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Post by John Wall on Feb 16, 2012 11:33:01 GMT
All these unknown unknowns
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Feb 16, 2012 12:32:08 GMT
possibilities for the suvival of marco polo are extremely slim - here are some: the bbc master copies were saved from the junking process and are now somewhere in private hands the ethiopian copies were not destroyed and are either in their archive either undocumented or misfiled (although i'm sure this scenario has been investigated thoroughly by now) the ethiopian copies fell into private hands in ethiopia or were returnrd to the bbc and somehow survived the junking process and fell into private hands here. the two eps sent to iran from new zealand have survived through the same type of scenarios detailed above. the five episodes left in new zealand survived their destruction their and are now in private hands - unlikely given the discovery of the empty film can of ep7 or another country's separate prints outside the ethiopian bicycling group survived through processes already described above.
are there any other ways this story could have survived? and can any of the above scenarios be absolutly positively be eliminated now?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2012 12:53:18 GMT
Out of interest, what might a retrogressive list from a mid 2011 perspective look like with regards to the chances of Galaxy Four Ep 3 and Underwater Menace Ep 2 surviving? And could any possibilities have been immediately struck off from there?
Hello, by the way. I've been lurking with interest for a couple of months now, and this is a quite fascinating (if somewhat angry) place. Very diverting!
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Post by Richard Marple on Feb 16, 2012 12:56:38 GMT
I did read that some countries didn't buy the historicals when they wern't connectied to their own histories.
Aslo how seriously did Disney consider making a film version of Marco Polo? Not too much from what I remember, but was it enough to affect sales like the proposed Dalek TV series did?
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 16, 2012 13:08:37 GMT
Aslo how seriously did Disney consider making a film version of Marco Polo? Not too much from what I remember, but was it enough to affect sales like the proposed Dalek TV series did? The proposal was nothing more than a fleeting enquiry. It certainly wouldn't have had any bearing on the BBC selling Marco Polo as Disney didn't have any rights to the story - unlike Terry Nation with his Dalek creations.
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Feb 16, 2012 19:20:36 GMT
What never ceases to amaze me is the seemingly utter randomness of the junkings and the wiping of Marco Polo is a case in point.How was it that such a flagship BBC serial such as Marco Polo,which even had a Radio Times cover in 1964,was destroyed but rubbish such as Edge of Destruction was retained.I love classic Dr.Who but I will never ever sit through Edge of Destruction ever again!Marco Polo had style,a cracking script,beautiful incidental music,major TV stars such as Mark Eden and Derren Nesbitt ( both of whom co-starred with Patrick McGoohan in the Prisoner),you name it,but it was junked!Why was this???
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Post by John F Brayshaw on Feb 16, 2012 20:54:51 GMT
What never ceases to amaze me is the seemingly utter randomness of the junkings and the wiping of Marco Polo is a case in point.How was it that such a flagship BBC serial such as Marco Polo,which even had a Radio Times cover in 1964,was destroyed but rubbish such as Edge of Destruction was retained.I love classic Dr.Who but I will never ever sit through Edge of Destruction ever again!Marco Polo had style,a cracking script,beautiful incidental music,major TV stars such as Mark Eden and Derren Nesbitt ( both of whom co-starred with Patrick McGoohan in the Prisoner),you name it,but it was junked!Why was this??? Maybe you gave the reason royalties to the actors involved. Nesbitt's best role was in Where Eagles Dare......
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Post by Robbie Denning on Feb 16, 2012 21:47:23 GMT
The randomness isn't so much what was wiped and junked,it's more what was purchased by foreign broadcasters and what did/didn't come back as a result.
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 16, 2012 23:00:25 GMT
What never ceases to amaze me is the seemingly utter randomness of the junkings and the wiping of Marco Polo is a case in point.How was it that such a flagship BBC serial such as Marco Polo,which even had a Radio Times cover in 1964,was destroyed but rubbish such as Edge of Destruction was retained.I love classic Dr.Who but I will never ever sit through Edge of Destruction ever again!Marco Polo had style,a cracking script,beautiful incidental music,major TV stars such as Mark Eden and Derren Nesbitt ( both of whom co-starred with Patrick McGoohan in the Prisoner),you name it,but it was junked!Why was this??? I doubt DW was considered "a flagship" back then. It was just one of many that the BBC was making at the time. All programmes had a rights expiry period. Once that date was reached, either an extension was sought, or that was it. In the case of Marco, that was it. So the negs were junked, and any and all prints that were returned met with the same fate. Think of it like the "use by date" on a perishable product. After that date, it can't be sold.
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Post by Brad Phipps on Feb 17, 2012 1:00:23 GMT
What never ceases to amaze me is the seemingly utter randomness of the junkings and the wiping of Marco Polo is a case in point.How was it that such a flagship BBC serial such as Marco Polo,which even had a Radio Times cover in 1964,was destroyed but rubbish such as Edge of Destruction was retained.I love classic Dr.Who but I will never ever sit through Edge of Destruction ever again!Marco Polo had style,a cracking script,beautiful incidental music,major TV stars such as Mark Eden and Derren Nesbitt ( both of whom co-starred with Patrick McGoohan in the Prisoner),you name it,but it was junked!Why was this??? I doubt DW was considered "a flagship" back then. It was just one of many that the BBC was making at the time. All programmes had a rights expiry period. Once that date was reached, either an extension was sought, or that was it. In the case of Marco, that was it. So the negs were junked, and any and all prints that were returned met with the same fate. Think of it like the "use by date" on a perishable product. After that date, it can't be sold. So in the case of the 'back catalogue' sale to Singapore in 1972, extensions were sought for those, is that right?
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 17, 2012 8:41:39 GMT
So in the case of the 'back catalogue' sale to Singapore in 1972, extensions were sought for those, is that right? Not necessarily. The rights periods were sometime five years, sometimes seven: 1966+5=1971, in which case the actual sales contract could well have been 'signed' in late 1971 for a 1972 transmission ; or 1966+7=1973, in which case 1972 was still within the first rights period.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 17, 2012 9:27:08 GMT
The BBC's rights for Marco Polo ran out in 1969. They then arranged with John Lucarotti an extension for a further five years to take them through to 1974.
As the sales of the story had dried up by that time, no further extension was sought and Enterprised could then dispose of their telerecordings to make space for material that was generating money.
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Post by Jaspal Cheema on Feb 17, 2012 12:49:46 GMT
On a side note,how DID Edge of Destruction avoid junking?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2012 13:08:29 GMT
I thought the reason it survived was that the bulk of Seasons One and Two had arrived back at BBC Enterprises and, in line with policy at the time, was sitting there awaiting junking, when Ian Levine happened upon them.
Not sure from which country those episodes had been returned, but presumably one that hadn't wanted Marco Polo, Reign of Terror, etc.
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 17, 2012 16:31:20 GMT
On a side note,how DID Edge of Destruction avoid junking? BBC always had the negatives. Like most of seasons one and two, they had the rights sort of "in perpetuity", which meant they didn't expire or need to renegotiate those rights. Only the historials, such as Marco, and all later seasons, were not "in perpetuity". The common explanation that they survive because they were returned from overasesa (Algeria being a common location) is really nonsensical - they speak French and Arab there, and would have been supplied with the pre-dubbed Arabic episodes in circulation, so why would the station also want English negatives?
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