turn up if such places had an overall audit and reorganization. The decriptions online are of many unlabelled cans that have not been examined for decades. That's exactly the sort of place that should be examined carefully. However, it would take time and money to examine each film reel in turn to verify what is or is not actually there, rather than what supposedly is or is not there.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Sept 1, 2007 21:06:32 GMT
So far I hear from searches in the commonwealth and Africa, which makes me wonder, what about other countries? Were these series never shipped to the continent, or South America, Russia or anywhere else?
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Post by Doug Wulf on Sept 2, 2007 21:08:28 GMT
So far I hear from searches in the commonwealth and Africa, which makes me wonder, what about other countries? Were these series never shipped to the continent, or South America, Russia or anywhere else? Well, as far as Doctor Who goes, look at the earlier set of posts in this same thread that I have put up. Those posts are lists, country by country, for where missing episodes of Doctor Who are believed to have been sent. I've also posted the lists here based on regions on the globe: lostdrwho.proboards52.com/index.cgi?board=generalOther than Venezuela, missing episodes of Doctor Who were not sold to South America. Mexico bought episodes, but apparently none of the missing ones. The Soviet Union didn't buy them, etc. In Asia, Singapore purchased quite a few, as did Hong Kong. The information is based on a document by Richard Molesworth that is found at the RT forum. Since we seem to know where various missing episodes were sent, it would be useful to publicize the missing status of these particular episodes in these particular places. For example, since Ethiopia seems to have been the last place that the first eleven missing episodes of Doctor Who were shown (from Hartnell Seasons 1 & 2), if we don't know what happened to those prints after broadcast, Ethiopia MIGHT be a useful place to put out word on these eleven episodes in particular. I don't believe this kind of strategy has been attempted. It would probably fail, but it would be worth a try. Notices in newspapers and magazines in these areas could work, though this would cost a small amount of money to do, of course. Online postings are free and can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. Again, it would just be the wildest stroke of luck if it actually worked, but it could at least be attempted.
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Post by Doug Wulf on Sept 2, 2007 21:22:26 GMT
For example, I posted the list of episodes sent to Uganda to this Yahoo Group dealing with Uganda... groups.yahoo.com/group/Ugandans/?yguid=283757239Unfortunately, the email address did not appear correctly in the posting. I know now to write out an explanation of the address and explaining the 'AT' so it can be read. This is just a complete needle-in-a-haystack sort of inquiry, but not significantly different than any online lost-and-found effort seeking anything else missing. Thinking of creative ways to direct the information about missing episodes outward to the world is something that ordinary Doctor Who fans could try to do. Over time and with enough people doing this, there could be something located. Essentially, it is an advertising or marketing strategy to the problem.
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Post by Doug Wulf on Sept 2, 2007 21:27:13 GMT
And here's a message posted to a forum about Betamax recordings... groups.yahoo.com/group/Betamax/message/1857Again, it is just posted on the off chance that someone who has such a recording sees it or perhaps someone that knows someone who has such a recording sees it. Any particular posting has almost a zero percent chance of success, but with enough postings here and there on the internet, one might make the right connection.
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Sept 3, 2007 16:31:09 GMT
Does that mean none (or none of the missing episodes) were sold to the continent? Was there nothing dubbed in German, French or Spanish or Italian? Sounds very unlikely to me if it wasn't sold to any of these countries. "At last the 1948 show" was partially recovered from Sweden.
I've heard tell that episodes were broadcast for some time in the Netherlands, but I couldn't say which ones. Those will probably have subtitles, but it's better then nothing.
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Post by Doug Wulf on Sept 3, 2007 17:58:11 GMT
Does that mean none (or none of the missing episodes) were sold to the continent? Was there nothing dubbed in German, French or Spanish or Italian? Sounds very unlikely to me if it wasn't sold to any of these countries. "At last the 1948 show" was partially recovered from Sweden. I've heard tell that episodes were broadcast for some time in the Netherlands, but I couldn't say which ones. Those will probably have subtitles, but it's better then nothing. Well, I can only go with what the Molesworth article states. I actually posted a question to the RT forum about whether there were missing episodes sent to Arabic-speaking and Spanish-speaking nations. I had heard some mention of Algeria and Spain in connection to the missing episodes. I didn't really get back a clear answer. Someone mentioned that the Arabic-dubbed episodes were sent to Iran, but that makes no sense. Iran is a Farsi-speaking nation. Molesworth article states countries KNOWN to have purchased missing episodes. I wonder if there could have been some way that certain episodes dubbed into other languages might have been overlooked in some cases in this list.
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