Hi Richard (or anyone else who may know),
I hope you don't mind me asking please:
I was wondering - re. the new Ivor release - what the thinking is behind what seems to be a conflation of what I've always assumed are 2 discrete 1960s monochrome series of 13 episodes each
- ie. Series 2 & 3 -
into now being referred to as a single series ie as "Series 2" (26 episodes).
Especially as there seems to have been a long-ish gap between the original broadcast of these 2 batches of 13 episodes.
Information is a bit patchy on the internet but to check I've just dug out an old print out written by Alistair McGown of screenonline (to do with the BFI I think), that was given away at a Smallfilms event at the NFT back in 2004:
It lists, including all the original transmission times, what is probably the entire Smallfilms work made for TV (ie. doesn't include a few probably not made specifically for TV eg. "Beckett").
On that print out it says that the transmission dates for Ivor Series 2 were:
16/3 to 20/7 1962
Followed by Series 3 starting about 15 & a half months later ie. from:
4/11/1963 finishing on 4/2/1964
If the info just mentioned is correct (?) is it that perhaps these 26 episodes may have been made as part of one continuous block (despite the large gap re. TV transmission half way through)?
Or is there some other reason for calling them all Series 2? -
eg. an attempt to simplify their classification?
Be great to know if possible.
Also looking at the images for the release over at the Fabulous Films website there seems to be an error on the displayed individual cover image for "Series 2":
It says on that cover that it contains Seasons 1 & 2 -
whereas Series 1 is in fact contained in its own separate box with the title "The First Story":
It is indeed the 1st Ivor story of course but it is also Series/Season 1 (the on-screen title for each of the 6 episodes being "Ivor The Engine").
Hopefully other people have noticed this & it can be corrected before the set is released.
EDIT:
OK, looking at the "Series 2" cover at Fabulous Films again I can see what is probably intended:
It's referred to as "The Black & White 2nd Series" & the smaller writing at the bottom of the image of the cover says "All 26 Fully Restored Season 1 and 2 episodes" - so it's calling the 2 together a "Series" & then breaking that down into "Seasons" ie. seasons 1 & 2 of that "Series".
Which is a rather confusing way of putting it - as it would be more accurate & less confusing to either call it "Series 2 and 3" or -
if it's an attempt not to confuse Americans -
to call the actual Series 1 "Season 1" & the box with Series 2 & 3 in it "Seasons 2 & 3".
I've probably answered my own questions here but it'd be nice to know if this is correct.
And I'm guessing I won't be the only person who's been confused by this:
I had sort of assumed that the box image mentioned was accidental error before thinking further on it.
Thanks for reading this.