Wiped Episode Discoveries

[Klaus]

I want to see Peter Cushing's "The Caves of Steel." Terry Nation wrote the adaptation, and there are a few clips that exist. I'd like to see the whole thing, I'd like to see how Cushing played Lije Baley.

Oh, gods, yes. That would be amazing. It's the only screen adaptation that novel's ever had.

Apparently, the production led to the creation of an anthology series called Out of the Unknown which did six more Asimov adaptations, including the sequel The Naked Sun (with a different cast), the robot stories "Satisfaction Guaranteed," "Reason," and "Liar!", and the standalones "The Dead Past" and "Sucker Bait." The two standalones still exist, but the others have been lost. They adapted stories by a number of other SF authors too, including Ray Bradbury, Kate Wilhelm, Clifford Simak, and Fredrik Pohl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Out_of_the_Unknown_episodes

Just thinking about these makse me weak in the knees. I had no idea...

 

[Sindatur]

Classic Who is still available to PBS stations, which can buy it or not on a station-by-station basis. (It was withdrawn briefly while BBC Worldwide was selling the new series, but that was years ago now.) That few stations air it anymore is entirely their decision, possibly because the fan enthusiasm that was once devoted to keeping it on the air is now aimed at collecting the DVDs and watching the new series. So if anything it's DVD sales hurting TV broadcasts rather than the other way around.

Yea, they're available to buy, but, IIRC, it's pretty expensive, compared to the viewership/Support the PBS stations would get for buying/showing reruns of the new Series

 

[Christopher]

Besides, the one time I've used iTunes, it didn't work very well on my computer. It took a long time to download and the playback was sluggish.

That's strange, from what I understand, the files are actually on your computer and should play just fine. No slow streaming or anything like that.

I first used iTunes for these 2 episodes and it worked fine. Do you have an older computer?

It's only 2 1/2 years old, but it's not very powerful. Still, it doesn't have much of a problem with streaming video most of the time.

 

[diankra]

I want to see Peter Cushing's "The Caves of Steel." Terry Nation wrote the adaptation, and there are a few clips that exist. I'd like to see the whole thing, I'd like to see how Cushing played Lije Baley.

Oh, gods, yes. That would be amazing. It's the only screen adaptation that novel's ever had.

Apparently, the production led to the creation of an anthology series called Out of the Unknown which did six more Asimov adaptations, including the sequel The Naked Sun (with a different cast), the robot stories "Satisfaction Guaranteed," "Reason," and "Liar!", and the standalones "The Dead Past" and "Sucker Bait." The two standalones still exist, but the others have been lost. They adapted stories by a number of other SF authors too, including Ray Bradbury, Kate Wilhelm, Clifford Simak, and Fredrik Pohl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Out_of_the_Unknown_episodes

Just thinking about these make me weak in the knees. I had no idea...

Out of the Unknown is inevitably pretty variable: of the ones I've seen, No Place Like Earth is pretty dreadful (the producer wanted to bury it later in the series, but the BBC bosses insisted on opening with the John Wyndham story, as he was the writer even the non-SF fans among them had heard of), Counterfeit Man and Stranger in the Family both excellent, Time in Advance is variable (some dodgy model work and very SF acting in places), The Machines Stops very impressive (despite some very 'silver shiny costumes' design). Unfortunately the others I've seen all come from season 4, when a new producer restyled it as a paranormal anthology, and while the missing Nigel Kneale script looks to have been excellent, some of the others are... well, the Deathday adaptation took so many plot liberties that the original short story writer brought a legal suit, while To Lay a Ghost is about a woman who was raped in childhood who's haunted by the ghost of a medieval rapist, and the pun in the title gives away the distasteful twist in the tail.
I wish more of seasons two and three survived, they look as if they were excellent: the initial teething problems worked out, but with the proper SF spirit of the first season.

Unfortunately attempts to release the surviving episodes have hit the inevitable rock of rights issues (oh, and BTW, those 'reviews are frequently based on seeing them at screenings in the mid-1980s, so reliability of my memories may vary!).

 

[Harvey]

I believe that Cushing's "1984" does exist (I think it was found, in all places, at the Library of Congress), but Orwell's estate isn't interested in allowing its release.

Is the version of 1984 being talked about different than this one?

 

[diankra]

I believe that Cushing's "1984" does exist (I think it was found, in all places, at the Library of Congress), but Orwell's estate isn't interested in allowing its release.

Is the version of 1984 being talked about different than this one?

That's the one being talked about, the others being the 1956 film with the 'happy' ending, and the 1984 film with John Hurt and the Eurythmics soundtrack.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Classic Who is still available to PBS stations, which can buy it or not on a station-by-station basis. (It was withdrawn briefly while BBC Worldwide was selling the new series, but that was years ago now.) That few stations air it anymore is entirely their decision, possibly because the fan enthusiasm that was once devoted to keeping it on the air is now aimed at collecting the DVDs and watching the new series. So if anything it's DVD sales hurting TV broadcasts rather than the other way around.

Yea, they're available to buy, but, IIRC, it's pretty expensive, compared to the viewership/Support the PBS stations would get for buying/showing reruns of the new Series

"Compared to the new series" isn't really the issue, since there aren't many stations running that either. Doctor Who on PBS has been in decline since the early 90s, when VCRs and commercial VHS releases of the series meant people who wanted to see it didn't need PBS to run it indefinitely. And it probably didn't help that the series was out of production.

 

[Sindatur]

I don't know if it ever got to '80s Distribution Levels, or if it's still occurring, but, from what I understand, for the Eccelston and Tennant Years, there were quite a few PBS Stations doing well with those Series.

 

[Candlelight]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATyRfH_xzEo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ9PWxcgH3Y

These came online on the 26th. A nice Xmas present for those that care about this stuff.

 

[Lonemagpie]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATyRfH_xzEo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ9PWxcgH3Y

These came online on the 26th. A nice Xmas present for those that care about this stuff.

The first one's been forced down by BBC Worldwide already.

 

[inflatabledalek]

One of the shames about Out of the Unknown is that even if lost episodes do wind up being recovered they're unlikely to see the light of day via any official release as the BBC have, according to Andrew Pixley in a few posts over the years at GB, no interest in releasing even what they already have of the series.

Apparently, negotiating new deals with all the authors/author's estates involved with the series to allow for some form of home media release would be (in Worldwide's eyes) too expensive to be viable. Being no legal expert I'm not sure why deals with the authors of the original stories being adapted would be so much more expensive than any other writer of a TV show of a similar vintage, but it basically means that (bar an extreme change of circumstances) it's never going to happen.

Which is a shame as an anthology is the sort of show that won't get hurt too badly by not having all the episodes to put out.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't know if it ever got to '80s Distribution Levels, or if it's still occurring, but, from what I understand, for the Eccelston and Tennant Years, there were quite a few PBS Stations doing well with those Series.

I know that WETA in Washington was showing the Tennant series as recently as a year ago on their WETA UK HD station. (Which, to be frank, shows more British programming than BBC America.)

 

[Christopher]

Apparently, negotiating new deals with all the authors/author's estates involved with the series to allow for some form of home media release would be (in Worldwide's eyes) too expensive to be viable. Being no legal expert I'm not sure why deals with the authors of the original stories being adapted would be so much more expensive than any other writer of a TV show of a similar vintage, but it basically means that (bar an extreme change of circumstances) it's never going to happen.

Probably because they have to make deals with both the original author and the screenwriter who adapted it.

Which is a shame as an anthology is the sort of show that won't get hurt too badly by not having all the episodes to put out.

Well, that depends. Anthologies, by their nature, are of inconsistent quality. If the surviving ones happen to be mostly the good ones, then it isn't hurt too badly, but if the surviving ones are mostly the mediocre to bad ones, then it doesn't come off too well.

 

[diankra]

Probably because they have to make deals with both the original author and the screenwriter who adapted it.

And with any film producers who might have taken an option on the original writer's work since the BBC's rights to adapt them expired 40-odd years ago.

 

[Brendan Moody]

I don't know if it ever got to '80s Distribution Levels, or if it's still occurring, but, from what I understand, for the Eccelston and Tennant Years, there were quite a few PBS Stations doing well with those Series.

I know that WETA in Washington was showing the Tennant series as recently as a year ago on their WETA UK HD station. (Which, to be frank, shows more British programming than BBC America.)

There are a few others still showing various new series episodes: see the USA section of This Week in Doctor Who's channel list for some of them. And as Sindatur says, there were quite a few more once upon a time (though still, I imagine, fewer than ran the classic series when it was current). But my point was that the classic series didn't disappear from PBS because the new series came in, though I imagine the temporary sale ban had a last straw effect in a lot of places.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

While not about Doctor Who, Beatles Examiner has up an article about some of the other things that might have been discovered in Africa, like the Beatles' appearance on "Juke Box Jury."

 

[diankra]

More Marco Polo shenanigans, taken with a hefty pinch of salt: there's someone who's been trying to post (what they claim to be) the first few minutes of Marco Polo on first youtube, and now DailyMotion, all day, and continually having it taken down. Probably just a hoaxer (I understand that Levine is already breaking Twitter in response so if so, he's got what he wanted), but there's an outside chance that it's for real, and it might bounce the BBC into bringing forward an announcement (btw, the 50th anniversary of the first episode going out is 22nd Feb, which is just before the DVD release of Web of Fear, which would be an irresistible chance for two-for-one press coverage) if there is anything to announce.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

More Marco Polo shenanigans...

I saw this begin to unfold on Twitter last night. It's been one very strange chapter in what's already been a very strange story.

Levine's going off on everything. 2011 for when he first got wind off it. BBC Radio Wiltshire. Phil Morris. The BBC in general.

This is so bonkers it's madder than Mad Jack McMadd.

 

[Mr Awe]

BBC should just either confirm or deny to stop the BS. Instead they're glued to an inflexible PR schedule, at least judging by Fear and Enemy.

Mr Awe

 

[Allyn Gibson]

More Marco Polo shenanigans, taken with a hefty pinch of salt:

And, unsurprisingly, this turned out to be a Rick-Roll.

No, I'm not going to link to where it finally ended up.