Question about junking of episodes

[David Zientara]

markoates said:

The argument that "nobody's interested in black-and-white stuff" was a specious argument even in the 1970's; I'm old enough to remember what was on TV back then, and I don't think I remember a time when some local station or another wasn't airing reruns of "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy". But even assuming that we accept this logic unquestioningly, it doesn't explain why they junked 64 of the 128 Pertwee episodes! Can anyone explain this one?

You're judging the BBC by the standards of North American tv networks. There has always been a big anti-repeat culture with British television. I'm not entirely sure if "The Honeymooners" was screened in its entirety on British television, and if it was then like the Lucy shows it was only screened once. Doctor Who only occasionally saw repeat screenings in the 1980s, so in the 1970s when the Purge was going on, the older shows would only have been shown on their original telecast and then been put on the shelf. Film recordings, as previous posters have stated, were made for international sales, but the original VTs would have only been available for internal BBC research use. If nobody ever checked the tapes out, the Engineering department would have reclaimed them after a while and wiped them for re-use.

There has always been a completely different repeat culture in the US, entirely down to Syndication, which doesn't exist in the UK broadcasting model. Combine that with the fact most US shows such as The Honeymooners or Lucy were made on 35mm film rather than videotape and you have a system that makes retention and rebroadcast of materials both easy and desirable.

Just my twopennethworth.

I suppose you are right - in the U.S., it wasn't just what would be considered classics making their way into syndication. As early as 1955, the mediocre "Lucy" clone "I Married Joan" made its way into syndicated reruns.

It would be interesting to confirm what one of the previous posters said about Peter Cook being willing to pay for the videotapes to save "Not Only...But Also" episodes and being given a hard time by the BBC. If this is the case, then even if the creative element involved in the shows (actors/producers/directors/etc.) had been interested in the archival aspect, then they still would have had a hard time saving the material.

What I found somewhat interesting is that even after the making of "The Lively Arts" episode featuring "Doctor Who," episodes were still being junked. [That's why we have a six-minute clip from "Galaxy Four" - it existed in 1977 but was junked in 1978.] Did they realize how much material had been junked in 1977, or not, or perhaps if they did know, they didn't particularly care?

[Richard Bignell]

David said:

What I found somewhat interesting is that even after the making of "The Lively Arts" episode featuring "Doctor Who," episodes were still being junked. [That's why we have a six-minute clip from "Galaxy Four" - it existed in 1977 but was junked in 1978.] Did they realize how much material had been junked in 1977, or not, or perhaps if they did know, they didn't particularly care?

They certainly knew how much had been junked as a full listing of Doctor Who material in the BBC archives was drawn up, probably by the Lively Artsresearchers themselves, in November 1976.

But at that time, it was still policy to junk material that was deemed of no further value, and that wouldn't change until 1978, so no one would have probably batted an eyelid at that time at the archival state of the programme.

Galaxy 4 was, in all probability, junked shortly after the completion of Whose Doctor Who in early 1977 and there's good reason to believe that it wasn't complete at that time anyway, with Episode 2 having already been destroyed some time previous.

Richard

[David Zientara]

richardbignell said:

David said:

What I found somewhat interesting is that even after the making of "The Lively Arts" episode featuring "Doctor Who," episodes were still being junked. [That's why we have a six-minute clip from "Galaxy Four" - it existed in 1977 but was junked in 1978.] Did they realize how much material had been junked in 1977, or not, or perhaps if they did know, they didn't particularly care?

They certainly knew how much had been junked as a full listing of Doctor Who material in the BBC archives was drawn up, probably by the Lively Artsresearchers themselves, in November 1976.

But at that time, it was still policy to junk material that was deemed of no further value, and that wouldn't change until 1978, so no one would have probably batted an eyelid at that time at the archival state of the programme.

Galaxy 4 was, in all probability, junked shortly after the completion of Whose Doctor Who in early 1977 and there's good reason to believe that it wasn't complete at that time anyway, with Episode 2 having already been destroyed some time previous.

Richard

One of the articles on The Doctor Who Restoration Page claimed that "Galaxy Four" was supposed to be screened by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS) at their annual convention in 1978, and that they ordered prints, but were ultimately told that the prints had been junked about three weeks earlier. Although maybe you know something they don't. I suppose someone probably knows the exact dates when each of the episodes were junked since there apparently were index cards kept for each documenting when they were junked.

[Richard Bignell]

David said:

One of the articles on The Doctor Who Restoration Page claimed that "Galaxy Four" was supposed to be screened by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS) at their annual convention in 1978, and that they ordered prints, but were ultimately told that the prints had been junked about three weeks earlier.

I actually investigated this claim when putting together the article Withdrawn, De-Assessioned & Junked for the new issue of Nothing at the End of the Lane, and, having looked through the original correspondence between BBC Enterprises and the DWAS, it turns out that it's actually all a bit of myth.

Having enquired and been turned down about the showing of an old episode at their first convention in 1977, the DWAS wrote to BBC Enterprises again in January 1978 to enquire about the possibility of obtaining film prints of Galaxy 4 to show at PanoptiCon 78 in August that year. The DWAS then contacted Enterprises once again in March with another vague enquiry only to be told six days later that "...after considerable research, we have discovered that all master material relating to the above series has been destroyed." There was never any formal agreement for them to purchase the episodes and indeed, at that time they had absolutely no idea as to whether they would be able to afford them even if BBC Enterprises were willing to sell them. There likewise is no indication at all that the film prints had only just been junked.

In fact, the DWAS never even asked if all four episodes still existed! It seems that the DWAS had simply assumed (not unreasonably) that they all existed due to the clip used in Whose Doctor Who and the small involvement of Jan Vincent-Rudski and Stephen Payne in the production.

As mentioned previously, the archive listing drawn up in November 1976 indicates that neither Enterprises or the BBC Film Library held a copy of Episode 2, Trap of Steel, so it seems very likely that the story wasn't complete anyway at the time that the DWAS were starting to show any interest in it.

I suppose someone probably knows the exact dates when each of the episodes were junked since there apparently were index cards kept for each documenting when they were junked.

Quite probably, and they're documents that Doctor Who researchers would love to get their hands on! ;D The problem is that if they do still exist (and that's by no means certain) then they're highly likely to be archived away somewhere in deep storage.

Richard

[Robbo13]

Quite probably, and they're documents that Doctor Who researchers would love to get their hands on! The problem is that if they do still exist (and that's by no means certain) then they're highly likely to be archived away somewhere in deep storage.

Probably on top of a few cans of film they thought were junked.......well it'd be nice if it was true!!

[David Zientara]

Re "Galaxy Four," this is where I got the (mis?)information:

It was very nearly 131, as Ian Levine recalls: ‘The Doctor Who Appreciation Society had decided to show ‘Galaxy 4’ at their 1978 convention. They got full clearances from the actors, the writer and the musicians to screen the story, and then approached BBC Enterprises to buy the prints of all 4 episodes. BBC Enterprises told them that the prints had been junked about three weeks earlier’.

From "BBC Archive Holdings" on the DW Restoration Team homepage.

[Peter Chadwick]

David said:

It would be interesting to confirm what one of the previous posters said about Peter Cook being willing to pay for the videotapes to save "Not Only...But Also" episodes and being given a hard time by the BBC. If this is the case, then even if the creative element involved in the shows (actors/producers/directors/etc.) had been interested in the archival aspect, then they still would have had a hard time saving the material.

I don't think that Cook story is quite right. When he was told that VT's were going to be wiped, he asked if he could have copies on VHS for his own use. The Beeb refused, saying that it ''doesn't have the paperwork in place for that sort of thing''.

[Richard Bignell]

David said:

From "BBC Archive Holdings" on the DW Restoration Team homepage.

Yes, these are the three Out of the Vaults articles that Richard originally wrote for DWM several years ago. Whilst largely accurate, Richard did take a few of the fan myths at face value without checking any further!

Funnily enough, we've got Richard to write an update article to his series for Nothing at the End of the Lane, where he freely admits that, "it doesn’t help when the writer either gets confused, or deliberately sets out to mislead the reader..."

The new article written by both Richard and Mark Parmerter, picks up where the old one left off and looks at the many footage discoveries made since The Lion was found back in 1999, as well as correcting a few of the major bloopers in the original article!

www.nothing-lane.co.uk

Richard

[Stuart Douglas]

richardbignell said:

David said:

From "BBC Archive Holdings" on the DW Restoration Team homepage.

Funnily enough, we've got Richard to write an update article to his series for Nothing at the End of the Lane, where he freely admits that, "it doesn’t help when the writer either gets confused, or deliberately sets out to mislead the reader..."

The new article written by both Richard and Mark Parmerter, picks up where the old one left off and looks at the many footage discoveries made since The Lion was found back in 1999, as well as correcting a few of the major bloopers in the original article!

www.nothing-lane.co.uk

Richard

I'm really looking forward to this (especially having lost my copy of the first edition). Do you have the proofs back yet, Richard?

Stuart

[Richard Bignell]

stuartdouglas said:

I'm really looking forward to this (especially having lost my copy of the first edition). Do you have the proofs back yet, Richard?

As far as I'm aware, the printing was completed last Friday, and the pages were left to dry over the weekend (a lot of ink on the front cover!). Robert should be taking delivery of the first batch of magazines sometime later this week! ;D ;D

Richard

[Stuart Douglas]

richardbignell said:

stuartdouglas said:

I'm really looking forward to this (especially having lost my copy of the first edition). Do you have the proofs back yet, Richard?

As far as I'm aware, the printing was completed last Friday, and the pages were left to dry over the weekend (a lot of ink on the front cover!). Robert should be taking delivery of the first batch of magazines sometime later this week! ;D ;D

Richard

Excellent news Richard.

BTW, do you have any plans to re-print the first edition?

Stuart

[Richard Bignell]

stuartdouglas said:

BTW, do you have any plans to re-print the first edition?

We are seriously thinking about it, yes! ;D

Richard