Missing Episode Rumours 20 years ago

[StevePhillips]

Jul 15, 2013 16:29:30 GMT Greg H said:

Jul 15, 2013 15:40:51 GMT Charles Daniels said:

1) oil rig guy has tp4 or other episodes

I could be mistaken, but wasn't that one of Darren Gregory's bizarre cries for help/ attention? (Whatever his motivation is.......)

I bumped into a "Darren Gregory" by accident on Youtube the other week. At first, I thought, it was just someone using his name, but a few PMs later confirmed that, sadly, it's the same nutter from 25 years ago. What on earth must the inside of his head be like to still getting some sort of gratification doing these hoaxes? Hell, he must be in his fifties by now. He was recycling the old '"Invasion" episode 1 without sound' rumour - it was in his loft etc. etc. etc. At one point he pointed to a certain infamous article by Dr Paul Lee as "proof" of this. As someone who has generally kept out of this "missing episode" stuff for the last 20 years, it was all a real blast from the nutty past, I can tell you.

[Alan Hayes]

TP4 was definitely NOT Darren Gregory. In fact, I know the two then Hendon-based gentlemen behind the scam. It started as something intended as a bit of fun, an experiment to see if a fake missing episode could bring a real one out of the woodwork, but soon got totally out of hand. Not least when the blank Shibaden tape was sent to the BBC and JN-T announced its recovery without checking the tape (the BBC had no Shibaden players by that point).

It wasn't me before anyone gets that idea - two friends of mine.

[Richard Marple]

I've heard a few references to a hoax script for the Dalek spin-off series turning up in the early 1990s.

Some people were fooled but it was the work of some fans who managed to include a lot of references to Terry Nation's work in it.