All of the Blu-ray-era animated releases so far (and some of the DVD-era ones) include telesnap recons as well (though that presumably won’t remain true for episodes where telesnaps don’t exist).
Doctor Who DVD/Blu-ray producer Paul Vanezis said that he has seen two film cans labeled as missing Hartnell episodes in a private collection, but he hasn’t been able to verify the contents. He didn’t name the episodes, but further comments he made seem to narrow the likely suspects down to these: Galaxy Four 1, 2, 4 The Myth Makers 1-4 The Smugglers 1-4 The Tenth Planet 4 Missing episode hunter Philip Morris has said he believes at least six currently missing episodes are in the hands of collectors. (It’s not clear whether that includes Web of Fear 3, which disappeared during his recovery of the other episodes of that story in 2013.) He hasn’t offered further specifics. There are many other rumors out there (and there always have been), but those are the only ones I personally consider credible.
Thank you @indigovic for sharing what you have heard! It will one day be possible for transparency on many rumors, as they still stand today.
If those episodes are in the hands of collectors, I truly don't understand the motivation for hoarding them. How would anyone react but with disgust to know someone is depriving a whole world of fans the chance of watching these episodes?
Playing devil's advocate for a moment - what if you were a collector and paid a lot of money for one of these and now the BBC are refusing to compensate you in any way would you let them have it for free? I mean if you had a rare Doors tape from 1966 and their label wanted to release it but said they were not prepared to pay you for it, would you tell them to f off? They would make money from it so why can't you get paid?
If you're asking me, I would give it back. No amount of money is the correct price to pay someone for what is essentially illegally acquired material. If the collector paid a ransom for it, then that is their problem. All copies of these shows are the property of the BBC. I seriously doubt we're talking about a significant amount of money to someone who has a collection of items that would include a missing DW. I've never felt empathy with these collectors (video or audio) who hoard valuable intellectual property which was not created by them (the film or music that is, regardless if they taped it).
I don't think you have to hand over the physical tape/film reel I think there is a middle ground where you can allow access for it to be digitized. After all, that's what would have happened if the BBC acquired them, they'd be digitized for restoration and then stuck into a vault somewhere. I think this is a bit of an extreme stance, in a lot of cases it is precisly because of these collectors that some of this material even exists. It is because of such collectors that the theatrical edition of Star Wars has a chance of being preserved for future generations to enjoy. In the case of the BBC, they've been extremely careless with the preservation of their own content and they're extremely lucky to even have the stuff that they have. There are multiple cases of people approaching the BBC first saying that they've found all this old material only to have the BBC metaphorically slam the door in their faces.
Is it though? I think that is a tricky argument to make. The film reals themselves might be considered abandoned property by the BBC at this point, and the current owners probably have a legal right to possess them.
I don't believe that is true, but all these hypotheticals aside, the question these potential collectors must ask themselves is "what is my end game?". Do they truly want to keep these rarities all for themselves, or do they want everyone else to see them, and own them? If it's the latter, then they need to accept some compromises.
In 2021, I don't think it's fair to keep blaming the BBC for the situation of missing episodes. If today an individual collector is still thinking they are the saviour of these episodes, they are mistaken. Everyone involved wants these to be found, restored and released.
And you'd think if these collectors exist they'd be happy to share for say, a nice title card "thank you" credit or something.
The BBC have had a cavalier attitude to missing material even in to this century so it is fair to criticize. That said, if I had missing material I would share it but I think it would be reasonable for the BBC to pay someone something in exchange (the BBC legally own the rights to the content on recorded medium but they do not own the rights to the physical item itself, unless it was stolen and at least as far as Doctor Who is concerned I don’t believe that to be the case). Note that Phil Morris has been compensated for his recoveries so there’s a precedent which the BBC seem to conveniently forget as it suits them.
I expect that you enjoyed 'An Adventure in Space and Time' the very well made 2013 TV movie about the shaky start and early years of the show? The guy playing Hartnell was excellent and a dead ringer for him. If you missed it check this one out!
It’s not correct that any missing media out there is automatically owned by the BBC; there are a few ways that people may have ended up with things legally. But in any case, the BBC have said that nobody is going to get in trouble for bringing potentially missing material to them, regardless of how it was acquired, and that anyone who has anything can keep it—they just want to be able to make high-quality copies.
This was once the case—for example, the person who held the first and last parts of the Galaxy 4 clip (which, by the way, he acquired legally as a gift from the producers of the documentary that contained the middle part) apparently attempted to return it to the BBC after it became clear they no longer held the episode, but at that time (I think it was the early 1980s), they said they didn’t have interest in short clips. That’s no longer true—at this point, they’d be happy to have anything missing returned in any form, right down to shaky 8mm home movie footage of somebody opening Christmas presents with a lost episode running on the TV in the background (which I suspect is the most likely way we’ll ever see moving footage from the 1965 Christmas Day broadcast of “The Feast of Steven,” the only episode for which no film copies are known to have been made before the master tape was wiped).
I think it's perfectly fair, it isn't the BBC out there looking for this material it's enthusiasts. The fact that there could be a lot of episodes out there in private hands is far from an ideal situation but if the BBC were as dedicated to this stuff as you claim I think they could come up with a way of tracking them down and making a digital copy.
Many BBC employees have spent a lot of time following leads for missing episodes over the last few decades, and they have fairly regularly publicized that they’re looking for lost TV shows (not just Doctor Who). If they appear to be mainly passive now, it’s because they’ve already exhausted their leads. I believe that every approachable source who may have had even semi-legitimate reasons to be holding onto missing episodes has been queried by now, in some cases many times over, but I bet Paul Vanezis still spends a fair amount of time following up on missing episode rumors.
Available December 2021 Tom Baker Season 17 on - 7 Blu-Rays Season 17 announced as the next instalment in The Collection Blu-ray range All episodes newly remastered from the best available sources, this Blu-ray box set also includes extensive and exclusive Special Features including: Brand New Documentaries - Including a Making-Of documentary for Destiny Of The Daleks, and new featurette for The Creatures From The Pit Tom Talks - A candid interview with Tom Baker as he gives us his unique take on life, the universe and everything Douglas Adams Tribute - Friends and colleagues remember the Doctor Who writer/script editor and creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy In Conversation - Matthew Sweet chats to Bob Baker, writer of Nightmare Of Eden, co-creator of K9 and one of the creative forces behind Wallace & Gromit Behind The Sofa - New episodes with actors Colin Baker, Katy Manning, Matthew Waterhouse, Nicola Bryant, June Hudson, Graeme Harper & Mat Irvine Lalla Ward Interview - An extensive interview discussing her first year on the programme. Updated Special Effects - View Nightmare Of Eden with optional new effects Shada - An updated version of the ‘lost’ story, completed with enhanced animation and presented in six episodes for the very first time in 2021, alongside the original 1992 VHS and 2017 released versions Exclusive New Audio Commentaries - With Tom Baker on episodes of Destiny Of The Daleks and City Of Death, and Lalla Ward & Catherine Schell on City Of Death Extended Episodes - An early cut of The Creature From The Pit Three Blu-ray Trailer - A familiar face returns in a brand new mini-episode of classic Doctor Who Immersive 5.1 Surround Sound - On Destiny Of The Daleks and Shada Rare Gems From the Archive - BBC archive material covering the promotion of this season Convention Footage - A triumphant 1997 appearance from Tom Baker HD Photo Galleries - Including many previously unseen images Production Subtitles Behind-the-scenes information and trivia on every episode Scripts, Costume Designs, Rare BBC Production Files and Other Rarities from our PDF Archive And Lots More! The seven-disc box set also includes hours of special features previously released on DVD format.
Nice! Especially for folks who never bought any of the prior editions of Shada. I hope they found the film footage for City of Death’s exterior scenes.
Didn't know Douglas Adams was writing Dr Who. (I don't follow closely). It could explain the interesting storylines rather than the recent 'shout and run about' stuff.
He and producer Graham Williams co-wrote “City of Death” (under the pen name “David Agnew”) for this season—it’s one of the most highly regarded Doctor Who stories of any era, regularly finishing at or near the top of polls. (Technically, it was a rewrite of an incomplete script by David Fisher, but apparently very little of the original survived—hence the pen name.) On his own, Adams wrote “The Pirate Planet” for Season 16 (The Key to Time season) and “Shada” for Season 17; the latter was left incomplete after a BBC technicians’ strike brought a premature end to the season’s production. (The existing footage was first released on home video in 1992 with Tom Baker narrating the scenes that were never shot; in 2017, it was released with those scenes animated, with new dialogue recorded with—mostly—the original cast.) Douglas was also the script editor for Season 17, and I’ve heard he did a lot of rewriting on every story.
I've never been able to get these blu-ray box sets, for some reason, no one in New Zealand seems to be selling them.
Unfortunately his work on Dr Who was hit or miss, and I am not a fan of his era as script editor. City of Death is great, but overall, this season was poor & the worst of Tom's tenure, IMO.
I have to agree. Season 17 is the weakest overall, not only of Tom's tenure but of the 70s in general... which was otherwise a great decade for Doctor Who. There is a much greater emphasis on comedy in the season, which is often at the expense of the stories themselves. I don't think Adams took the show seriously and was happy to send it up, which doesn't work. I think JN-T was right to reduce the comedic aspect for Season 18. It was one of his few decisions that I agree with.
I have a reel of some of the effects footage (members of the former Restoration Team are aware), guess they didn’t want to use it.
