Accuracy of Lostshows.com database

[Andrew Martin]

h said:

the list shows

the BBC's action adventure film serial ' Vendetta' completely missing THREE SEASONS

I suppose like Forsythe Saga it was ineptly shot in B/W?

but how did they manage to loose 39 episodes?

I think this has been replied to on another thread or another site but here goes again for the record - "Vendetta" wasn't made on film, it was made on VT. Not all the episodes are missing, six complete episodes exist, plus the closing film sequence from another episode ("The Widow Man" tx 18/11/66) and one other sequence which is in a documentary (which may or may not be from an existing episode). The existing episodes are:
The Sugar Man tx 4/11/66
The Kneeling Man tx 2/12/66
The Concrete Man tx 23/12/66
The Mercy Man tx 20/1/67
The Button Man tx 26/7/67
The Honoured Man tx 6/9/67 (this is the "Star Choice" version with introduction by Neil McCallum as tx'd 20/7/69)
All these are 16mm b/w film recordings.

[emitron]

I hope when people buy the new K'scope guides and browse the onine databases, they will gain an appreciation of the vast amount of material which is still in the archives, particularly the BBC who unfairly maligned and have kept an enormous amount of material. Much of that is forgotten because archive TV forums focus on what we would call "Cult TV".

[Andrew Melling]

One thing I've noticed: there doesn't seem to be an entry for R3, the 1960s BBC sci fi series starring former Quatermass actor John Robinson (unless I'm doing something wrong!).

[Deleted]

Nothing survives from this series though.

[C Perry]

Try R.3 apparently that was the official title?

c

[Andrew Martin]

laurencepiper said:

Nothing survives from this series though.

Apart from a trailer... (and some snatches of soundtrack)

[Andrew Melling]

C said:

Try R.3 apparently that was the official title?

c

Ah, yes, that works - I didn't realise that the search was so precise, and had neglected to put the dot in!

[Andrew Melling]

laurencepiper said:

Nothing survives from this series though.

Erm, isn't the point of the database to provide an authoritative listing of missing episodes?

In fact I already knew that this series was absent from the BBC archives, but somebody with an old film can somewhere might not know that!

[Deleted]

The point is that it isn't at all authoritative as regards what is / isn't missing, so it will confuse a lot of people that don't already have correct detailed info (hence the title of this thread calling into question how accurate the database really is).

[HH]

andrewmartin said:

[

I think this has been replied to on another thread or another site but here goes again for the record - "Vendetta" wasn't made on film, it was made on VT. Not all the episodes are missing, six complete episodes exist, plus the closing film sequence from another episode ("The Widow Man" tx 18/11/66) and one other sequence which is in a documentary (which may or may not be from an existing episode). The existing episodes are:
The Sugar Man tx 4/11/66
The Kneeling Man tx 2/12/66
The Concrete Man tx 23/12/66
The Mercy Man tx 20/1/67
The Button Man tx 26/7/67
The Honoured Man tx 6/9/67 (this is the "Star Choice" version with introduction by Neil McCallum as tx'd 20/7/69)
All these are 16mm b/w film recordings.

Cheers Andrew

[C Perry]

"The point is that it isn't at all authoritative"

I, of course, will beg to differ Laurence and point out that every time someone finds an error, we correct it, thereby making it more authoritative all the time.

The front page of the website does make clear that some shows are not on there, ie game shows etc and some entries do say 'surviving material only' because we have no precise info on all the tx dates for say Celebrity Squares from the 1970s.

The point is really... its free, its more comprehensive than anything else available to look at (certainly ITV wise, and until Infax comes back, BBC aswell) so it can't harm anyone to try to encourage a few shows to come back.

I think every professional archive in the world does not make the claim that 100% of their data is accurate. So far I count roughly 15 different entries queried in this thread, not bad from a database of over one million entries.

Oh, and it has worked, and material has been recovered, as you will find out in due course.

Keep raising the queries and we'll keep correcting them. Accuracy is what we all want.

c :-)

[Deleted]

Chris, it's a great bit of work! I wasn't voicing an opinion but stating as matter-of-fact in reply to someone else that this thread was started as the view was expressed that the database was not accurate in some areas and that it may therefore confuse some that are in posession of missing material.

As Chris says though, keep the corrections coming, folks...

[Richard Moore]

I've been thinking a lot about this - and indeed started a similar thread (not spotting this one first!). But I think in the end what is important is that shows that are MISSING are not listed as existing. If they do exist and are listed as missing then this is far less important (not accurate maybe, but...)

If someone then offers a recording listed as missing and it does already exist we have lost nothing.

If someone looks at the database and sees something listed as existing which does not....then this could be dangerous. So I think if in doubt say it doesn't exist!

I applaud your work - which can't be easy judging by my experiences with TV companies!

Richard

[Bert Thung]

There doesn't seem to be an entry for the Graham Chapman/Douglas Adams show 'Out Of The Trees'

[Mister B]

C said:

"
Keep raising the queries and we'll keep correcting them. Accuracy is what we all want.
c :-)

An interesting discrepancy appears to be that the site shows all of
Series 1 of Never a Cross Word as missing and yet the first episode T/X 10/08/1968 is included as an extra on the Please Sir Series 2 DVD from Network.

Of course the episode may be held in somebody elses archive and not LWT's. It makes me wonder though if the other episodes do exist.