I don't think it's that he doesn't believe; he's just being accurate to the point of pedantry about the relationship between BBC News and BBC Worldwide (or whatever entity will make the official announcement). Strictly speaking the BBC News story isn't official confirmation, though in practice I doubt they would have published if it weren't true. If they're only inviting actors whose episodes have been recovered to the event, those names do suggest they've found even more than the three serials from the "MEW" (Marco, Enemy, Web) version of the rumor. 90 would still surprise me, but the claims of 20 or 30-odd episodes that were also circulating no longer seem incredible. And frankly, if it's that much, the claims that someone involved in the finding demanded the moon are easier to swallow as well; that much material is worth a lot to fans, which includes a lot of the people now making the series.
Of course BBC News wouldn't be The BBC's promo outlet, but, they are a legitimate News Source, aren't they? So, therefore they have to print the truth that they fact checked, and not reproduce rumors from Gossip Rags and sell them as news, right? Didn't the BBC News article state they were told by BBC about the Press Conference
No. Of course the BBC journalist involved will have done some research and found sources in which he was confident before publishing his article. But so will the journalists for the Radio Times and the Guardian. The BBC article isn't technically different from those, even though it comes from the same institution that will eventually confirm the finds. It's like when a newspaper owned by a big media conglomerate reports on the not-yet-confirmed plans of a TV network owned by the same conglomerate. Although the two are linked in a general sense, one is reporting news about the other, not making the official announcement.
Ian Levine is confident we'll see 9 episodes tomorrow but Phil Morris (who denied finding the episodes earlier this year) is reportedly holding onto more.
Who the heck is this Phil Morris? And why is the affair or returning episodes so protractedly awful an affair? Its not really giving any slack to the fans.
Phil Morris runs TIEA, an archive TV recovery organization, and hunts for missing episodes of British TV. He can be heard on the audio commentary for episode 5 of "The Reign of Terror" on DVD. He found two episodes of The Sky at Night in Africa, and apparently (despite denying it months ago) a bunch of Doctor Who as well. Previous recoveries haven't gone down like this. There are lots of rumors about what the issues are this time around, but we may never know precisely what happened.
I just saw the "Reign of Terror" DVD recently. When they asked Morris (I think it was he) about whether there were more episocdes to be recovered, he gave kind of a hedging "We still haven't finished looking everywhere, so nothing can be ruled out" answer. How long ago would that commentary have been recorded?
Reign came out in January and the commentaries were recorded before the animation was finished, so could well be 18 months.
So, sounds like Levine is confident in the "Enemy of the World and Web of Fear return" rumor with episode 3 of Web having a problem (not found, found but not ready, etc) LOL @ The poster, Candlelight
Watching an interview with Tom Baker on Terror of the Zygons reminded me of exactly what the BBC is doing to us here with this wait - they're simply trying to recreate a Classic Doctor Who cliffhanger!
They are editorially independent so they will happily (too happily some would say) print news critical of other parts of the corporation but to think that a BBC journalist would say episodes have been returned without getting that confirmed from the relevant people is ridiculous especially as post Saville the BBC are trying to be a lot more joined up than in the past. Plus the journalist in question does all their Doctor Who news - he's not just some random asked to knock up a quick story.
Trying to explain this to non-Whovian members of my family has been interesting. "Er, they've found the one where Pat Troughton plays his own doppelganger in a ridiculous Mexican bandit accent."
So how many seconds after the list is announced (which is apparently embargoed until Midnight) before certain people start demanding news on all the ones that they haven't announced? And let's face it, any denials that there are any more will hardly be believed.
Sadly, that's gonna be the case, unless they present it in such a way that it removes all doubt. I have no idea how that would be, mind...
It's just a shame that the recovered prints will most likely be censored prints - there are no surviving censor cuts for early Hartnells like Marco Polo.
They still may be able to restore the cuts - they have full audios I think. Some inventive cutting and pasting and a little digital trickery with the video...
The other question is what state will these prints actually be in after nearly 50 years of being abandoned in Africa. The Restoration Team can work things that look like miracles but not actual miracles.