Did any of these Lost Episodes ever Surface?

[Sindatur]

I just read this link over at SyFy board (Story is from April 2009), talking about signals aired 47 years previously had bounced back and they were going through them and found Lost Episodes

http://www.rimmell.com/bbc/news.htm

A BBC team have been working closely with Dr Venn's team to help recover the signals. BBC Television historian Peter Wells, explained "We now know these are original broadcasts. So far we have recovered about 7 weeks of old television signals from space. Every day in our lab is like traveling back in time. And speaking of which we have just started the digital recovery of signals that contain lost Doctor Who episodes.

ETA: Oh, I just noticed which day in April 2009

 

[Lonemagpie]

LOL

Well, at least in real life a couple of episodes - Galaxy 4 episode 3 "Air Lock" and The Underwater Menace episode 2 - have been recovered, which were among the missing at the time that April Fool piece was originally published...

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Yeah, the signals couldn't bounce back.

Now, if we could travel fast enough to get ahead of those signals, we'd have something.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It is amazing to think that there wasn't a perceived value to at least keep a master copy of everything before purging. Different times I guess.

So Who must have the most wanted missing episodes but what comes in second? I never hear of anything else.

 

[Lonemagpie]

It is amazing to think that there wasn't a perceived value to at least keep a master copy of everything before purging. Different times I guess.

So Who must have the most wanted missing episodes but what comes in second? I never hear of anything else.

DW isn't missing anything like as many episodes as, say, Z Cars, which has well over 450 episodes lost, compared to 106 or so missing DW episodes... Dixon Of Dock Green is missing about 380 episodes, and Armchair Theatre is missing 300...

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I worded that badly, I was thinking along the lines of which show has fans most lamenting its missing episodes. But 450 episodes of Z Cars, damn.

 

[Candlelight]

Take your pick:

http://www.missing-episodes.com/

I would say Dad's Army, Z-Cars and the Apollo 11 footage is up there in the most popular/most wanted category.

Personally I would like to see At Last the 1948 Show, A for Andromeda and The Quatermass Experiment but I doubt they'd come back. In the case of the latter we know the final four episodes weren't recorded so we'll never see them again.

 

[Candlelight]

Oh and Out of the Unknown. Geez how did I forget that!

Would love to see the episode Get Off My Cloud, if only for the Daleks and Tardis dream sequence.

 

[jbny67]

Personally I would like to see At Last the 1948 Show

A good amount of this show exist. There even available on DVD at Amazon for about $10.

I would like to see the missing Avengers episodes show up someday.

 

[diankra]

Personally I would like to see At Last the 1948 Show

A good amount of this show exist. There even available on DVD at Amazon for about $10.

I would like to see the missing Avengers episodes show up someday.

To judge by the two first season episodes that survive... maybe you wouldn't. They're watchable, a lot more watchable than most British TV from 1961, but they're not exactly what people think of as The Avengers. Good though MacNee and Ian Hendry are in them.
Now, if we could get the missing Hancocks back... :-)

 

[Candlelight]

Personally I would like to see At Last the 1948 Show

A good amount of this show exist. There even available on DVD at Amazon for about $10.

I already own it.

 

[ROBE]

Five episodes of Dads Army were missing but two showed up leaving just three missing.

 

[captcalhoun]

It is amazing to think that there wasn't a perceived value to at least keep a master copy of everything before purging. Different times I guess.

From what I've read, it's Equity's fault. they were worried that TV would mean actors would wind up out of work due to endless re-runs and pressured the Beeb into deleting stuff.

of course, here we are 50-odd years later, with channels which show nothing but wall-to-wall re-runs but still plenty of original scripted TV to employ actors.

 

[Candlelight]

It is amazing to think that there wasn't a perceived value to at least keep a master copy of everything before purging. Different times I guess.

From what I've read, it's Equity's fault. they were worried that TV would mean actors would wind up out of work due to endless re-runs and pressured the Beeb into deleting stuff.

Partly. Technology was also a factor. In 1967 the BBC went to 576i (625) up from 377i (405), and then in 1969/70 went to PAL (colour). By the time of Pertwee's final season they were struggling to sell black and white material to overseas broadcasters. With no other market for them why keep them?

My take is, considering the show had reached it's tenth anniversary it was becoming a big part of British culture, and so you would expect some part of that would try to preserve - at the very least - crucial episodes/stories, like The Power of the Daleks (as it was Troughton's first story). As it was it just seemed to be completely random (partially, stuff like The Enemy of the World 3 was probably kept for being the first 576i episode of the series proper, but again The Power of the Daleks 6 had that honour!).

At the very least if you wanted to keep around 50 episodes just pick the last episode from each story - there were 50 stories in the black & white era!