Wiped Episode Discoveries

[Turtletrekker]

I'm curious if Downtime will be released in its original cut or in Ian Levine's recut with the seventh Doctor.

Both would be nice...

Both. Or at least include the McCoy stuff as a bonus feature. I'm not really sure how much the story would benefit from the McCoy stuff as it doesn't really seem to be all that well done (jump to 33:30)...

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4650h76xLk[/yt]

 

[mythme]

I've been looking to watch this for quite some time, so I'm happy about a DVD release. I wasn't even aware that it was a Levine project. This projects are often a mixed bag. Some are absolutely terrible. Some are quite nice. I captured his animated version of "Mission to the Unknown" which I thought was good, even if the characters didn't really look like the original actors. I really wanna track down a copy of his "Shada" someday.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Or at least include the McCoy stuff as a bonus feature. I'm not really sure how much the story would benefit from the McCoy stuff as it doesn't really seem to be all that well done (jump to 33:30)...

There's a brief interview with McCoy about Downtime:

INTERVIEWER:
You've been inserted into a Doctor Who story which did not originally feature you.. er.. that's to say it featured Elisabeth Sladen, and you did some green screen work in front of a kind of CGI TARDIS. Can you tell us about that?

SYLVESTER McCOY:
Oh yes, that's something to do with the same people trying to do this cartoon.

INTERVIEWER:
Right.

SYLVESTER McCOY:
Yeah, I didn't know too much about it really.

INTERVIEWER:
Did you do a lot of acting in that particular group?

SYLVESTER McCOY:
It was a day somewhere. I agreed.. it was this guy, this fan.. it was this fan, you know, and I agreed to do it and then I, er, it was kind of, I remember afterwards wishing I hadn't.

 

[Christopher]

How did this Levine recut work? Did it just add a frame sequence with McCoy?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

How did this Levine recut work? Did it just add a frame sequence with McCoy?

I think it's a framing sequence.

The reason I'm curious about what version of Downtime will be released on DVD is that Levine claimed he had the home video rights to the film and he said it wouldn't be released if it didn't have his additions. I simply can't see the BBC countenancing that.

 

[diankra]

How did this Levine recut work? Did it just add a frame sequence with McCoy?

^ Keep it where? The reason they started wiping tapes (to reuse them) & burning film was they were running out of room. And once color TV came in, all that black and white footage suddenly seemed worthless.

Oh, I see. So the material was kept around for the first few years, but once the show switched to color, there was no longer a reason? I guess that makes more sense -- at least within the context of the senseless act of destroying creative works.

Copies were made though and Doctor Who was syndicated that's how part four of The Tomb Of The Cybermen was found in Hong Kong on videotape. But while the lack of space was the given reason, there were also polictical concerns and of course the cost of cleaning up all that film. They thought the syndicated market had dried up and for Doctor Who this was true until Star Wars came along and they decided to give Doctor Who another chance in the syndication marketplace.

The copy of Tomb found in Hong Kong was a film telerecording: no episodes exist on video prior to Ambassadors of Death 1.
As for the Downtime re-edit, the framing plot has the McCoy Doctor facing the Celestial Toymaker, with the main plot echoing their 'game', but I'm not entirely keen to see it, to be honest.

 

[Christopher]

As for the Downtime re-edit, the framing plot has the McCoy Doctor facing the Celestial Toymaker, with the main plot echoing their 'game', but I'm not entirely keen to see it, to be honest.

The show's wiki says it was the Seventh Doctor facing a resurrected Padmasambhava at Det-Sen Monastery.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I would love to see it. It'd be great to see McCoy in a live-action story, even like this.

I'm far less enthused about Ian Levine's re-edit of the videogame cutscenes of Destiny of the Doctors featuring Anthony Ainley... that looks especially patchy.

 

[Relayer1]

I would love to see it. It'd be great to see McCoy in a live-action story, even like this.

I'm far less enthused about Ian Levine's re-edit of the videogame cutscenes of Destiny of the Doctors featuring Anthony Ainley... that looks especially patchy.

Sorry about what is probably a dumb question, but I'm not familiar with all the Who fandom machinations. Aren't Levines projects availble to watch ?

 

[N-121973]

Just when you thought this was all over...

"We're hoping to release more Classic Doctor Who and we'll let you know when we have news."
- BBC Worldwide, Twitter, 5:46 am 26 Jun 2015

So now Auntie Beeb herself is stirring the pot. Big Finish already dropped their bombshell this morning, so that's not connected to this tweet.

I'm hoping - and obviously the announcement of more missing episodes being found would be great - that it's to announce the special edition re-release of stories such as The War Machines, Enemy of the world, Web of Fear, Horror of Fang Rock and (maybe) The Two Doctors. If that's so and there aren't anymore missing episodes to discover I can embark on my long awaited dream of re-watching every Doctor Who story starting with The Unearthly Child and continuing on to the present.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I would love to see it. It'd be great to see McCoy in a live-action story, even like this.

I'm far less enthused about Ian Levine's re-edit of the videogame cutscenes of Destiny of the Doctors featuring Anthony Ainley... that looks especially patchy.

Sorry about what is probably a dumb question, but I'm not familiar with all the Who fandom machinations. Aren't Levines projects availble to watch ?

Not quite. His Mission to the Unknown is, and his Shada leaked in a re-edited form (his actual edit is said to be unfinished, with at least one "new" scene thats missing from the "released" fan-edit). The rest of his projects are, as he says, private, and won't release them unless the BBC do.

Here's the "trailer" he released, featuring scenes from many (but not all) of his projects, including the ones discussed currently here.

[YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4650h76xLk[/YT]

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Sorry about what is probably a dumb question, but I'm not familiar with all the Who fandom machinations. Aren't Levines projects availble to watch ?

We had some discussion here a few years ago about Levine's Downtime recut and his personal projects.

I use the term "personal projects" deliberately. Levine has money, and he spends it on making Doctor Who for his own amusement. Sometimes it's to finish something unfinished (like Shada), sometimes it's to animate something lost (like Mission to the Unknown). Sometimes he reedits something to make it into what he considers "proper Doctor Who" (like making "Pudsey Cutaway" a JNT-style regeneration sequence or whatever he did with "Time-Crash" to give it a cliffhanger). He has no time for the novels or audios, which he considers nothing more than fan fiction.

Levine wants fandom to see what he's done, but he won't release them on his own because he knows that the Beeb owns Doctor Who and he doesn't want to get on their bad side. He has approached the BBC about releasing some of them (like his animated Shada). The BBC has said politely declined. And he's been upset when people have leaked his productions to the 'net; besides the personal betrayal (not unjustified), he knows that the BBC won't reconsider their stance if the material is floating around out there.

 

[Christopher]

How many versions of "Shada" are out there now? There's the old home-video version with Tom Baker's narration bridging the existing footage. There's the audio/Flash reconstruction with the Eighth Doctor. There's the recent novelization. And now there's this Levine thing? Is there some consensus about which version is the "real" one? Is the encounter with Professor Chronotis something that was experienced by the Fourth Doctor or the Eighth? (And that's not even getting into Dirk Gently...)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well, I'm surprised you ask, Christopher, because it was fairly well known an incident late 2013... unless you didn't want to know.

Anyway, here's a list:

* An unifnished Shada exists, with title cards filling in for the missing scenes. Only few fans know of these, underground stuff. The person responsible for the title cards? Ian Levine himself...

* The JNT-approved, 1992 released Shada with Tom Baker as some kind of curator (hm...) narrating the missing parts.

* Gareth Roberts' novel adaptation of the story, written in Doug Adams' style.

* The Gary Russell-authored Eighth Doctor version for Big Finish, with a (pointless) prologue that says how the adventure was supposed to have happened, but The Five Doctors prevented 4 and Romana to undergo it. Why, of course, it took him four lifetimes to realize this, is puzzling, but whatever.

* An audiobook version read by Lalla Ward and John Leeson, I believe.

* Ian Levine's rough cut of it, which included a scene of the Doctor and Romana before their actual first scene in the Cambridge canal.

* 2013's leaked re-edit of Ian Levine's rough cut, which pretty much follows the script to the letter - which means, the above scene was excised, and sound effects were polished (or so the leaker says).

* A breakfast cereal that includes a puzzle of the story. Winner gets the missing scenes in marshmallow form.

 

[ATimson]

* Gareth Roberts' novel adaptation of the story, written in Doug Adams' style.

...

* An audiobook version read by Lalla Ward and John Leeson, I believe.

The audiobook is the same as the Gareth Roberts book (it's not a brand new novelization as BBC Audio have done with some other titles).

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

* Gareth Roberts' novel adaptation of the story, written in Doug Adams' style.

...

* An audiobook version read by Lalla Ward and John Leeson, I believe.

The audiobook is the same as the Gareth Roberts book (it's not a brand new novelization as BBC Audio have done with some other titles).

Good catch. I just wasn't sure. Thanks!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Is there some consensus about which version is the "real" one?

Nope.

I think the Big Finish version is meant to be the "real" one. Because of the events of "The Five Doctors" and the Timescoop, the fourth Doctor and Romana don't have their adventure with Professor Chronotis, so to keep time from falling to pieces, the eighth Doctor and Romana have to live the adventure that didn't happen.

(And that's not even getting into Dirk Gently...)

What I find amusing about IDW's Dirk Gently comic is how much Dirk looks like the love child of David Tennant and Ian Marter. Which I guess is appropriate.

As for Professor Chronotis, I once dreamed of a BBC Radio program that was an hour-long scholarly debate between Professor Chronotis and Stephen Fry's Professor Trefusis. It was brilliant and everything you would expect of a collaboration between Douglas Adams and Stephen Fry, and I was disappointed to wake and discover that no such thing existed.

 

[Christopher]

What I find amusing about IDW's Dirk Gently comic is how much Dirk looks like the love child of David Tennant and Ian Marter. Which I guess is appropriate.

Funny... I'm currently 3/4 of the way through the DVD set of the short-lived (but pretty good) Dirk Gently TV series, and I was thinking that Dirk (Stephen Mangan) looked and sounded kind of like a cross between Tom Baker and Benedict Cumberbatch. Maybe with a bit of Paul McGann and Eric Idle too.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Nope.

I think the Big Finish version is meant to be the "real" one. Because of the events of "The Five Doctors" and the Timescoop, the fourth Doctor and Romana don't have their adventure with Professor Chronotis, so to keep time from falling to pieces, the eighth Doctor and Romana have to live the adventure that didn't happen.

The Big Finish Shada isn't nearly as funny or charming as the Fourth Doctor version. IMO, in its re-edited Levine form, thats the best, more complete version yet.

BF just hurried this for no reason. If they didn't we might've gotten a Lost Story treament of it by now, and maybe a deal between BF and the BBC could've been reached for an actual, official version.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

BF just hurried this for no reason. If they didn't we might've gotten a Lost Story treatment of it by now, and maybe a deal between BF and the BBC could've been reached for an actual, official version.

First, the BBC commissioned Shada from Big Finish for the 40th-anniversary. Big Finish didn't "hurry" this of their own volition; they made an audio they were paid to make. Shada wasn't their decisiion.

Second, Big Finish approached Tom Baker to star. He turned them down, as he had turned them down before. At the time, Baker simply wasn't interested in reprising the Doctor on audio. With Baker not interested, Big Finish was going to have to fill the role of the Doctor with someone. McGann probably isn't the obvious choice; given Gary Russell's framing sequence, an argument can be made that Davison is the logical choice to repair the "missing" adventure in the aftermath of "The Five Doctors." Still, the point is, since they had to make Shada and Baker wasn't going to be a part of it, and they weren't interested in recasting Doctors at that point in time, then their options were limited.

I get that you think Big Finish's Shada was a missed opportunity at best or an outright mistake at worst. But you're blaming them for decisions that were out of their hands.