back to article TWELFTH-CENTURY TARDIS turns up in Ethiopia

More than 100 episodes of Dr Who, featuring William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, have been unearthed from archives in Ethiopia. As happened with so much TV heritage of the era, the cost of tape and the cost of storage meant an awful lot of program material has been lost forever, since it was always cheaper to record over …

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  1. Frumious Bandersnatch

    Highly Salasie

    Ay...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Strange

      Ethiopia didn't get television until 1973.

      1. Mark Simon

        Re: Strange

        Being Dr Who, that shouldn’t pose much of a problem …

      2. lglethal Silver badge
        Go

        Re: Strange

        You mean the regular Ethiopian people didnt get television until 1973. Those in charge always seem to get things that little bit earlier, no? ;)

        Actually a quick look on Wikipedia shows that Ethipoian TV was established in 1964, so I doubt your figure of 1973 is accurate...

        1. Gareth 7
          Boffin

          Re: Strange

          I think it was meant as a Joke

        2. 's water music

          Re: Strange

          1973≈1964. Perhaps it was an Ethiopian calendar joke. The article didn't state which calendar the date range was taken from.

      3. hammarbtyp

        Re: Strange

        Obviously once played they fell into a wormhole....

  2. MacroRodent
    Headmaster

    since it was always cheaper to recover over the top of shows rather than store them.

    Er, surely you meant "record over"?

    1. Scott Broukell

      Nope, only folks wedding videos were used for re-recording.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If the author can't be arsed to read his own article, why should the reader ?

  3. jake Silver badge

    Cool!

    The older kitschy versions are much better than the over-produced modern versions.

    IMO, of course :-)

    Looking forward to seeing the lost episodes.

    1. frank ly

      Re: Cool!

      Apart from the 'hobbyist' production values of the early episodes, something that I always notice is that the body language and vocal delivery of the actors was notable 'stagey', probably because the actors had more experience of theatre productions than television. They were used to delivering a performance that had to satisfy the audience on the back row. Also, they probably had it in mind that it was 'only children's entertainment'.

      Nowadays it's cool to be a guest actor on Doctor Who and the agents are making discrete phone calls to let the BBC know that their clients would be very interested.

      1. Gav

        Re: Cool!

        This is true of all early TV productions. The actors all learnt their craft on stage and the the performance best for TV wasn't yet appreciated. Actors who'd done films were better equipped. But the best of them wouldn't wish to do cut-price children's TV productions, which is what Dr Who was. Consequently some of the acting, "stagey" or not, was pretty dire.

        That's not going to stop me eagerly waiting to see some of these new finds.

        1. ThomH

          Re: Cool! (@Gav)

          So did I imagine seeing Hartnell in Brighton Rock, This Sporting Life, The Mouse that Roared, etc?

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
            Paris Hilton

            Re: Cool! (@Gav)

            Has Hawking already been in a Doctor Who episode?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        As live

        It's very easy to criticise 60's Doctor Who but the earliest episodes were recorded "as live" with a couple of recording breaks per episode (usually where there is a fade to black or a film insert).

        You can't compare modern single camera drama shot on location with a series pretty much confined to a studio shot at the rate of an episode a week and with very little opportunity to do anything but the most rudimentary editing.

        With multi-camera you have to know your positions, a vision mixer is effectively editing live. Everything looks stagey because everyone is trying to hit their marks so they don't obscure other actors and that at any given moment the right camera can see them.

        + for the first few years Who was stuck in one of the most antiquated studios Lime Grove had most of the time.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cool!

        "They were used to delivering a performance that had to satisfy the audience on the back row. "

        for my children, this was sometimes the row hiding behind the settee.

        (Obviously AC - can't reveal the identities!)

  4. tkioz

    Holy... This rumour has been going around for months and I've been discounting it just as long... but since the BBC just announced a press conference I'm honestly flabbergasted.

  5. Paul Lee 1

    The 90/100/106 episode rumour seems to be bunk. It started off in the summer as "90 missing episodes found" and even some big name fans were taken in by it, but the BBC (and those in a position to know and/or find out) always rubbished it. The story seems to be this: in the summer, someone in Africa (probably an old TV company, but a private collector has also been mentioned) sent a large package of old TV material to a company in the UK. The shows were to be remastered from old, obsolete formats into something that could be played with modern technology, something that the company specialised it. Somehow this news got picked up by the Dr.Who fraternity who made 2+2=106. So, almost certainly its a case of "move along, nothing to see here."

    At any rate, if Ethiopia has got anything, they never bought the broadcast rights to the Troughton era, so all we'd have to recover at best would be a handful of Hartnells, but still better than nothing.

    BUT just suppose the rumour is true, could the BBC have kept it quite for all these months? Ostensibly yes. The two episodes found in 2011 were "found" in the summer but this was a well kept secret until "Missing Believed Wiped" at the British Film Institute in December. Even the programme said they would be showing "1960s BBC Science Fiction" with no mention as to what it was. No one had a clue until much closer to the event. And when "Tomb of the Cybermen" was found in 1991, the BBC put out a cover story that it was simply four episodes of an already existing story. The secret was apparently kept hidden for at least a few weeks; all other missing episode "finds" have been quite quickly reported.

    But there is always the caveat that the Radio Times seems sure that something has been found, even though they can't deny the story from the BBC itself! I don't know if you remember in late 1993 when it was reported widely that over a dozen episodes from Scandinavian countries had been found and were being rush released onto video? It turned out to be a hoax, but the interesting thing here is that the rumour was never confirmed or denied by the BBC (much like the current situation) and that it started within the corporation.

    If it is an episode find, I think it'll be a couple - and not the massive hoard reported breathlessly in the press.

    If you want to know more about the archival situation with regard to Dr.Who (and the cornucopia of existing formats and clips), have a look at http://www.paullee.com/drwho

    1. NightFox

      Dear Honorable Freind

      GREETINGS!

      Allow my to introduce myself, I am Wami Abdul, the only son of great Mr ABDUL, esteemed program manager of ETV. I have sad news my friend, my father Mr ABDUL is now deceased and I am now I contact with his collegues from ETV who are to eliminate the purchases of my father to store new series of Ethiopia’s got Talent. I pleed very much with them to save OLD EPISODES OF DC WHO but they say tape is expensive and I must pay €50,000 US Dollar to have them. I contact BBC for assist and they will pay owner ONE MILLION POUND DOLLARS but I am poor man with little money to raise to buy these precious tapes having only 10,000. I contact you my friend with proposition that for just your investment of 40,000 I will offer to return NIN HUNDRED THOUSAND EURO from BBC. This is approved and guaranteed under Mr Lord Reith, the head of BBC himself.

      We must contact soon to ensure safety of time space adventures

      Wami ABDUL

      1. Gav

        Geography Lesson

        You're only around 2 thousand miles out. Kind of like making a Irish joke about the Russians.

        Meh, Nigeria, Ethopia. It's all Africans, isn't it?

        1. Not That Andrew

          Re: Geography Lesson

          Actually, most Nigerian scams seem to originate scams from anywhere but Nigeria these days.

        2. auburnman

          Re: Geography Lesson

          Who mentioned Nigeria?

          1. Gav

            Re: Geography Lesson

            Who mentioned email scams? The connection to Dr Who and Ethiopia does seem elusive, doesn't it?

            1. auburnman

              Re: Geography Lesson

              Not when part of the discussion is if this is another rumour / hoax. Hoax > Email Scam.

              1. NightFox

                Re: Geography Lesson

                I contacted Mr Abdul to pass on my bank details and he informs me that he moved from Ethiopia to Nigeria several years ago.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Geography Lesson

            "Who mentioned Nigeria?"

            Implicitly, it was the person that did the (admittedly funny) parody of a 419- i.e. Nigerian- scam. Even if it *was* transposed to Ethiopia, that's not the country the phenomenon is commonly associated with.

          3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

            Re: Geography Lesson

            > Who mentioned Nigeria?

            Exactly!

        3. NightFox
          Angel

          Re: Geography Lesson

          @Gav

          I don't mean to gloat, but...

          HA!

          http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24467337

          ;-)

      2. ecofeco Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        @ Nightfox

        "Dear Honorable Freind

        GREETINGS!"

        Now that's just genius.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Is the person downvoting anyone talking any sense on this topic Ian Levine?

      If something has been found it's probably a stash of old BBC shows of which Doctor Who may have a couple of film cans in there.

    3. ThomH

      The Radio Times is no longer owned by the BBC

      It was sold off in 2011. It's an independent publication now, likely no more connected than El Reg for this sort of story. They're likely doing the same as everybody — reporting that a tabloid reported than someone not connected to the BBC heard that the discovery had been made.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Erlang Lacod

    ..or the BBC could just be playing their cards close to their chest for now and wait to announce it either during the 50th anniversary celebrations or when they are ready to release it as part of a premium box set of classic episodes.

  8. alain williams Silver badge

    So, how many still missing ?

    100(ish) just found, but many of those would have been ones that were not 'lost' and so not so spectactular a find.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So, how many still missing ?

      There are 99 of them.

      There *were* 100, but one of them turned out to be the early-1990s Children in Need atrocity^w special "Dimensions in Time".

      "Christ, every time you think you've burned the last copy of that piece of s**t, another one turns up", said Who archivist Phil York-Hunt as he set fire to the tape.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: So, how many still missing ?

      A lot of the "not lost" ones are edited to hell and back thanks to syndication (stations would cut film to fit adverts and drop the ends on the floor). Finding another archive helps piece together the originals.

      The same phenomenon was noticed with Star Trek TOS. Entire scenes were found to have been chopped out to make eps fit into advertising schedules (syndicated series are passed from station to station) and restoring them from the canonical archives (which someone at paramount had the sense to preserve) during the 1980-90s made things make a lot more sense.

  9. lorisarvendu

    106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

    Been watching this rumour with amusement for the last 6 months, and there's been a lot of conflicting reports. Like the "large cache of old films cargo" story seems to have been debunked a few months back. The fact that 106 stories are missing, and (allegedly) 106 have been found tells us that if there is a grain of truth to the rumour, that grain is well hidden and the rest is just wish-list. Because we will never find 106. Part 7 of The Dalek Master Plan - "The Feast of Steven" (actually the original first Doctor Who "Christmas Special") - was never recorded onto film and never sold abroad. So the number of 106 doesn't originate from someone in the know but from fan speculation. As I suspect is "where" it comes from and "who" has found it.

    It's quite possible something has been found, but the BBC has kept quiet for various reasons. The main reason being that if you're negotiating to buy old Doctor Who film, you don't want other Collectors getting wind and offering a price you can't match. The BBC may be a big corporation, but it has a budget like anyone else, it's pockets aren't bottomless. There are Doctor Who fans out there who would love to get their hands on cans of film containing stories that no-one else has (or is likely to) see, and some of them could easily outbid Auntie.

    Then of course there's this rumour: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-06/doctor-who-newly-discovered-missing-episodes-to-be-released-for-sale-this-week

    Who knows? (lol). Personally, you can keep your old scratchy Hartnell. I'll be over the moon if only Troughton's "Web of Fear" or "Evil of the Daleks" is rediscovered.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

      The main reason being that if you're negotiating to buy old Doctor Who film, you don't want other Collectors getting wind and offering a price you can't match.

      I think it's a different matter if you have the copyright which the BBC does.

      1. lorisarvendu

        Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

        Re copyright. This has already been addressed before in "The Lion's Tale":

        http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/tsv57/lion.html

        You're only infringing copyright if you copy the film or attempt to show it for profit. Purchasing the film acetate itself is not a problem.

        In fact technically (since it should have been returned to the BBC back in the 60s) the film is stolen property and anyone who sells or buys it is committing a crime, although (see above) practically the BBC would never do this, otherwise nobody would ever offer any old 60s TV programmes up for sale ever again for fear they would have to blow most of their profit on a defense lawyer.

    2. NomNomNom

      Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

      For example I would put a large bid in just so I could burn them live on youtube

      1. Trygve Henriksen

        burn on Youtube?

        You philistine!

        Will it Blend, though...

        That said, I just need to add one story from season 1 and 2 from season 2 to have all existing First Doctor in my collection, so yeah, I'm a fan. (Hope to fill those holes before the anniversary)

        I have both Torchwood and Doctor Who stored in subfolders on the same drive. Is that bad?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

        "For example I would put a large bid in just so I could burn them live on youtube"

        I strongly suspect that would result in a mob of enranged Who fans burning *you* live on YouTube... :-O

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Flame

          Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

          "For example I would put a large bid in just so I could burn them live on youtube"

          I strongly suspect that would result in a mob of enranged Who fans burning *you* live on YouTube... :-O

          Burned to death in a giant wicker Dalek...

    3. Bod

      Re: 106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

      "Because we will never find 106. Part 7 of The Dalek Master Plan - "The Feast of Steven" (actually the original first Doctor Who "Christmas Special") - was never recorded onto film and never sold abroad"

      Thank god for that!

      Dalek Master Plan is better with just that whole episode represented by a "Scene Missing" card.

      Though the embarising 4th wall christmas greeting from Bill to the camera would make a funny dvd easter egg.

  10. Arctic fox
    Happy

    "featuring William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton"

    A veritable treasure trove no less

  11. MartinBZM
    Gimp

    Get ready!

    Warning: Serious binge watching ahead!

    Must. Replenish. Snacks. Now.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Get ready!

      "snacks"?

      Shirley you mean Guinness?

      1. LazyLazyman

        Re: Get ready!

        Wait, Guinness isn't a snack?

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge

          Re: Get ready!

          Of course not. Guinness is breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  12. Chad H.

    Brilliant!

    If there was one missing episode I was hoping would show up its enemy of the world, where troughton plays not only the doctor, but his doppelgänger opponent, "Salamander"...

    1. Harvey Trowell

      Re: Brilliant!

      I remember that one. You could only tell them apart because Salamander had a third nipple and a golden sonic screwdriver.

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Re: Brilliant!

        Arf!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rubbish

    If they have found 100 Doctor Who episodes I'll eat my collection of Dapol figures..

    This all stems back to fan rumours going back months. These rumours circulate in fandom from time to time whenever some saddo wants some attention.

    What is possible is that a hoard of film cans have been recovered from a foreign TV station and there are a few of the missing episodes in there among a load of other BBC shows.

    But 100 episodes? Rubbish! Given the way the film cans were "biked" around TV stations, how did 100 end up in one place? The BBC only made a few copies and when a TV station was finished with them it had to follow instructions from the BBC to forward it on to the next people who wanted it. It's inconceivable that 100 prints would end up at one TV station.

    1. graeme leggett Silver badge

      Re: Rubbish

      I suggest that anyone interested further in the subject and the work already done to hunt down missing episodes and how the few that do appear come about, listen to the interview with Richard Molesworth in the Radio Free Skaro podcast (episode 357) earlier this year.

      http://www.radiofreeskaro.com/2013/03/10/radio-free-skaro-357-wiped-clean-by-the-wrath-of-pamela-nash/

    2. jabuzz

      Re: Rubbish

      Assuming the prints where being handed down a long chain it is entirely reasonable for all or a large number of the prints to end up at one place, namely the end of the chain. That said these rumours have been going around for a while now, and until they are confirmed by the BBC I would take them with a bucket load of salt.

  14. sebacoustic
    Happy

    All hail(e) Ethiopia.

    First they form the cradle of humanity itself. We all descend from Ethiopians!

    Then they invent coffee, allowing us to _be_ human.

    And now this!

  15. DrStrangeLug

    Be free soon

    With the 50th anniversary coming up the first epsiodes will be coming into the public domain.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    grain of salt, or even a complete cellar

    Pictures (moving ones) or it didn't happen.

  17. harmjschoonhoven

    RE: 106 BBC programmes have been unearthed

    The BCC apparently has 106 40+ year old videotapes labeled "Dr Who".

    If they can find equipment to run the tapes - The Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe may be a good start -, the tapes may well turn out to be unplayable and/or disintegrate at the first attempt to digitise them.

    Conservation of magnetic tape is a serious problem. According to Sarah Everts

    (New Scientist, 24 Aug 2013) some 200 million hours of culturally valuable audiovisual content is in danger of disappearing entirely.

    May be we should equate digitising analog videotapes with baking Babylonian clay

    tablets by accidental fire which conserved them for millennia.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: RE: 106 BBC programmes have been unearthed

      No Doctor Who exists on broadcast video tape prior to episode 1 of The Ambassadors of Death from 1970. None. Nothing. There is zero chance of any broadcast video tape turning up before this date. The BBC even have the documentation that shows when each tape was junked.

      Doctor Who in the 60's was recorded onto 2 inch Quadraplex video tape. Every single tape recorded between 1963 and the aforementioned 1970 episode was erased and reused. Tapes were never sold overseas, no tape to tape copies were ever made.

      HOWEVER - for all but one episode, each 60's Doctor Who story was transferred to 16mm film (and occasionally 35mm for reasons best known to the Beeb). They are the copies that survive. Film was cheap and durable and could be played at any TV station worldwide without having to worry about TV standards or expensive VTR's (which were still new and very expensive so not everyone had them). Additionally tape cost upwards of 2 grand per half hour in todays money so the BBC had to reuse each tape several times to get its moneys worth.

      So any discussion of Doctor Who being recovered on video tape is a moot point, it's never going to happen.

    2. Christian Berger

      Re: RE: 106 BBC programmes have been unearthed

      No the tapes were (most likely) all wiped, though there is a slim chance someone working at a facility with VTRs recorded it of the air. That's how the first day of BBC two got preserved.

      Playing those tapes, if they are in a decent condition, is fairly simple. There's plenty of old Quad machines out there. Considering that Quadruplex was popular from the 1950s till the 1980s that's hardly surprising.

      However as the original tapes are most likely wiped (there are records indicating that, of course there could always have been a lucky mistake) all we have is 16mm prints, which are usually monochrome, but may have recoverable colour in there. People have worked out ways to guestimate chroma by the "chroma dots", caused by the chroma signal not filtered out before going to film.

  18. talk_is_cheap

    There are only 106 missing episodes in total

    Its rather unlikely that 106 'new' episodes have been found as that the total missing from the BBC's archives.

  19. arctic_haze
    Pint

    Good!

    I'll wait for the episodes to be aired on my sofa of reasonable comfort.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good!

      Of all the ridiculously obscure references that could have been made, well done that man for finding the moat obscurestest.

  20. lorisarvendu

    Even BBC Worldwide have been taken in...

    Well the press conference is for real.

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-lost-episodes-update-2347529

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're in a terrible mess most of them...

  22. Stevie
    Trollface

    Bah!

    I though this was going to be about finding rare Townsend, Daltrey, Entwhistle and Moon records, but it is just about some stupid kids show from the 1960s.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £££

    Can just hear the cash registers cheer at the BBC with the prospect of fleecing us for more ££ when they remaster and put them on DVD. Well they do have to pay off their fat cat pervs and useless management some how !

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £££

      "Can just hear the cash registers cheer at the BBC with the prospect of fleecing us for more ££ when they remaster and put them on DVD."

      It seems odd that someone that feels that way would buy the DVDs.

  24. Rufusstan

    1, 3, 5, 106; who cares.

    When a few years back it seemed likely no more lost episodes were out there to be found, even finding clips drew a lot of interest.

    Just finding 2 episodes in 2011 caused a major reaction.

    As someone who saw from Pertwee on at the time (from behind the sofa of course), any lost episodes they find are something I've not seen or had ever expected to see. From that perspective, how many is less important.

    That's not to say I'd complain at them finding a lot, there are stories I'd give my right wossname to see.

  25. tekHedd

    HOW much?

    What's the point? At the prices they charge, it's not like I can afford to watch 100 episodes, in any condition.

  26. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Angel

    Apparently...

    ...they are in perfect condition after being stored inside the Ark of the Covenant all these years.

  27. rogerk

    I have boxes of episode tapes given to me years ago.

    Still wanting to find what's on them, some day..

    Wanted grankids to see the 2011 cristmas special.

    How to find is next fro me.

    1. lorisarvendu

      Mr Abdul! I heard you were dead!

  28. SirDigalot

    Call up our Friendly E.T.

    or invent FTL travel attach a large receiver to the ship just outside the 50 or so light year range**** and try to piece together the original broadcast... no problem, Elon Musk and Ricky B could do it in their sleep at least we know what we are looking for

    I wonder if they have TV detector vans at 50 light years away... maybe something they need to look at Mork and his ilk are getting BBC TV for free!

    ***I have no bloody clue how far, if we are early we can watch first runs of andy pandy while we wait.

    1. lorisarvendu

      Re: Call up our Friendly E.T.

      Not a bad idea! We'd need maybe 10 or 20 ships positioned at opposite points around the 50LY sphere. We could then error-correct for random interference in each signal giving us a near-perfect reproduction.

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