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Post by John Wall on Aug 16, 2021 20:07:33 GMT
Problem is that from Season 1, apart from a couple of episodes of Reign of Terror that have been animated, we’re just missing Marco Polo which, despite a decent number of sales, seems a bit of a forelorn hope 👎 From Season Two it’s a couple of episodes of The Crusade. You know, I’m not so sure. Call it a gut feeling but I still think some of Marco Polo will eventually surface. Don’t forget there’s (possibly) a couple of episodes still mouldering away in Iran. I’m watching Marco Polo on Netflix at the moment but no sign of a Police Box so far. I wonder if Iran is included in the half dozen? Not a good part of the world to go ME hunting though…….
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Post by John Wall on Aug 16, 2021 14:53:08 GMT
Seeing as Series 1 and 2 were sold abroad the most, I expect anything from those stories. Also Wheel in Space seems to have been sold a lot more than the other missing stories of series 5, so that's possible. I don't think we will see another episode from a story with no current surviving episodes. Problem is that from Season 1, apart from a couple of episodes of Reign of Terror that have been animated, we’re just missing Marco Polo which, despite a decent number of sales, seems a bit of a forelorn hope 👎 From Season Two it’s a couple of episodes of The Crusade.
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Post by John Wall on Aug 15, 2021 10:34:39 GMT
As has been pointed out, almost anything could turn up. We’ve got three episodes of Masterplan - a story that was never sold abroad.
One I’d rate as close to impossible is Feast of Stephen but I certainly wouldn’t eliminate anything else.
I think that more recoveries from foreign broadcasters are unlikely - there can’t be many, if any, that PM hasn’t now visited. It’s just about possible that some could’ve escaped destruction abroad like The Lion. Something I’ve asked before is which foreign countries have/had 16mm collecting as a hobby? That’s probably the best criteria for MEs surviving foreign destruction.
The other possible source is the batch returned from Australia in the 70s and from which returned MEs are known to have come. We know that DW episodes were “liberated” from that so there could be a couple more.
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Post by John Wall on Aug 13, 2021 19:38:23 GMT
Strangely you don't really heard a lot about that, do you. On the plus side, working separately has advantages too. If people bear a grudge against the BBC ánd Kaleidoscope, they could return lost programs there instead. The fact that recoveries will be made public again must be very appealing (depening on what motivations donors have). I must admit that I REALLY appreciate the way that TPTV broadcast the recovered programs. Much much better IMHO than mouldering away in an archive. Perhaps Kaleidoscope should consider starting a TV station too? There’s almost certainly a copyright holder so just because something is found doesn’t mean it can automatically be broadcast. However, TPTV look to have steadily built relationships with copyright holders which is good news 👍 It’s taken a long time but they look to have finally cracked Auntie - Secret Army is, I believe, the first BBC material they’re showing.
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Post by John Wall on Aug 9, 2021 9:59:05 GMT
I’m sure I’ve asked before but are any of the ME hunters here in touch with TPTV?
Collaboration should be a positive thing imho.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 25, 2021 18:29:16 GMT
I saw Season 11 on first transmission and enjoyed it then. Since it’s been out on DVD I’ve watched it all multiple times and I still enjoy it - we think of Sarah Jane with Tom Baker but she’s excellent with Jon Pertwee, making really meaningful contributions to the stories.
The humanity of Malcolm Hulke and Barry Letts come through in Dinosaurs and Spiders and Death to the Daleks, although borrowing from elsewhere, is - with the exception of the root/snake - a solid, workmanlike story that’s technically well executed. Monster of Peladon is a good script, well delivered - and Lis is again great.
Did I mention how good Lis Sladen was?
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Post by John Wall on Jul 25, 2021 14:38:58 GMT
I’m really not sure what Corbychev has to do with Dr Who…… However, I certainly agree that the Hinchcliffe years were a real high 👍 The Pertwee years could be seen as laying the groundwork. A typical Pertwee season had 3 x 6 parters and 2 x 4 parters. A typical Baker season had 5 x 4 parters and 1 x 6 parter. There are, unfortunately, quite a few Pertwee 6 parters that are really only 4 parters but look at the three Hinchcliffe 6 parters: Genesis, Seeds and Talons. Although Seeds is really a 2 + 4 I’d expect all three to figure highly in any list of fan favourites. This, of course, continues what Letts and Dicks started with Season Eight, more “opening nights”. Think about Season Eleven, Dinosaurs and Spiders are both padded out and would have been much “tighter” as four parters although a bit more money would’ve been required. I expect that both Dinosaurs and Spiders could be edited into very good c. 95 minute “movies” - that’s 4 x 25 minutes less the recaps and credits. Hinchcliffe also had the benefit of five seasons learning about colour/CSO, etc, Tom at the top of his game - before it became the Tom Baker show - and before inflation started eating into the budgets and a lot of disruption from strikes. Graham Williams was, I suggest, dealt a poor hand in that he had to tone down some of the aspects that had made the programme successful and got clobbered with inflation and strikes. Nonetheless there are still some good stories that stand up well 40+ years later. Having watched some of the interviews with people who worked with JNT I think the biggest problem was that he’d come up through the technical not creative side of things. I’d characterise his approach as almost “Dr Who by numbers”. He didn’t really understand the creative process so it’d be: Old enemy/monster - tick Foreign location - tick Guest stars - tick Violence/action/explosions - tick Assistant(s) not wearing very much - tick There were some good stories but I think most of the credit should probably go to the likes of Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward. Peter Davison was a good doctor but Colin Baker’s character was all wrong, far too abrasive and unsympathetic, and Sylvester McCoy was just wrong. JNT stayed too long. I agree mostly agree, Season 11 was a mixed bag with some padded stories & the "UNIT family" fading away. Hinchcliffe needed Season 12 to get to grips with the show, & the next two seasons were very good. As mentioned above Graham Williams was unlucky with what was going on at the BBC, and some of his radical ideas for the show didn't always pay off. JNT was also unlucky with with strikes and other problems affecting the BBC, such as the 1983 General Election & the 1988 asbestos scare. While JNT maybe stayed too long, Eric Saward ended up having a negative effect on the show, with too many mercenary stories with the Doctor sidelined. By the time Colin Baker had made the 6th doctor likeable the show had been axed, similary the McCoy era took too long to find it's sweet spot. Having Ian Lavine as an advisor was a double edged sword, especially as there were too many references to older stories that casual viewers might not have seen. I don't think I disagree with much of that! To me Season 11 is sometimes overlooked. Time Warrior, Death to the Daleks and Monster of Peladon are great, Monster - although studio bound - is a six parter that doesn’t drag. Dinosaurs and Spiders have some good ideas and themes and Lis Sladen is excellent throughout the season. There were lots of problems with the JNT era - one that hasn’t been mentioned is that fandom was taking off and he spent quite a lot of time on the publicity treadmill. Neither Barry Letts, Philip Hinchcliffe nor Graham Williams did much in the way of media appearances but JNT almost became the “face” of the show although, as I’ve noted above, his background was technical not creative. Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks and then Philip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes were, between them, almost what today would be called showrunners, they mapped out the seasons and seemed to spark off each other. The interviews on the DVDs/BluRays with Chris Bidmead, Eric Saward and Barry Letts are quite illuminating, seems JNT wanted to go to New Orleans for Two Doctors - nobody knew why! - and I’m still not sure what Spain added, or what Amsterdam contributed to Arc of Infinity. However, the Mona Lisa - and hence Paris - was an integral part of City of Death. As for the influence of Ian Levene…….
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 21:28:25 GMT
Doesn't not even having & TV not watching years worth of episodes undermine your argument!? The production style of original series was in some ways a relic in it's last few years, & wouldn't have helped the pitch for a new series. DWM once had a feature about bringing the series back, which correctly predicted it would have to be shot the way is has been since 2005, & mentions only the established soaps by that point were using multiple VT cameras without a film effect. Perhaps, but you get to the stage where you know what it's going to be like. And I've read about it. I don't accept that multi-camera studio drama was necessarily outdated anymore than the theatre is. It was an art form in its own right. We don't expect to go the theatre and see total reality. So why should we expect it on TV? It's regressive. What it led to was the BBC at one point moaning that it could no longer do the drama it once did. Of course it couldn't: shot all over the place, single camera, then weeks of editing and post-production required. TV Centre was an efficient production line. It’s worth noting, although it’s not always recognised, that TV’s heritage is theatre - cinema was the new art form. As cinema developed from the late 19th century onwards the techniques to tell a story were developed but, with a few exceptions, it was done with a single camera and spliced together afterwards. When TV arrived in the mid 30s there was no video tape. Things could be prerecorded/edited on film but that was time consuming/expensive. An option would be to treat it like theatre and, effectively, put a single camera in the stalls. That, of course, wouldn’t be satisfactory so multi camera was developed, separate cameras for the different shots mixed in real time. For many decades, even after video tape became available, a lot of TV was like a stage play. My personal view is that the people who made things like Dr Who in the multi camera era were far superior to the directors paid millions for feature films. Whether they were at the BBC or ITV they had a limited time and budget and had to plan every scene to get as much in the can as quickly possible with the actors and many large, heavy, cameras moving around the studio in some sort of ballet. I, personally, have no problems watching - and enjoying - something made in the multi camera era as I’m watching a, not the!, master at work 👍
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 18:14:50 GMT
My head hurts.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 17:53:24 GMT
I’m really not sure what Corbychev has to do with Dr Who……
However, I certainly agree that the Hinchcliffe years were a real high 👍
The Pertwee years could be seen as laying the groundwork.
A typical Pertwee season had 3 x 6 parters and 2 x 4 parters. A typical Baker season had 5 x 4 parters and 1 x 6 parter. There are, unfortunately, quite a few Pertwee 6 parters that are really only 4 parters but look at the three Hinchcliffe 6 parters: Genesis, Seeds and Talons. Although Seeds is really a 2 + 4 I’d expect all three to figure highly in any list of fan favourites. This, of course, continues what Letts and Dicks started with Season Eight, more “opening nights”. Think about Season Eleven, Dinosaurs and Spiders are both padded out and would have been much “tighter” as four parters although a bit more money would’ve been required. I expect that both Dinosaurs and Spiders could be edited into very good c. 95 minute “movies” - that’s 4 x 25 minutes less the recaps and credits.
Hinchcliffe also had the benefit of five seasons learning about colour/CSO, etc, Tom at the top of his game - before it became the Tom Baker show - and before inflation started eating into the budgets and a lot of disruption from strikes.
Graham Williams was, I suggest, dealt a poor hand in that he had to tone down some of the aspects that had made the programme successful and got clobbered with inflation and strikes. Nonetheless there are still some good stories that stand up well 40+ years later.
Having watched some of the interviews with people who worked with JNT I think the biggest problem was that he’d come up through the technical not creative side of things. I’d characterise his approach as almost “Dr Who by numbers”. He didn’t really understand the creative process so it’d be:
Old enemy/monster - tick Foreign location - tick Guest stars - tick Violence/action/explosions - tick Assistant(s) not wearing very much - tick
There were some good stories but I think most of the credit should probably go to the likes of Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward.
Peter Davison was a good doctor but Colin Baker’s character was all wrong, far too abrasive and unsympathetic, and Sylvester McCoy was just wrong.
JNT stayed too long.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 9:25:00 GMT
Uncle Terrance always said that there were three things needed to make good Who:
The script The script The script
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 9:20:04 GMT
There’s the potential for a featurette here imho.
Showing the uncut/cut sequences so that we can compare.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 21, 2021 18:23:35 GMT
I’m afraid I’ve never been able to get into the new series - there are whole doctors I’ve never watched.
Over the years the programme survived - such as during the Troughton-Pertwee transition - because there was a slot - in those days c. 5-30 on Saturdays - that needed filling for six months and Dr Who was the best answer. It successfully reinvented itself several times and stayed relevant and popular.
With catch up and streaming the TV ecosystem is completely different.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 20, 2021 17:28:42 GMT
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Post by John Wall on Jul 19, 2021 13:20:56 GMT
But they have no idea. This is an additional show to the ones they mention shown as the lost tapes on the BBC. This is a third discovered episode. The BBC had only documented the other two on that broadcast they mention. I did wonder……
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