Another small victory against the BBC's short-shortsightedness and penny-pinching non-wisdom!
Yup, these episodes were not lost or missing, they were JUNKED by the BBC. The Doctor Who from years ago might look a bit cheap & shoddy, but the stories were great. I tried with the modern stuff, they look & sound great, but I thought the stories didn't make much sense.
Too bad, "The Web of Fear" is incomplete. I will only order "The Enemy of the World".
You'd be doing yourself a great disservice, WEB OF FEAR is a great story and even through Episode 3 had to be re-created using stills and such, it's still a great adventure and a very important one in the history our Time Lord.
After you are done with ENEMY OF THE WORLD, download it and take a chance, you'll be richly rewarded .
Too bad, "The Web of Fear" is incomplete. I will only order "The Enemy of the World".
You'd be doing yourself a great disservice, WEB OF FEAR is a great story and even through Episode 3 had to be re-created using stills and such, it's still a great adventure and a very important one in the history our Time Lord.
After you are done with ENEMY OF THE WORLD, download it and take a chance, you'll be richly rewarded .
I will wait for a little longer until the BBC finds the missing episode. There's no rush. I prefer waiting to get the real McCoy. Doctor Who relies on actors and their colourful performances. Meanwhile I will slowly taste the political serial "The Enemy of the World" directed by producer Barry Letts.
PS: Yesterday, I re-watched "The Tomb of the Cybermen" because of the guest actors.
I too have heard that there are a couple of other shows possibly in among the haul...I'm not sure about my source, but apparently the final missing episodes of a certain comedy show ("Don't tell him your name, Pike!")...possibly...and some episodes of another Sci-fi series starring Julie Christie, only episode one of which was thought to exist...and it might still do, as I said, I'm not sure about my source.
A for Andromeda. Nice.
Out Of The Unknown series 1 and 2 ?? That would be nice as well..
I see that the New Zealand iTunes store has no Dr Who programs in it so once again as usual we're screwed. C'mon BBC these are 50 year old programs..
I too have heard that there are a couple of other shows possibly in among the haul...I'm not sure about my source, but apparently the final missing episodes of a certain comedy show ("Don't tell him your name, Pike!")...possibly...and some episodes of another Sci-fi series starring Julie Christie, only episode one of which was thought to exist...and it might still do, as I said, I'm not sure about my source.
A for Andromeda. Nice.
Out Of The Unknown series 1 and 2 ?? That would be nice as well..
I see that the New Zealand iTunes store has no Dr Who programs in it so once again as usual we're screwed. C'mon BBC these are 50 year old programs..
I can wait for the DVDs. I've waited all this time, a little bit longer won't hurt.
Doctor Who Magazine have sent DWO the cover and details for Issue 466 of DWM.
DWM talks exclusively to the man who found nine missing episodes of Doctor Who: Philip Morris…
“It’s my job to put a smile on Doctor Who fans’ faces,” says PHILIP MORRIS, who recently discovered the film copies of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, “in complete co-operation with BBC Worldwide. Doctor Who fans need to know that we are actively searching for material. So don’t lose hope!”
Plus: Missing episodes experts PAUL VANEZIS and PETER CROCKER explain their role in restoring these decades-old films to their former glory!
Also this issue:
BACK TO THE BEGINNING... An exclusive preview of the new BBC Two drama, AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME, which tells the story of the origins of Doctor Who and featuring an interview with DAVID BRADLEY, who plays William Hartnell, the actor who created the role of the Doctor.
FIRST DIRECTION WARIS HUSSEIN, who directed the very first Doctor Who serial in 1963 talks exclusively to DWM, and reveals how he and the cast were able to overcome the limitations of the show’s tiny budget and create something that has lasted for 50 years.
THE GODFATHER With excerpts from a previously unpublished archive interview, DWM presents a profile of SYDNEY NEWMAN, the man responsible for the birth of Doctor Who and for revolutionising TV drama production in the UK in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In what could be another gift for the 50th anniversary year, The Mirror are today claiming that all 7 missing episodes of 1964 Hartnell story, Marco Polo, have been recovered and are due to be unveiled officially next month.
Their article states:
Seven lost Doctor Who episodes that were recorded by a fan are set to be unveiled next month.
The BBC are desperately keeping the existence of the 1964 series – called Marco Polo, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor – secret.
They are one of the only series where no video footage exists – and was thought to have been lost forever.
A TV insider revealed: “This is a massive deal for Doctor Who fans, these episodes were hugely popular with viewers when they were first shown and are set to be a hit again.”
The chance to recover the wiped Marco Polo episodes has come from the dedication of a fan who enthusiastically recorded the episodes on a cine camera. The fan recorded the episodes directly from the television onto a 16mm film camera.
Since the discovery of the cine film, the recordings have been carefully restored and transferred onto broadcast tape by BBC Worldwide.
The source continued: “This new discovery is all down to a dedicated fan who spent ages recording the episodes back in the sixties. The recording – which is a silent film – came out really clearly so it will be easy to watch… the fan did it in a very professional way.
“There are already audio recordings of the episodes so the Beeb have had to match everything up. There are some gaps in the audio so it has been a painstaking process. Where there are gaps in audio they are going to be re-recorded using contemporary actors who sound as close to the original actors as possible.
“The fan had been holding onto these tapes for a long time and when the BBC found out about the tapes they jumped at the chance of using them. It’s a massive coup for the broadcaster.”
In what could be another gift for the 50th anniversary year, The Mirror are today claiming that all 7 missing episodes of 1964 Hartnell story, Marco Polo, have been recovered and are due to be unveiled officially next month.
If true, that is great news. I always found that to be one of the best serials of the original run, even if I only saw it with still images and audio.
When missing Doctor Who episodes The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear were recently discovered in Nigeria, it wasn’t a simple matter of blowing some dust off the film cans and popping the lot onto iTunes. Instead, to repair damage and make the episodes actually watchable again took 100 hours.
Per episode.
It was done by what’s called the Restoration Team but that’s not some official BBC team working out of Television Centre. It began as a group of fans who knew how to repair certain problems, discovered and invented ways to fix others, and then in 1992 persuaded the BBC to let them experiment on archive Doctor Who.
“We’ve been privileged that 2 Entertain and BBC Video have allowed us to spend this money and do this sort of work,” says Steve Roberts of the team. While the work is done with a fraction of the time and the money that film studios spend on restoring films like James Bond, it’s still expensive. The cost has to be met by DVD sales and, especially when they started, no one knew that Doctor Who would sell enough.
Commercially, it was a gamble and didn’t make financial sense, but because it was Doctor Who this team wanted to try anyway. “Because we’re fans,” says Roberts, simply. “It seems to have worked out because they’ve carried on employing us.”
The BBC kept hiring the Restoration Team and earlier this year they completed what they and everyone believed was their final project: a Blu-ray release of Jon Pertwee’s Spearhead from Space. It is the only classic Who to have been made entirely on film so it is the only one that can get a Blu-ray release. It was the end of a very long project and Roberts says they feel proud: “Proud that we’ve seen it right through, it’s a twenty-year legacy really.”
But then archivist Philip Morris searched for and discovered previously missing episodes starring second Doctor Patrick Troughton and the restoration team was back to work. “It was very exciting,” says team member Paul Vanezis, producer of Stargazing Live and the official Doctor Who 50th Celebration at London’s ExCel. “Philip called me up and asked me to take a look at films that he’d acquired. They were five films, which was what he had of The Web of Fear. But you have to put the excitement to one side and focus on the job which is, okay, what state are they in?
"Generally they were okay, but once I started unwinding them there was damage, scratches, the usual things you would expect on a film of that age. But also there were splices in the film [where TV stations] had put in commercial breaks. They’d splice the film, put the ads in, transmit it, then take the ads out and send the film on to the next station. When you look at the splice points there were clearly things missing and the frames had been damaged by the glue in the splicing.”
Crocker says that he then worked on the episodes shot by shot. At many times it was frame by frame: “We’re able to compare the footage with off-air audio recordings and say, okay, at this point there is one second and four frames missing.” Typically the gap is because of picture disturbance when a scene changes and often the image can be calculated and recreated using the film frames either side.
Much work is done in stabilising the image: being on film that was played very many times, the sprocket holes stretch and make the image judder. One episode had a video fault that ran through every shot “a load of white dots on the screen” and each one had to be removed. Then, at the same time as each image is being restored, the audio is being worked on separately by Mark Ayres to reduce hisses and other problems.
The team uses a lot of software they have developed themselves but restoration remains as much an art as a technical challenge: if you remove every bit of hiss or fix every pixel then the result can sound and look so clinical that it is distracting.
That’s even assuming footage can always be restored, and that isn’t true. There have been times when archive material has been found that is beyond any repair. It has yet to happen with any Doctor Who footage but all film will eventually fall to what’s called the vinegar syndrome. The chemicals in celluloid that is stored poorly will begin to eat away at the film and the resulting reaction is so potent that it even starts to affect films in other nearby cans.
The Restoration Team doesn’t know if there will ever be any more missing Doctor Who finds: Roberts says “We’re not expecting anything else but like everyone else we hope so” but Crocker says now they’ve done all that exist “I feel very unemployed at the moment!”
In a small interview with BBC News at the Doctor Who Celebration in London on the anniversary of the show, the man who found the recently-released missing Patrick Troughton lost episodes, The Web Of Fear and The Enemy Of The World, spoke about why it was so important about finding lost episodes of Doctor Who and other British television shows.
Philip Morris was asked why the world was so excited that these episodes of the Second Doctor, long thought to be lost forever, had been found.
I think if you look at the show itself, it is very unique. When it was first brought out and transmitted, there was nothing else like it. When it sells good stories and all the pieces come together, there’s no other show like it – its one of its own.
I’ve just spoken to occasional Kasterborous contributor and omnirumour expert Gareth Kavanagh concerning this evening’s BFI event and the absence of any Doctor Who, or indeed any genuine confirmation of anything at all, really.
What he has told me can be found listed below. First, however, thanks to Gareth’s discussions this evening, we do know that nothing is being announced this year, but next year we’ll be getting something big.
So, what’s the deal with tonight’s event?
10,000 film cans have been uncovered by Philip Morris’ TIEA
Internet gossip (by Doctor Who fans, mainly) is slowing things down
Total haul is back in the UK but not all back at the BBC
It will take years and years to catalogue, grade and restore material
ITV material being handled by BFI
Episodes of Steptoe and Son, Morecambe and Wise and Dad’s Army have all been mentioned as being in the collection
Glimpsed in the screened documentary was a pile of film cans one of which was labelled Marco Polo episode 3 or perhaps 5 (this appears to have since been debunked as a visual gag, however.)
And are there any missing Doctor Who episodes among them? Well, we don’t know. Few do. But at least they (meaning, for instance, the BFI and Philip Morris) are clearly aware of what we think we know.
Despite hopes to the contrary, this evening’s event at the BFI apparently revealed little as far as missing episodes are concerned, but hope remains.
After all…
However, that big figure of 10,000 isn’t confirmation. Rather, it is comprehension. The players in this omnirumour are aware that the magic number of 10,000 has been cited. A lot. Whether they’re now using it as a confirmation or as a simple reference to the rumour and perhaps even communicate some sympathy with just how frustrating it is being on the inside… well, we don’t know this.
In fact, we don’t even know if they entire thing has been faked to smoke out British collectors who may have been sitting on material for years, intrigued by the dollars of iTunes.
Put simply, the omnirumour remains a rumour tonight, a possibility, a dream. Early promise has sadly fallen by the wayside.
Ever since it became that missing Doctor Who episodes had been uncovered earlier this year, one of the biggest questions has been “when will they be on TV?”
Well, if BBC Four has its way, the answer is “sooner, rather than later.”
A feature on the Radio Times website today offers the idea up as a very real possibility.
The BBC has confirmed that it has the right to air both The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World in the UK decades after they were first broadcast. And if they do get aired they will almost certainly be shown on BBC4, senior sources have confirmed.
…a senior BBC executive told RadioTimes.com that no decision had been made but that if BBC television were to obtain the rights they would almost certainly air on BBC4 and not on BBC2.
A Worldwide spokesman said that the “BBC has the rights to show them if they wanted to”.
At the same time, however, the BBC was unable to confirm what sort of deal or arrangement they have will TIEA and Philip Morris.
This all seems to have come about in response to Saturday’s Missing Believed Wiped event at the BFI, in which the genius behind Morris’ approach to the subject of missing tapes was confirmed along with the assertion that the Indiana Jones of lost tapes might have uncovered several tens of thousands of lost canisters (that link is particularly worth reading), many more than thought.
But let’s think about this: The Web of Fear almost complete and The Enemy of the World, on TV, 45 or so years later? How great would it be to see the Second Doctor on a TV set, topped and tailed by announcements and trailers for other shows rather than on a DVD?
With BBC Four’s future looking exceedingly rosy as a cultural archive, this would make perfect sense.
10 Missing Stories We’d Most Like To See Recovered
THIS is The List. Kasterborous brings you the Top 10 missing Doctor Who stories we’d like to see returned and why. Get your space-time visualisers tuned in and imaginations fired up as we dream about what may be out there gathering dust in the dark…
Note: I’m avoiding stories where we’re only missing a single episode. So while some of us would consider trading a kidney to see Tenth Planet Episode Four, I’ve not included it as a missing “story” per se. Enjoy!
10. The Highlanders
The last historical until Black Orchid, this Caledonian tale introduced one of the most popular companions the show has known – Frazer Hines’ performance reportedly convinced the crew to keep him on as a regular, giving one of the strongest on-screen pairings between a Doctor and companion. The stakes are high with incarceration, and attempted slavery in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising. And who could resist Patrick Troughton, finding his way into the part he’d transform into a television franchise, doing turns disguised as both a German Doctor-von-Wer (as you do) and a kitchen maid. A bonkers romp.
9. Galaxy Four
The recovery of episode 3 has merely whetted the appetite. Bouffant space-vixens versus peaceful inter-galactic walruses (and both with flawless RP) and Bill Hartnell thoroughly enjoying himself – this is the traditional parable on not judging a book by its cover as only ‘60s Who can tell it. And there are Chumblies. Chumblies!
8. The Wheel in Space
Cybermen looking more vacant and menacing, and sounding more evil than ever before; this story also introduced Zoe as brainy space-totty to baffle our highlander hero. Wheel in Space is eerie, claustrophobic and very much of its era. Dashing space crew, retro-future fasion sense and cybermats populate this mostly missing slice of cyber-Who. Want!
I know it’s a re-imagining but just take a look at the tribute Alien-style trailer for Wheel above (ending with a highly chortlesome adapted tag line)…
7. The Celestial Toymaker
Horror legend, Michael Gough’s Celestial villain is a tragic loss to surviving Who. One of the most inventive premises for a story and unique production designs. Sinister clowns and Avengers-style kookiness and the fabulous Carmen Silvera, more familiar as Renee’s tone-deaf wife from ‘Ello ‘Ello, starring among the Toymaker’s play things. We want it back!
6. Fury from the Deep
Menacing heart beats and a monster realised from foam and thrashing rubber. This story bid farewell to Victoria, introduced the sonic screwdriver and took the base-under-siege format to the seas. Notable for the ambitious location filming (like the recently recovered Enemy of the World) and a rather self-referential solution to the threat – spoilers! – using the companion’s screams to destroy the monster.
Plus the surviving censor clips from Australia demonstrate some surprisingly sinister possessed lackeys gassing a victim to death – a potential classic we may never see.
5. Marco Polo
Polo is the earliest missing story and one where we’ve been taunted with the sumptuous colour photos of the costumes and set that survive. The TARDIS lashed to a horse-drawn cart, Bill with his original beloved ensemble and seven episodes of the most gorgeous gal on ‘60s tea-time telly – you can’t say no to more Babs! And if this is (as rumoured) recovered we will, of course, begin a campaign to have it colourised…
4. The Daleks’ Master Plan
This needs no explanation, but we’ll give you one regardless: Epic, vast and the show’s boldest venture into Space-opera.
It represents the Daleks at their most politically underhanded and re-introduced Peter Butterworth’s Meddling Monk, alongside the magnetic Jean Marsh’s only outing as a companion in three Who roles spanning the classic series. Space ships, aliens, other-worldly jungles and bumper twelve episodes of it. Sorely missed.
(And if we never have it returned, at least we can indulge in our very own comic adaptation, by Rick Lundeen!)
3. Power of the Daleks
A key story in the show’s history, introducing a new Doctor for the first time – no one knew whether Doctor Who could continue with a new actor in the role or what the audience would make of Troughton replacing their Saturday TV hero. But he made it work and solidified the 50-year-old format we have today.
Not only is this Troughton’s first story but it’s a classic Dalek caper we may never see – deviously claiming “I am your servant” to gullible humans and covertly manufacturing an army. Power leaves a huge gap in the show’s history.
2. The Abominable Snowmen
Now that we have almost the whole of Web of Fear, our eyes have greedily looked back to The Abominable Snowmen and the Doctor’s first scrape with the Great Intelligence. A megalomaniacal alien entity (apparently originating in a Victorian garden with a young Dr Simeon) has possessed the head of a Tibetan monastery deep in the Himalayas and constructed an army of remote control robots disguised as legendary local monsters to terrorise the monks. Pure genius, and the most atmospheric use of the toilet flushing sound since – um -toilets.
1. Evil of the Daleks
We only have episode 2 of 7 from this Season 5 stunner, and what a tease it is. Ben and Polly have just left, as the great buddy-movie pairing of the Second Doctor and Jamie hits its stride. All the stops were pulled out for Pat’s first season finale and from the surviving behind-the-scenes footage, the epic civil war on Skaro didn’t disappoint (unless, like the moon landings, it was faked). The first and arguably most impressive appearance of the Dalek Emperor, the brilliant contrast of futuristic alien war machines patrolling a wood-panelled Victorian home and the utterly adorable humanised Daleks Alpha, Beta and Omega who *dare* to question. From Gatwick, to an antiques store, to a 19th Century mansion to the planet of the Daleks, this is as ambitious as it is bonkers and we would love to see it returned.
Keep those fingers crossed that some of the above gems are lying patiently in the basement of some unassuming overseas relay station and that they will live up to the images conjured by novelisations and audio recordings.
Ian Levine, one of the original missing episode hunters responsible for saving many of the early lost Doctor Who recovery efforts of the 70's, has reported that more stray Doctor Who film cans located around the world. A collector named Keith Perron and Levine have found 5 more episodes in Taiwan including "The Enemy of the World" part 6. Less than a year ago, this episode was still not in the BBC archive but a recent return of the complete story of "The Enemy of the World" makes this recent Levine find obsolete. Also found episodes 1 and 3 of "The Ambassadors of Death", "Keys of Marinus" pt. 6 and "The Krotons" pt 3.
Levine found 5 more "not missing" episodes back in December in Taiwan as well, bringing the total to 10.
The find has significant meaning on a couple different levels. Any of these episodes could potentially be of better quality than the existing episodes held by the BBC. Since many Doctor Who episodes have been edited and cut, it is possible that some of these are longer, more complete versions than what the BBC has. Whether that is the case or if a re-release of any of these stories on DVD is warranted is unknown.
And before I forget, the two "Ambassadors of Death" copies are in B&W and not color so nothing good there. It is also being reported that the films are of inferior quality.
The more important parts to this are that episodes are being found in Taiwan which in theory never aired these episodes. There are many reasons for this but the fact that episodes are being found elsewhere could open up the possibility that anything could be found anywhere.
The other part to this is that other episode hunters are looking for episodes and are finding them. The main episode hunter in the news is Philip Morris, who located "The Enemy of the World" and most of "The Web of Fear", but knowing that there are more hunters at work, improves the chances that something will be found.
Frankly, I wonder who could discover the missing cans for the season 6 "The Invasion" and the two season 5 "The Faceless Ones" and "Fury from the Deep".
Despite being recovered after almost half a century languishing in the list of incomplete or missing Doctor Who stories, The Web of Fear remains an enigma.
If you didn’t already buy it on iTunes when its recovery was released in October, or view it on Virgin Media’s on-demand service, you might well be looking forward to having it in hard, physical form when it is released on DVD next month… if it weren’t for the fact that unlike The Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear remains incomplete!
There are, of course, rumours about episode three, that the copy found was not of good enough quality to be released yet; counter-rumours suggest a copy has been found elsewhere, but either too late to add to the previous announcement or in the possession of someone who the BBC remain in negotiations with.
Unfortunately the result is a seemingly rushed reconstruction using low-quality audio and some questionable photo choices. One has to wonder why the BBC went ahead with the The Web of Fear in this state, or why more attention wasn’t made to the reconstruction in the intervening weeks.
