Missing episodes found - BBC Article

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it yet, but it's nice to know I wasn't mad!

I suppose I should probably offer up an apology here myself.

I spoke with a moderator here when I signed up and explained that something like this could happen based on the nature of what I was posting and previous reactions I have experienced in the past. I offered then to stop posting if the moderating team felt like my presence was a distraction to the forum and that offer still stands. Until then though I am going to continue posting as I have, stating my belief, answering questions and being respectful of the other members. I would, however, like to make a few things clear to anyone reading this.

The information that I am putting forward in regards to a find of missing episodes is not information that I have made up. It is not information I have gathered elsewhere to post here as my own, either. I have a person who, through their job, has been shown a copy of Marco Polo, will be watching the other stories also and has been informed that there are more missing episodes currently being negotiated on.

I fully understand, as one poster here has pointed out, that I have no way to back up these claims. Yes, I could be a nutjob and yes, I could be a troublemaker. Unfortunately for me I have no way of proving to you otherwise, which I realise does not help my claim. The only assurance that I have is that the person who has provided me with this information is someone who I trust completely. Surely you all know someone you could say that about. Yes, of course it is completely possible that they could be lying to me, but I just know deep down that they are not. As I have stated before though, if that ever turned out to be the case then I am the only one here who would look a fool for it and I would hold my hands up and say I am wrong, but I just know that won't be the case when the announcement finally gets made.

For clarity, I have no hidden agenda here. Anyone who reads my stuff will see that while I am convinced of the return of these stories, I have done nothing at all to try and make people believe me besides answering any questions asked of me. I haven't told anyone that they should believe me if they have stated that they don't, I haven't made any comments that people will feel silly when I am proved right and I have not tried to make anyone take my comments and spread them further. I have never suggested that anyone with opposing views about my comments should argue between them or shout the other down. I have never suggested that I should be at all thanked or revered when the claims prove true and I have never attacked anyone who has questioned the truthfulness of my posts. I am not looking for arguments or glory, both of which I have been accused, and I am certainly not Yoko Ono and looking to make this place break apart from the inside.

I also have never claimed to have had any personal interaction with missing episodes. I haven't seen them, I haven't held them, I haven't viewed them. I don't claim to be in possession of them, I have nothing to trade or sell, I have not tried to convince anyone that the information provided is my own first hand account and I haven't claimed to have any concrete knowledge about anything other than the three stories and a handful of missing episodes that I have posted about here.

I don't ask anyone to take me at my word. I have no friends on this forum who know me personally and I fully expected when I posted my initial comment about the find that people would question it, deny it and some might even become aggressive about it. I don't take offence to being doubted because if the shoe was on the other foot I would no doubt be sceptical myself. Yes, I could have kept the information to myself and been happy in the knowledge that at least I know what's coming, even if others don't, but I am a huge fan of the show and wanted to discuss some very exciting developments with other people of a like mind.

It's been pointed out that my posting here seems to have cleared out the thread of it's regular members and for that I am sorry. Since nobody has come forward to say otherwise I suspect that Oh-Wise-One was probably correct in that assumption. For those who do feel that way, if this will make any difference at all, I have no interest or intent to try and make fools of anyone and I certainly did not want to make anyone feel like they can not post in this thread anymore and I am sorry if that is the case.

For those interested or who want to question me on anything, whether they believe or not, I am happy to answer any questions and it would be nice to discuss it with everyone. As I have said, I will not try to convert anyone to thinking my way and I am more than happy for people to doubt me if they wish. I really am only looking to discuss it, not turn the thread into a war zone.

I can assure you that while I have read everything posted so far, I have not been watching and laughing and rubbing my hands in glee at this debate.

When I first posted I stated that I fully expected people to say I was talking crap, so I am not going to get wound up because someone has come out and said it. I can't expect, and don't really care either, if the whole forum believes me. The reason behind me sharing it isn't because I want glory and it's not because I want trouble. It's because I love the show and I want to discuss it. I have been lucky enough to come into information that I find awesome and exciting and I want to be able to chat about it to people who will also be excited about it. I didn't come here and state it as a fact and then sit back and watch everyone go at it. I joined in with discussions, answered questions that were asked of me, was honest about what I don't know or have little knowledge of and generally enjoyed the discussion.

I have been told something awesome and I believe it without question. I am relaying the information as it has been given to me and I can't be more honest than that. I truly have been told this. If I have been lied to then I am the only one who will be posting in this thread with egg on my face, but I am so sure that my person is telling me the truth that I am confident there will be no egg on face, just a load of happy fans and a wealth of cool discussions and debates and topics. What's the harm in that? I don't want to dupe, just share what I know and believe to be true and be as excited about it as any other fan. I know being the one to say it puts me in the firing line and you won't ever hear me gloat down the line when I am proved right. My intentions are decent, I assure you. I don't know what else I can say to prove that to you, even if you don't believe the actual content of my posts.

Yes, I suppose it does. Well, more possible but perhaps not more probably. I'm not sure the maths of it. I'm not that good at working out probabilities.

But we only need one, and luckily we now have it. Just you wait and see

Possibly.

A copy of the story was sent to Australia that didn't include episode 7, in the hope that they would buy and air it. They didn't, but there is no records about what happened to that copy. If it wasn't junked and is still in Oz, then there is every chance it could be recovered by whoever is doing the search effort, assuming it is going to Australia. If it came back to the UK, which is a possibility, then probably it is gone. But who knows, after ABC said no, perhaps the BBC asked them to pass it elsewhere for someone else to try out. If it exists, it could be anywhere. The paper trail for it though, dies in Oz.

Sometime in the early 70s the copy of episode 4 that had been saved from junking was loaned to Blue Peter in order for them to extract some clips from it to show in one of their episodes. It was never seen again. Now all we have are the clips that were re-extracted from the Blue Peter episode.

I'm not entirely certain I understand the question, but I am going to give an answer a shot anyway.

I'm not really any more in the know about this stuff than you and there are probably members here with far more information than I in regards to missing episodes and where they might be, but in terms of what probably might be returned, my guess is that you can never guess. Anything could show up anywhere and with a search as extensive as the one being carried out at the moment, I imagine that anything that can be found, will be, barring things in private collectors or stashed in people's attics, etc.

Tomb of the Cybermen being found was at one point about as likely as catching Santa putting gifts under your tree, but then there it was. All four episodes all in one place. Found, returned and now probably in your DVD collection. We have serials like Master Plan, never shown anywhere except for the UK and yet we still have three episodes, and it would have been four had we not accidently lost one by lending it to Blue Peter. Turn that around and look at something like Marco Polo. Sold in more countries than any other lost story. At least ten outside of the UK. And yet officially every episode is missing and we don't even have a random clip of it. If we are talking probability, then that is one you'd expect to see ahead of many others, way before now. Anything can happen if you look in the right places and don't be ruled by a badly kept record system.

Again, this is something a bit outside my area of knowledge, but I do have a few nuggets of information based on stuff I have read and the whole distribution/recovery of Doctor Who seems to be a bit like finding a needle in a planet made of hay.

Doctor Who was sold abroad, but not in the sense that it is today. While we sell 'season 5' to however many countries want to buy and air it, back when the show was new countries would buy serials. So, for example, Germany may have bought the first 3, skipped the second three, bought the next one, skipped everything until season 4, etc. As a result of this, keeping on top of the catalogues for each country must have been a nightmare of it's own.

However, to confuse the matter further, when Antarctica pops up and says they want to buy The Daleks, for example, the BBC would try to save money by getting another country (we will keep Germany as the example) to ship it on when they are done. The keeping of sloppy records means that while Antarctica is down as having a copy, it doesn't necessarily point out that Germany are the ones who sent it there, effectively making the records look like there is two copies floating around when there is in fact one. Do this for 20 countries and you can see why it gets confusing. An example of things like this occuring would be episode one of a story, I forget which, which was found in Australia when they only ever officially had one copy of it and had already returned that copy to the UK, proving that extras were made.

Now, records are kept of certain countries being asked to pass things on, too. So, again using the above examples, the records may show that Germany was asked to ship The Daleks to Antarctica. But did Germany make their own copies while they had them to save money on repeats? Did they ever even send them even though they were requested? This makes the number fluctuate greatly.

Other times the BBC may have called up Germany and said 'we have no further use for The Daleks, once shown please junk'. As far as our own records are concerned, this is a junking. Whether Germany's records say the same is something else entirely, and even if they do, did they actually junk them? So, Germany may decide that they are going to save a bit of cash on repeat airings by keeping the episodes. They tell the BBC they are junked, may even mark their own records as such for legal reasons, but really the cans containing The Daleks are put down into storage to be brought out on a rainy day, perhaps forgotten about entirely. Now, 40 years later when the BBC ring up and say 'hey, you remember those copies we gave you of The Daleks, do you still have them and if so can we have them back?', the receptionist checks the records, reports them as junked and the search moves on, all the while they are stored away somewhere unknown to anyone not doing a physical search. Again, do this for 20+ countries and not a lot is showing up.

Other leads have come from places with high censors, such as Australia, who would make extensive cuts to stories in order to be passable on their stations. These cuts, rather than be binned, were often stored away, which is why we have a lot of random clips of things and why some episodes come back with bits missing. Finding even ten seconds of footage from something like Mission to the Unknown would be a huge deal in the DW world, but the chances of anything like that ever being kept on record are pretty much nil, so again without a physical search they could be sitting there waiting to be seen again.

Then we get countries like Mexico, who still have their copies of classics stories, but have been left alone because it's nothing we don't already have back in the home archive. That's easy to narrow down based on written facts, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't find something there. Copies of episodes have shown up in places that didn't even air Doctor Who, let alone that particular story, so it is very much a possibility that a search of Mexican archives could show stuff up.

On top of all this, we can even be fooled by our own records. A copy of DMP (without ep7) was sent to Australia with a view to them buying and airing it. They deemed the whole story inappropriate for audiences and declined, but what happened to those episodes? Were they returned or junked or left to sit somewhere? And what other countries also had samples, perhaps off the record, of that or any other episode?

The truth is, it has been proven time and again that most all records for these tv stations, including our own at the BBC, were kept rather badly organised and do not paint a full picture of just how much is out there and whether or not that stuff really has been junked or not. Phoning up Ethel who works on the filing system for the German archives is all well and good, but if she is cross checking a record system that is out of date, badly kept and perhaps even falsified then the results of that search that are being relayed back to you may not be the truth of what is actually there. What you need is a man on the ground.

Let's say for example that Doctor Who, either once or for every serial, was sold in 25 countries. Within those countries there could be numerous affiliates for the station that aired the show, we could be talking looking through 100 separate archives and potentially turning up absolutely zero. This is an expensive and very long job and it belongs to nobody in particular, so the question becomes about who is going to back it and fund it? Is it in the name of the BBC? What if only things from ITV are found. Will the BBC still be willing to pay? Do people do it off their own backs? What station in their right mind is going to let people just trawl in and out of these places to look for Doctor Who. There are reports of huge archives in Africa with thousands of film cans in that have absolutely no record or filing system and many of the cans are unmarked. Who sits and goes through them? Who knows what to do if a film is damaged? Who knows how to handle a film in the first place without damaging it. Who watches every reel of film to find out its contents? This is an enormous, world wide job.

Luckily, and I don't know the details of how or why, but an actual physical search actually is now underway and has been for about 6 years or so, which should give you an idea of just how huge this task is. The people doing it, I believe they are called the TIEA, have stated that nothing will be announced about finds until the search is complete. Your guess is as good as mine as to when that will be. I know little about them or why they are doing it, just that they are.

It is this extensive search, not just for Doctor Who, but for shows in general, which lends weight to the rumour of a haul of 8000 episodes being recovered. Whether it is true, I have no idea, but it's certainly possible, even if there are no Doctor Who stories in there.

And that is as much as I know.

Well, that would be far too simple, surely

It will all come out in the end and we will all be one big happy fandom, I assure you.

Something else that you should bare in mind is that in the past when rumours have arisen, the BBC has stepped in and issued statements along the lines of 'no missing episodes have been found/returned' or 'we are not currently negotiating the return of episodes' and stuff to that effect. I am paraphrasing, but the point is that they have shot the claims down and this time they haven't.

Now, like everything else I posted above, this is open to interpretation.

No denial could mean nothing to deny. There is no point making a statement about something that isn't happening. It could be that the frenzy this is whipping up is a load of free publicity for them for the 50th and killing the rumour also kills the publicity. It could be that because everything is so easily picked apart that there is no point issuing a denial when people aren't going to believe it anyway.

However, no denial could be because they are not allowed to tell lies as part of their policy (something to do with the fact they take public funding) and so saying nothing is easier than making up elaborate ways to get around the truth. If every other rumour has been shot down then perhaps saying nothing about this one is all the proof some people need to verify the rumour. Maybe making a statement could hurt negotiations and so they are keeping quiet until everything is successfully back in it's place, etc.

The truth is, there is no way around this for the BBC. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. In many ways silence helps them and in other ways it fans the flames. It's up to you to decide.

My personal knowledge is that they are definitely in possession of three previously considered lost stories. They are also negotiating for more. An announcement will come, but only with time and patience, and more than likely either in time for the anniversary or as soon as everything is back that they can get their hands on, which could well be after the anniversary. Regardless, when an announcement does come, it will be informing you of at least 17 episodes.

Official announcements/denials is something that I am looking out for myself. In terms of something official for all the world to see, such as on the BBC website, then the answer is no on both counts.

Unofficially, there have been people who you may class as 'in the know' coming down on both sides. The problem with this is that if you believe there is a find, you can read into it that way, and if you believe there hasn't you can read into it that way, too. The ones that sprint to mind immediately are below.

Anneke Wills (Polly) and Christopher Barry (the director) are rumoured to have accidently let slip information that indicated that Power of the Daleks has been returned, at least in part. This was later denied and put down to a misunderstanding, at least on the part of Wills. Now, if you want to argue this from either side you could say that it was a genuine misunderstanding and nothing has been found or you can say that they were asked to make a denial/shut up about it, because it is meant to be a secret.

When asked, Steven Moffat said something along the lines of 'there is no conspiracy regarding missing episodes'. Now, if you want to argue this from either side you could say he is making a denial, but on the other hand you could say that there doesn't have to be a conspiracy in order for episodes to be returned and this is in fact not a denial.

Bleeding Cool's website ran an article the other day which quoted a member, or perhaps former member, of the restoration team who said that a negotiation for missing episodes fell through, though there weren't further details on how or why, just when, and this was from at least around June until 'a month ago'. Now, if you want to argue this from either side you could say that as a member of a team who has worked on classic DVD's he should know and he says the deal fell through, but on the other hand there still came no denial and he was talking in regards to one negotiation, of which there could be several.

Doctor Who Magazine have denied knowledge of any episodes being returned, and if you want to argue this one you could say that they are very likely to know, and they don't, so obviously nothing is going on. However, on the flip side of that, Tom Spilsbury has gone on record in the past, as recently as the announcement of Capaldi, to say that he asks to be kept out of the loop on many upcoming developments. From another point of view it could be argued that if this is all on a need to know basis, why would DWM be in the loop? If an announcement isn't imminent then you don't tell something to a journalist. I wouldn't, anyway.

A BBC spokesman issued a statement to someone who opened a line of enquiry to say that they 'could not confirm' anything had been found. This could be argued that it is as good as a denial without getting a flat out no, while others may say that not being able to confirm something is a long way from denying it.

There are probably at least ten more examples of this that I have either forgotten or just not come across myself, and it is totally up to the individual how they choose to interpret all of the above, but as far as official word goes, we have neither confirmation or denial, yet.

In terms of The Sky At Night, (and bare in mind I've already told you my memory of all this is a bit hazy, so I might be getting some facts mixed up, but it's all checkable online) I believe someone involved in the recovery worked in some capacity on that show, I think as a producer or at least something to do with production, and so that could have had something to do with it. Also, I think the reason they were announced is because I think Patrick Moore himself accidently mentioned it in his excitement of being informed.

Those detailed may be a bit screwed up and there may be more to it than just the two facts I have pointed out, but those are the basics of the details I am remembering. I am not a fan of the show and I did little to follow information about their recovery, so I am probably not your best source of information on this, sorry.

And yes, as far as I know the search is ongoing.

I don't know what the policy is on this forum for linking to other sites and forums, but you could check out the missing episodes forum. It's not limited to Doctor Who, but all British shows that have stuff missing, so you will probably find heaps of information on the SAN find and the ongoing search for Doctor Who.

No, I'm afraid not. When I last spoke to my source they told me that there were others out there that they had been told about, but they didn't know if they were complete serials or random episodes, just that there were others and that they were up for negotiation.

That is my understanding, yes.

I can only speculate on that, but I suppose there could be any number of reasons. Maybe the BBC are negotiating one story/set of episodes at a time, rather than on the whole find. Or perhaps whoever it is who is negotiating with the BBC has offered these three first as a way of proving they aren't another hoaxer. Another possibility could be that the BBC place a high value on these stories over others. If they have been given a list for example of everything that is in the find, perhaps they are going for them in the order of what they deem to be most important to have back or something? All this is based on the fact that there is supposedly a larger haul, of course, when in reality it could be that from this particular negotiator, these three stories is all that they had.

No worries. Anything more than two sentences and I tend to fall over myself and making things confusing, so pull me up on anything you like.

What I meant in that sentence is that if there is a big haul, then those three stories may well be a part of it, but if they are then they are the only ones that are back in the BBC's hands so far, so while they have come in 'separately', they could be part of a larger haul if one exists.

Is that a bit clearer?

Ok, I will try to be as clear about what I know without being cryptic. In the first bit I will put what I have been informed of by my source and in the second part I will put what I have picked up elsewhere and heard through the grapevine.

In terms of the three stories I have stated will be returned, they have come in separately from the big haul that is rumoured, but that doesn't mean that they aren't a part of it if it exists, just that that isn't information I have been given. I have been given no details about who, whether it be a collector, a tv station, people hired by the BBC etc, has returned them. My source has told me that they know where they have come from, but could not pass that bit of info along to me. The extra episodes that I have mentioned, I am of the understanding, are from somewhere separate and that is why he has less information on them at the moment (again, he may know more now but we haven't spoken in a few days).

As for stuff I have heard elsewhere, either by people passing it on personally or via forums, websites, blogs and twitter, etc, but stuff that I have no confirmation on to make me believe it 100%, there are reports that the big haul could have come in from a team who are doing an advanced, on the ground search of multiple facilities worldwide, so there is every possibility that these episodes have been trickling through over the past six years to get to the number that is now claimed, rather than someone turning up and finding 8000 reels of film in one place. Part of this search has already turned up two lost episodes of The Sky At Night which were given as a gift back to the BBC before Patrick Moore passed away. There is more details surrounding that online but my memory of it all is a bit hazy. Now, in the past, searches seem to have pretty much consisted of phoning up a tv station, let's say ABC for example, asking if they have copies, being told yes or no and then that was pretty much that. With the search that is happening now and has been for the last few years, people are actually going in and physically looking through the archives rather than just going by the word of badly kept, 40 year old paperwork and filing systems. Searches like this are far more likely to turn stuff up that has previously been called lost, both for Doctor Who and other shows too. This is particularly handy when you take into account countries like Mexico. Mexico bought and aired many serials from the classic run and actually still hold them in their archives but because none of those stories are ones that are missing, they have been just left there and Mexico taken at their word that that is all that is there. Perhaps it is, or perhaps because the records seemed orderly enough for these episodes to show up so easily when asked, that there was no need to enquire further about whether any missing episodes could be there, while an actual physical check could turn something up. The interesting thing about Mexico is that they didn't air (at least I think they didn't off the top of my head) anything that is missing, however the BBC used to send tasters out so the broadcasters could get a feel for the story and decide if they want to air it. That doesn't mean that whole serials were shipped off each time, but maybe a couple of episode 1's or something? Either way, the people behind the search have said that once completed, anything they don't find will pretty much be lost forever. To make a claim like that makes me think that their efforts must be very extensive.

If the actual hunt for episodes and possible locations is something you are interested in, there is an awesome book called Wiped! that will give far more in depth and accurate information than I could. DWM have also done a fair few features on it.

Wow, been a while since anyone came posting in here

I couldn't resist though. Inferno is such a favourite of mine and I watch it at least a couple of times every year. Everything about it just works and as a whole it is perhaps one of the strongest stories of the entire run.

I imagine if ever there were a gag reel for the show, then there would have been enough laughing and joking behind the scenes on this one to fill it. Everyone looks like they are having a ball.

Always been a favourite of mine, this, and every time I watch it I am still always a little disappointed that we couldn't have had a bit more from Hartnell. Such a shame he was so unwell, but even still it was really cool to get that one last appearance. And even though his appearance was only brief, he managed to deliver us the superb 'dandy and a clown' line, which really has lived on on it's own.

I've been watching this this morning after probably 2 or more years since I last saw it, and I had forgotten just how good I find it to be. I think it is one that sometimes gets ignored and some of the effects get a bit dodgy, but it's really worth revisiting if you haven't for a while.