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Post by maxstenner on Nov 7, 2021 19:43:11 GMT
I’m wondering this at the moment while contemplating missing episodes, what countries haven’t been searched and which ones have and can be crossed off as not having Missing Who?
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Post by John Wall on Nov 7, 2021 20:35:14 GMT
Unless PM has been playing at James Bond I’d suspect only Iran is unlikely to have been checked. We have pretty comprehensive information as to which countries showed MEs, and when. We also have a reasonable idea of the various bicycle chains that operated - Nigeria seemed to be at the end of various chains and paid dividends. Marco Polo, for example, was sold to 23 countries but the number of prints was somewhat less. PM’s had plenty of time to, if necessary, visit all 23.
I think we’re now looking for MEs with collectors.
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Post by Robert Lia on Nov 7, 2021 22:36:44 GMT
I don't think PM paid a visit to Mongolia or North Korea  , sorry just could not resist |
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Nov 7, 2021 22:59:04 GMT
I'd like to know more about Thailand, personally.
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Post by John Wall on Nov 8, 2021 11:25:11 GMT
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Nov 8, 2021 12:49:13 GMT
Thailand:
Potential possibilities: It's behind a language barrier; the channel name changed numbers, so some superficial enquiries might have gone to the wrong one.
Reasons why it will fail: It's not totally inacessible the way that Zimbabwe is. So very unlikely that no-one ever contacted the right people. To succeed here must mean that everyone else were idiots.
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Post by maxstenner on Nov 8, 2021 19:05:45 GMT
I'd like to know more about Thailand, personally. I’m pretty sure that the Thai prints were junked or returned because Thailand's prints came from Hong Kong and the print of Reign of Terror 1 that turned up on eBay nearly ten years ago was likely of Hong Kong origin, and thus the print sent to Thailand. Again, if one episode turned up, that may mean more are doing the rounds with private collectors. |
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Post by Robert Lia on Nov 8, 2021 21:18:43 GMT
Thailand is a wonderful country to visit. I was there in 1996 for the Thai New Year, what a celebration that was. Now its a fairly a msall country with limited TV stations that have changed over the years, but you never know, a visit cant hurt.
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Post by John Wall on Nov 8, 2021 21:55:32 GMT
Thailand is a wonderful country to visit. I was there in 1996 for the Thai New Year, what a celebration that was. Now its a fairly a msall country with limited TV stations that have changed over the years, but you never know, a visit cant hurt. If they’ve moved since showing DW it’s close to certain they have no prints. |
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Nov 9, 2021 8:06:11 GMT
Thailand is a wonderful country to visit. I was there in 1996 for the Thai New Year, what a celebration that was. Now its a fairly a msall country with limited TV stations that have changed over the years, but you never know, a visit cant hurt. If they’ve moved since showing DW it’s close to certain they have no prints. When I was there five years ago, they still had manually operated railway track switches in some places. That and other things made me feel like I had travelled back in time - perhaps appropriate in this context?  But anyway I wouldn't automatically assume they have the same throwaway mentality that we do in (W-)Europe. Not that I expect Marco Polo to still turn up after all. But we're in danger of oversimplifying, the whole issue. |
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Post by John Wall on Nov 9, 2021 9:33:52 GMT
If they’ve moved since showing DW it’s close to certain they have no prints. When I was there five years ago, they still had manually operated railway track switches in some places. That and other things made me feel like I had travelled back in time - perhaps appropriate in this context? But anyway I wouldn't automatically assume they have the same throwaway mentality that we do in (W-)Europe. Not that I expect Marco Polo to still turn up after all. But we're in danger of oversimplifying, the whole issue. In the 21st century there are still examples of manually operated points and semaphore signals on our railways. However, as I’ve previously pointed out when a TV station moves any old cans of film will be binned, sent to an archive or, if there’s demand, end up with collectors. |
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Nov 9, 2021 12:05:02 GMT
Unless, further option, only the main office moves, while the old films already were in long term storage somewhere in a warehouse. So it's clearly one of several completely different options.  |
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Post by John Wall on Nov 9, 2021 15:44:30 GMT
Unless, further option, only the main office moves, while the old films already were in long term storage somewhere in a warehouse. So it's clearly one of several completely different options. If things are in long term storage they’ll be catalogued. |
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RWels
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Post by RWels on Nov 9, 2021 19:02:24 GMT
Unless, further option, only the main office moves, while the old films already were in long term storage somewhere in a warehouse. So it's clearly one of several completely different options. If things are in long term storage they’ll be catalogued. In a card index, in Thai, as "16mm foreign stuff poss. British". Like I have previously pointed out, let's not assume that we know exactly what the situation would be. |
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Post by John Wall on Nov 9, 2021 19:44:00 GMT
If things are in long term storage they’ll be catalogued. In a card index, in Thai, as "16mm foreign stuff poss. British". Like I have previously pointed out, let's not assume that we know exactly what the situation would be. If they’re in long term storage there has to be some sort of cataloguing and retrieval system - obviously we can only speculate as to what that might be. If it happened to say British then a query asking about British stuff should find it. In terms of DW we’re talking about prints that were, effectively, “loaned”. After they’d been broadcast they’d be sent on, returned to Auntie or destroyed on Auntie’s instructions. That seemed to work pretty well until the transition to colour in the 70s when interest in b&w material reduced. Auntie’s system “knew” that, for example, Enemy/Web were in Nigeria but the folks at Enterprises were then flogging colour material and few were checking the status of redundant b&w prints. Consequently Enemy/Web sat on a shelf for c.35 years until PM arrived. Something similar seems to have happened with Tomb in Hong Kong, it may be that Auntie knew it was there - not Singapore - but it wasn’t being “managed” so years later someone came across it. They looked at it and it was sent back. If you’re in a TV station and you find something like that there are only a few options. If you send it to an archive/long term store there will be a “gatekeeper” who assesses material as there’s a cost for accessioning and storage. They might decide to send it back but if they think it’s worth keeping they’ve got to describe it so that it can be retrieved. I’d be very surprised if there is DW in foreign archives/long term stores - particularly as so much has been digitised. |
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, sorry just could not resist 
