ABC Archives may have missing episodes

[Richard Molesworth]

Guest-Stephen said:

There has to be some sort of soulution guys, I hate to think of episodes just rotting away in there beacuse of a load of red tape. Damien Shannahan is the best guy to approach any officials about doing this, he seems to have built up a good rapore with the ABC.

Which brings us back to the crux of the question. What evidence is there that any missing episodes - 'Doctor Who' or otherwise - are at ABC?

None whatsoever!

I've spoken to the ABC about missing episodes, the BBC have contacted the ABC, Steve Roverts has visited the ABC, and Damian Shanahan has spent years wading throught the paperwork and visiting various establishments. Nothing. Not a hint.

There are no missing episodes at the ABC in Australia. They've checked.

Move along people - nothing to see here.

Regards,


Richard

[Lance M]

Thanks for the update Richard, but it has been a proven fact that some episodes that were said destroyed or were no longer at a facility have shown up. Such as the find of the Ice Warriors in the Villers House. Just because there is no legal proof from all those years ago does not necessarily mean that there is not anything there left to find. The case is never closed, and the search continues.

[Richard Bignell]

Guest-Lance said:

Thanks for the update Richard, but it has been a proven fact that some episodes that were said destroyed or were no longer at a facility have shown up. Such as the find of the Ice Warriors in the Villers House.

That's not really true, Lance. To take your example of The Ice Warriors, the only things that we know to have been destroyed are the BBC Enterprises 16mm master negatives and the original 2-inch videotapes. But we don't know how many prints may have been struck from each negative and neither do we know the fate of each print.

It should also be remembered that the four episodes of The Ice Warriors were discovered at Villiers House - the home of BBC Enterprises. So they were exactly where they should have been - just not in the right room!

Richard

[LanceM]

Sorry for my small error in logic. Where did you get all of this detailed information from? If I and other fans knew that then we would not make all of these small stupid errors all of the time, and the forum would be much more organized. If the info is from memory then you might think of writting a who report for the fan community, so then we could know the details and in the future possibly lead to episode recoveries. Just a thought, any ideas out there?

Thanks,Lance.

[Stephen Neve]

Guest-Richard said:

Which brings us back to the crux of the question. What evidence is there that any missing episodes - 'Doctor Who' or otherwise - are at ABC?

None whatsoever!

I've spoken to the ABC about missing episodes, the BBC have contacted the ABC, Steve Roverts has visited the ABC, and Damian Shanahan has spent years wading throught the paperwork and visiting various establishments. Nothing. Not a hint.

There are no missing episodes at the ABC in Australia. They've checked.

Move along people - nothing to see here.

Regards,


Richard

Bit of a sweeping statement to make, since the whole archive hasen't been checked.

[Lance M]

Exactly Steven,

We both seem to think along the same track. Since the archives have not been fully searched, granted they have been searched some, but an old source of mine gave me complete certainty that the archives have noot been searched fully. And if that is the case then some missing episodes might or might not still exist in the archive. What is going to happen is the real question, probably nothing in all likelyhood, but maybe someday someone will start the search.

[Rob Mammone]

LanceM said:

But Wright it looks like the Austrailians are'nt really doing anything at the moment, I have no problem with letting them handle the situation, but just as long as they start doing something productive. That is not an unreasonable suggestion.

There's no doubting your enthusiasm, and you're surely to be commended for it. But honestly, look at it objectively. The ABC, like any other major organisation, is not going to let complete strangers, no matter their good intentions, trawl through their archives in the (very possible) vain hope that something missing will turn up.
And as an Australian citizen who pays his taxes religiously, if I heard that the ABC had (lost its mind) and decided to spend government funding (i.e. tax money) to fund a search of the archives for stuff that very likely wasn't there, instead of producing great Australian drama etc etc etc, I would go troppo.
As you have all been told, the archives have been searched time and time again. At best, the most recent finds were censor clips (and the Power clips I played a small part in finding). If there were complete episodes to be found, don't you think they would already have turned up, given the number of approaches made over the years?

[Lance M]

Most likely the ABC archives will never be searched to that extent. Given the past searches, and a few finds. The Austrailan taxpayer perspective is also probably on the money. As I said earlier, the ABC would mostlikely not let strangers inside the vaults, and they mostlikely will not be doing any missing episode searches anytime soon. It is just the idea, and very slim prospect that there might be some well hidden material that could be uncovered some day in the future. It is this slim possibility that sparks the mind into considering all sorts of strange possibilites. This is just for fun, and some well informed responses are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,Lance.

[Wright Blan]

Guest-Rob said:

And as an Australian citizen who pays his taxes religiously, if I heard that the ABC had (lost its mind) and decided to spend government funding (i.e. tax money) to fund a search of the archives for stuff that very likely wasn't there, instead of producing great Australian drama etc etc etc, I would go troppo.
As you have all been told, the archives have been searched time and time again. At best, the most recent finds were censor clips (and the Power clips I played a small part in finding). If there were complete episodes to be found, don't you think they would already have turned up, given the number of approaches made over the years?

Look, I know how you feel. Do you know what kind of stuff My TEXTAmericanTEXT tax money has been used for? Magic powders to make Castro's beard fall out. Medical research in South American brothels. A weather museum to honor a somewhat famous groundhog.
Trust me, archiving the ABC is truly benign, in fact almost benificial, compared with the US Congress porkfests.
BTW can you name some good Australian drama? We don't get much of that in the states, unless you want to count TEXTFarscapeTEXT.

[Rob Mammone]

Guest-Wright said:

Look, I know how you feel. Do you know what kind of stuff My TEXTAmericanTEXT tax money has been used for? Magic powders to make Castro's beard fall out. Medical research in South American brothels. A weather museum to honor a somewhat famous groundhog.
Trust me, archiving the ABC is truly benign, in fact almost benificial, compared with the US Congress porkfests.
BTW can you name some good Australian drama? We don't get much of that in the states, unless you want to count TEXTFarscapeTEXT.

OT-but my favourites over the last decade were Phoenix 1 and 2 (cop dramas on the ABC), Janus 1 and 2 (some of the same cast, but looking at criminal cases from the lawyers view) and Wildside, a cop drama set in Sydney. Other than that, it's rubbish soaps and chef dramas!

[Stephen Neve]

Guest-Richard said:

Which brings us back to the crux of the question. What evidence is there that any missing episodes - 'Doctor Who' or otherwise - are at ABC?

None whatsoever!

I've spoken to the ABC about missing episodes, the BBC have contacted the ABC, Steve Roverts has visited the ABC, and Damian Shanahan has spent years wading throught the paperwork and visiting various establishments. Nothing. Not a hint.

There are no missing episodes at the ABC in Australia. They've checked.

Move along people - nothing to see here.

Regards,


Richard

[Stephen Neve]

The Above is a typical example of big headed know all hi up fans with connections to the Beeb jumping in like a bull in a China shop. The whole point of this thread is stressing the point that some of the ABC archive is un checked, anything could be in there! No doubt Daminen and Steve Roberts have good hard evidence to state that there is no Doctor Who in the part of the ABC that is checked, there is the remotest possibility that an odd episode may be lurking at the back of the archive somewhere. So by saying, their are no missing episodes in the ABC ,they have checked, is INCORRECT. They HAVE not searched the whole archive. When they have then you can state what you have stated above, Richard.

[Fatso the wombat]

The way I see it is this; there are some parts (how much I don't know) of the ABC archive that are unchecked. We do not know what is in there.

At some point, ABC will doubtlessly (as the BBC have) transfer all their material onto modern digital formats.

The archivists at ABC know about missing TV.

Thus, if they find BBC material in amongst these stores, they will contact the correct people at the BBC, tell them what they've got, and if it's missing it'll be sent back.

[LanceM]

Fatso, that is a very logical conclusion. In light that I doubt that the ABC will mount a large scale search of the archives for an old childrens television show. But, who knows maybe someday something might be found. It all depends on time, we will just have to wait and see what happens further down the road. Doctor Who fan till the end.

Thanks,Lance.

[James Phillips]

To be fair, the discovery of the mislabelled Adam Adamant Lives episode in Windmill Road goes to show that until you have physically checked every single film can, there is a slim chance that something missing be in there.

However, this doesn't make it any less pointless continually bombarding broadcasters with requests. When they've gone through all their film cans, they will know exactly what they've got. Until then, there's no point in asking again.