Invasion of the Dinosaurs:1

[Matthew Kurth]

I was just thinking this morning about how lucky we are to have the entire Pertwee run. As far as we know, the 16mm print is the one and only copy of Invasion of the Dinosaurs ep 1, and if I'm recalling what I've read before, no one really knows why this was telerecorded at all, let alone how it went walkies and wound up with a batch of '60s episodes.

With John Cura dead, without this mysterious print we would have only fan audios to turn to for the episode. I see from the soundtracks page that Richard Landen recorded audio through Underworld so presumably he recorded this, and since it's a first episode there may be a David Butler recording also.

Just out of curiosity, have these recordings ever been evaluated by anyone? I'm just wondering how good the episode would sound if a Loose Canon recon was all we had to go by.

[Richard Bignell]

Invasion of the Dinosaurs, like The Time Warrior, was telerecorded for overseas sale by BBC Enterprises. In fact, it was done twice.

However, by that time, it had become evident that no one was really taking the b/w versions of the Pertwee stories anymore, so the run of telerecordings stopped at this point.

[Leighton Haberfield]

if I remember correctly the colour videotape of ep 1 of Dinosaurs was wiped about 6 months after transmission.
I suspect they had chosen the single story to repeat that year which was Spiders so no more Pertwee repeats were planned.
I expect Richard Bignell can confirm this although Sea Devils got a repeat in 1974 at some point too.
Odd that only one ep was wiped so we are lucky to have that 16 mm NW print really.

[Matthew Kurth]

Feb 9, 2014 11:24:41 GMT Richard Bignell said:

Invasion of the Dinosaurs, like The Time Warrior, was telerecorded for overseas sale by BBC Enterprises. In fact, it was done twice.

Huh, for some reason I thought it stopped with Time Warrior. And if there were two passes at it, then there's a vague hope that somewhere there might be a copy out there with better chroma dots. Thanks for the clarification!

Re-reading some of the reviews for the story, I'm imagining what the fan mythos would have to say if Episode 1 was still missing, would people who saw it be going on today about how behind-the-sofa the empty streets of London were?

[Brad Phipps]

Feb 9, 2014 13:49:13 GMT Leighton Haberfield said:

Odd that only one ep was wiped so we are lucky to have that 16 mm NW print really.

From memory there was documentation to say they were all wiped, and yet eps 2-6 were later found intact.

[Leighton Haberfield]

Eps 2 to 6 were listed as existing in the DR Who winter special from 1981 so if they were recovered earlier then I missed that story.

[George D]

It's interesting that if they stopped tele recording one story earlier, invasion of dino could have been as impoSsible to find as the feast of Stephen.

[scotttelfer]

Feb 9, 2014 18:32:06 GMT Matthew Kurth said:

Feb 9, 2014 11:24:41 GMT Richard Bignell said:

Invasion of the Dinosaurs, like The Time Warrior, was telerecorded for overseas sale by BBC Enterprises. In fact, it was done twice.

Huh, for some reason I thought it stopped with Time Warrior. And if there were two passes at it, then there's a vague hope that somewhere there might be a copy out there with better chroma dots. Thanks for the clarification!

Re-reading some of the reviews for the story, I'm imagining what the fan mythos would have to say if Episode 1 was still missing, would people who saw it be going on today about how behind-the-sofa the empty streets of London were?

Well really it did stop with The Time Warrior. Due to when they stopped it they were left with a single black and white episode, which they could hardly sell by itself. Why a colour copy has slipped my mind but there was a reason (I think it had something to do with different storage of the video tapes so they would have had to have gone to two separate places to get the tapes for Part 1 and Part 2-6, bit of a mess really).

[Richard Bignell]

Feb 10, 2014 8:43:17 GMT scotttelfer said:

Well really it did stop with The Time Warrior. Due to when they stopped it they were left with a single black and white episode, which they could hardly sell by itself.

You're misunderstanding here. All of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was telerecorded. The last one made was Episode 6.

[scotttelfer]

Feb 10, 2014 10:23:14 GMT Richard Bignell said:

Feb 10, 2014 8:43:17 GMT scotttelfer said:

Well really it did stop with The Time Warrior. Due to when they stopped it they were left with a single black and white episode, which they could hardly sell by itself.

You're misunderstanding here. All of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was telerecorded. The last one made was Episode 6.

Okay, either I've misunderstood it, or the place I heard it from messed up its explanation badly (I'm going for the latter myself, it was a really badly worded explanation in DWM once).

[Richard Marple]

Every time the last telerecorded Dr Who story is mentioned a different one is suggested.

[Richard Bignell]

It's actually been known for many years that all six episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was the last telerecorded story. The information is all recorded on the BBC F&VT Archive record cards.

BBC Enterprises were offering the rest of Season 11 as b/w telerecordings (as indicated on the synopsis sheets they sent out to prospective customers), but there's no indication that any of Death, Monster or Spiders were ever transferred, probably because there was no longer any demand for them.

[Richard Marple]

I think that list has confused some people into thinking the last 3 stories in season 11 were actually telerecorded, along with a mention in DWM that the last 2 were telerecorded but never actually sold on 16mm.

[keithmchugh]

I thought the reason Episode 1 was junked so quickly was because it got mixed up with the Patrick Troughton story "INVASION".
Episode 1 was only titled as "Invasion" but episodes 2-6 use the full title of "Invasion of the Dinosaurs".

[Rob Moss]

Urban myth, Keith. I believe the VTs of the Troughton Invasion were wiped before Dinosaurs TXed.