doomwatch

[JEE]

can anyone tell me what material exists for the missing episodes of doomwatch (telesnaps/audio/clips and especially scripts)
I cannot seem to find much apart from brief a synopsis
for each episode. I would be grateful for any help as i have seen all the existing episodes and would like to fill the gaps. thanks in advance for any help.

[Ethan Tyler]

To my knowledge, no clips, soundtracks, telesnaps or any other footage exists for any of the missing episodes, except Survival Code (1.13), the climax of which is reused at the start of I Killed Toby Wren (2.1).

Rumour has it that footage from the abandonded The Devil's Demolition (3.13) exists, but I've never seen any evidence of this. To be honest, I've never even seen any evidence that filming ever began on it.

I suppose you already know that an unbroadcast episode still exists, which was originally intended to be the twelfth episode of Season 3, but was banned for using footage of an actual military execution. The episode is called Sex and Violence.

[JEE]

many thanks for the information Ethan. I never knew about the devils demolition footage.

[Michael the first]

Forgive me if i've got this wrong but was'nt the Sex and Violence ep actually shown on UK Gold in the 90's?
I have a feeling it was-but would it have been editited out,the execution footage to make it suitable for transmisson?
And what are the chances of a DVD release of the remaining eps?

[Nosmo King]

No "Sex and Violence" was never screened in any of the runs on UK Gold.

Also the "execution footage" story is apparently a complete red herring as to the reason the episode was not broadcast, similar execution footage having been screened several times in documentary strands ..

The real reason is that Watchdog committee that was portrayed in the story ... this mirrored the commission set up in reality at the time to report on taste etc. in the performing arts. This included Mary Whitehouse, Lord Longford and Cliff Richard .. and the people used in the Stuart Douglass plot all to easily were comparable with the real people. The BBC would have chanced huge legal re-percussions in "spoofing" those people ..a controversy they were obviously not going to risk for a SciFi series ...

[ethantyler]

Michael said:

And what are the chances of a DVD release of the remaining eps?

At the moment, very unlikely. Volume 1 (The Plastic Eaters/Tomorrow, The Rat) didn't sell well, so the second release was cancelled. It's probably for the best as the overall quality of the first release is beyond bad. I'm hoping that one day the Restoration Team will be asked to sort out a release of all the surviving episodes - they could do with some remastering (and special features).

[Michael the first]

Thank you to Mr.Nosmo King for answearing the question about was Sex and Violence transmitted or not.
If the content of this episode was not to the BBC's liking regarding spoofing people such as Mary Whitehouse and Cliff Richard which could have resulted in a very embarrasing situation for the BBC,why was'nt there a problem with the Goodies ep where Beryl Reid played Mrs.Desiree Carthorse,which was an ouright blatant take off of Mary Whitehouse?
This episode was'nt banned at the time;and if you hav'nt seen it,it's hilarious.

[andrew martin]

There's a difference between lampooning someone in a comedy show and showing a 'version' of them in a drama. In the latter you mightly credibly be accused of misrepresenting or libelling them, because someone might reasonably mistake views attributed to the fictional character for those of a real person. In the case of "The Goodies", the caricature is so extreme Mrs W would find it difficult to persuade a jury that such confusion would be possible - and sueing a comedy show for making fun of her would probably have done her cause more harm than good. "Sex and Violence" also implies links between 'clean up tv' campaigners and the extreme right - again very dodgy territory!

[Nosmo King]

I have seen the Goodies .. and the Whitehouse spoof Desiree is great! Comic parodies are very much a different case to the Doowatch situation.

Andrew Martin puts the differences well between this "spoof" and the very blatant "similarity" between both the real Watchdog committee and the committee portrayed in "Sex and Violence" both as an entity and the very specific similarities between members of those bodies in age, occupation etc..

I think it would have been "odds on" for legal action had "Sex and Violence" between broadcast ... and quite a fair possibility the BBC would have lost any such action .. which is presumably what the BBC lawyers told the Corporation at the time ..and the reason the programme was pulled. What surprises me is that it wasn't picked up as script stage by someone in the Drama dept.

[andrew martin]

[quoteWhat surprises me is that it wasn't picked up as script stage by someone in the Drama dept.[/quote]

There was more autonomy than now for producers in those days - though they weren't of course free agents, and it is surprising that the whole thing was recorded and ready for transmission before being pulled...! (Not that it's the only example of that - eg "Brimstone and Treacle").

[Brian Fretwell]

Perhaps confusion has occurred as "Sex and Violence" has been screened at the NFT.

June Brown almost previewing Dot Cotton in her part.

[John Williams]

andrew said:

There's a difference between lamthingying someone in a comedy show and showing a 'version' of them in a drama. In the latter you mightly credibly be accused of misrepresenting or libelling them, because someone might reasonably mistake views attributed to the fictional character for those of a real person. In the case of "The Goodies", the caricature is so extreme Mrs W would find it difficult to persuade a jury that such confusion would be possible - and sueing a comedy show for making fun of her would probably have done her cause more harm than good. "Sex and Violence" also implies links between 'clean up tv' campaigners and the extreme right - again very dodgy territory!

Dodgy - but largely true! And easy enough to substantiate after a few hours in the PA library. But I appreciate this would have been a problem at the time, and its very interesting to hear the real reason for the episode being banned. The professed reason never seemed convincing.

Do you think the BBC will still be reluctant to allow the episode to be included if/when (surely inevitably) Doomwatch is released? The topicality will have gone, and most of those parodied have died.