Missing episodes-?

[diankra]

Kaleidoscope is reporting that Film is Fabulous has recovered a private collection of film prints, including some missing Whos. Things are being returned to the copyright holders, no details as yet as to what.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Title spelling corrected.

 

[The Nightmare Doctor]

I'll believe it when I see it. We've been here before.

 

[diankra]

I'll believe it when I see it. We've been here before.

I suspect we might not hear what until the BBC puts them on iTunes. Other series earlier, hopefully.

 

[diankra]

Decades ago I told my sister Tomb had been found, She said .'Believe it when I see it.'

 

[The Nightmare Doctor]

Which is fair. We were all very surprised when the entirety of Enemy of the World (which had been missing all of its epsiodes) and most of The Web of Fear were found.

It's not out of the realm of possibility, but we've also had a lot of false hopes. The further we get from the purge, the chances of finding intact episodes drops exponentially.

That said, there is the age-old rumor that there is a collector who has a ton of them and refuses to release them. So who knows?*

*Just don't mention Ian Levine or that infamous episode hunter** (whose name escapes me) because they're full of shit more times than not.

**I realize he's probably the source of that aforementioned rumor.

 

[Rich Watson]

Still waiting on 'Marco Polo' which was supposed to be revealed before Christmas... 2013.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Which is fair. We were all very surprised when the entirety of Enemy of the World (which had been missing all of its epsiodes) and most of The Web of Fear were found.

It's not out of the realm of possibility, but we've also had a lot of false hopes. The further we get from the purge, the chances of finding intact episodes drops exponentially.

That said, there is the age-old rumor that there is a collector who has a ton of them and refuses to release them. So who knows?*

*Just don't mention Ian Levine or that infamous episode hunter** (whose name escapes me) because they're full of shit more times than not.

**I realize he's probably the source of that aforementioned rumor.

Of those "private collector" rumors, the only one I truly believe is the one where someone does have episode 3 of Web of Fear and was gonna give it but then didn't. Beyond that its all too speculative and too much rumor for me to actively care.

 

[diankra]

The possiibilty is that someone who has now died got some prints in tthe 60s. What, we don't know.

 

[VDCNI]

I would say this is the most positive statement for a long time.

Film is Fabulous have previously said they will have the ability to do more once they have charitable status which they now do.

They have a great track record of finds and have built up strong relationships with collectors.

They also are not stupid, they know the potential backlash if they over promise on Who.

 

[Qonfounding Ghooool]

Fingers crossed! Hopefully the material is in good shape, not requiring impossible or futile amounts of restoration work, for which some is inevitable due to the age of the films and then, of course, fixing up original transmission issues like videotape dropouts.

 

[26138]

Of those "private collector" rumors, the only one I truly believe is the one where someone does have episode 3 of Web of Fear and was gonna give it but then didn't. Beyond that its all too speculative and too much rumor for me to actively care.

I was under the impression that it existed at the time they cataloged Enemy of the World and Web of Fear at that TV station in Nigeria, but when they went back to grab them, that ep was missing. I could be misremembering though.

 

[Mr Awe]

Film is Fabulous is an reputable, quality organization. If they indicated they found some missing DW episodes, they found some. Although, I realize the story is just being reported by a publication I'm unfamiliar rather than FiF directly.

So, fingers crossed but this one makes me hopeful!

 

[Mr Awe]

I looked into this a little bit more. It sounds like FiF is optimistic but not certain. Here's a direct quote from a Facebook post reply two days ago. Make what you will. They start out stating definitively that missing DW episodes exist in the hands of private collectors. Do they know for sure? Or just being optimistic? And then they go on to say that they're about to catalog one such collector's catalog and are confident that they will find some. So, not a definite but given what they know about private collections, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're correct.

We’re working diligently behind the scenes with elderly collectors and, where the collectors have passed away, their estates. Missing episodes of Doctor Who exist in private collections in the U.K. We expect to catalogue the entirety of one such film collection shortly. We’ll make a full announcement once we have examined, prepped, cleaned, and digitally scanned the content, which is when we’ll know the condition and completeness of any rare and missing items.

 

[Mr Awe]

Apparently Film is Fabulous will be releasing a podcast with some details in "several days."

 

[26138]

The Feast of Steven confirmed? (just kidding)

 

[diankra]

Another report makes it less likely that there are any Whos, as the prints apparently came from the guy who returned two episodes in 2010. However that source is less reliable than FiF itself. If so there may not be any more Who, though there may be other stuff.

 

[Angel4576]

Tom Spilsbury's had some interesting things to say in the wake of someone asking about the 2013 DWM interview with Morris:

Who knows what to believe about any of that stuff? I was the person who conducted that interview with PM for DWM back in 2013. We chatted on the phone for half an hour or so, and he recounted the tale to me exactly as published.

However, before I sent the magazine to press, I forwarded the text of that feature to a particular member of the Restoration Team who had been involved with restoring the Enemy and Web film prints, just to get their opinion on it, and to correct any factual mistakes etc. The reply I got was a bit of an eye opener. I'm paraphrasing, but it was essentially: 'I've never read such a load of nonsense in my entire life. He wasn't even in Jos when the films were found – they were actually located by his assistant. But I suppose we'll just have to go along with his version of events, in the hope that he eventually hands over anything else that he might have.'

As you might imagine, my trust in anything PM has to say basically disintegrated on that day, a couple of weeks before the official announcement of Enemy and Web's recovery was even made.

At the time, there was a real feeling in those quarters that he was in possession of other DW material. Whether those people still believe that, more than a decade later, is a question only they can answer. Personally, I don't, and said so publicly around 2014.

It's all a long time ago, so it's easier to be a bit more open now. At the time, you'll remember how cagey certain people were about the whole situation, and how there was a lot of online chatter about how 'uber fans' were being deceptive or misleading, or, worse, downright lying. I can certainly see how it must have appeared from the outside.

The truth is that there was an extremely unpredictable personality at the heart of it, so everyone else involved (at the BBC and indeed the Restoration Team etc) were walking on eggshells around him, terrified that if he wasn't kept happy, he'd never give anything back, ever. It genuinely felt like being held to ransom. So everyone danced to his tune, for a long time at least. "Just keep him happy, and stroke his ego." And that's what we did.

Yes, it put everyone in an extremely awkward position, and none of it was very pleasant.

There was a recent podcast with Morris where he said that he had episodes of Callan in the stuff recovered from Africa, however he didn't know whether they were B&W or colour, or whether they were episodes that were currently missing..... because they haven't been sorted/catalogued yet. After over a decade....

 

[The Nightmare Doctor]

Yeah, that's the guy I was trying to remember earlier. I always figured he was full of shit but Tom Spilsbury's comments on him cements the belief.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

A lot of them seem to be rotten human beings.*

*except for Sue Molden, she seems genuinely nice.