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Sci-Fi Media Television

Lost Doctor Who Episode Found 386

Posted by CowboyNeal from the rockin-the-tardis dept.
JSDopefish writes "In an event that most Doctor Who fans thought couldn't happen, another lost episode of Doctor Who has turned up. It's Episode Two of the 1965 William Hartnell serial, 'The Dalek Masterplan.' No word yet as to how it will be released, this news is just breaking today apparently. This is great news for fans, as the last time a lost episode was turned up was in 1999, and most folks had given up hope there were any others left to be discovered. For those who don't know, in the '70s the BBC routinely junked old stories. Not just Dr Who, but all their shows. Repeats and sales weren't an issue then. There's something like 115 or so lost Doctor Who episodes total."
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Lost Doctor Who Episode Found More

Lost Doctor Who Episode Found

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  • Not lost (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:02AM (#7995120)
    Just misplaced in time. They'll show up eventually.

  • collection (Score:5, Funny)

    by mpost4 ( 115369 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:03AM (#7995125) Homepage Journal
    They should take all the "lost" ones and put them on a dvd collection.

    • Re:collection (Score:5, Funny)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:33AM (#7995321) Homepage Journal
      "They should take all the "lost" ones and put them on a dvd collection. "

      Do you realize how many episodes of Doctor Who were made? You'd need a police box to store them all!

      • Re:collection (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mpost4 ( 115369 ) *
        Well they could do it as DVD sets for each season like they do for many of the TV shows that make it to DVD. I have the Star Trek TNG on DVD's and it came in 7 boxes of 7 DVD's each. So why not one set for each year that it was out. and a set for each doctor that they find the Lost shows from.

        • Re:collection (Score:5, Interesting)

          by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:47AM (#7995416) Homepage Journal
          Dr. Who had 26 seasons [cc.or.us].

          That's an awful lot of boxed sets =).

          To be honest, a lot of the earlier ones wouldn't sell enough to justify the manufacturing cost. Space (the Canadian sci-fi channel) showed the early episodes while I was going to school up there and the ratings were abyssmal.

          • Re:collection (Score:4, Informative)

            by TomV ( 138637 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:44AM (#7995908)
            26 seasons of, on average, 13 hours each. There's some debate in fandom about the box set approach.

            At present, we get single stories (mostly 4-6 half hour episodes per story) per DVD, with heavy restoration / rework by the BBC's Restoration Team [restoration-team.co.uk] (descratching, cleaning up the soundtrack, a wondrous process called VidFire developed by Peter Finklestone to restore the original smooth 50 fps video look to grainy 25 fps film stock, on The Ark In Space and Dalek Invasion Of Earth, alternative CGI'd versions of some of the grottier FX), plus usually a good hour or so of extras, commentaries, old documentary footage, newly filmed documentaries and so forth.

            It takes a while to make a package that lavish, and I for one would be very disappointed to see the approach change to 'slap it all onto disc as quick as possible for a quick buck'.

            Also bear in mind that only two seasons of Doctor Who were Arc-based (Season 16 'The Key To Time' and Season 23 'Trial Of A Time Lord'). Otherwise it's all standalone stories.

            Though the 12-part "Daleks' Masterplan" and the ten-part "War Games" could be considered Arc-y, they're not complete seasons.

            Only 108 lost episodes to go. It's 5 years since 'The Lion' was found, so we should have the lot back by 2544, just in time for the Dalek-provoked Galactic War against the Draconian Empire ;)

      • Re:collection (Score:2, Interesting)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        Do you realize how many episodes of Doctor Who were made? You'd need a police box to store them all!

        Old, low-quality B&W TV footage wouldn't take up anywhere near the same space as a modern show shot in color and on (reasonably) high-quality film.

        For an idea of this, check out the size you can fit most VCDs into - Somehing like the old Dr. Who episodes would realistically count as "perfect" quality at VCD bitrates (and I say that as someone who finds even modern Hollywood blockbusters distractingly
        • Well if you look I did put some "" around lost, but you are right maybe I should have said unlosted ones.
        • But would you want to take already grainy and probably worn footage and then compress it even further? It would almost seem like you would want to lose less information just to keep what little detail there is in the final DVD.

        • Re:collection (Score:5, Informative)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:22AM (#7995842) Homepage Journal
          "Old, low-quality B&W TV footage wouldn't take up anywhere near the same space as a modern show shot in color and on (reasonably) high-quality film."

          Actually, old low-quality footage, in many ways, would be worse. Though the imagery would be considerably softer (easier to compress), it'd also be noisier as well. The more noise to the scene, the harder of time the compressor has getting a decent pixel-per-data-rate ratio. They would undoubtedly have to use some modern technology to make the footage useful. Noise reduction, image stabilization, etc.

          I don't you'd get that many more minutes of acceptable quality on the DVD. This is especially true if they're going to go through the effort to restore as much of the footage as possible. Remember, DVDs are supposed to be very clear. They'll try to adhere to that.

          However, I think you'd be absolutely right if we were talking about internet downloads. I wish the BBC would consider taking the early seasons of Dr Who and allowing me to watch them for a modest subscription fee. I would whip out my cc right now to do that. Heck, I might even install RealPlayer!
        • (and I say that as someone who finds even modern Hollywood blockbusters distractingly artifact-ridden on most DVD releases)

          I think you need a smaller tv set.;)

        • Re:collection (Score:2, Interesting)

          by TomV ( 138637 )
          Not on DVD, but a collective called Loose Cannon [recons.com] has been doing 'reconstructions' of the lost episodes using surviving soundtracks and 'telesnaps' (a chap called John Cura was contracted to take stills approx. every 30 seconds throughout the filming in the 60s and 70s and most of these still survive) plus, more recently some computer animation. The idea is that you buy the official BBC VHS of the surviving episodes of your story of choice (to keep it ethical) and then get someone on the Loose Cannon tape t

  • Get 'em ready! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3@yah o o . c om> on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:04AM (#7995129) Homepage Journal
    Get your 100 tacos ready!

    (sorry, had to be said...)

    • Re:Get 'em ready! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "Get your 100 tacos ready!...(Score:2, Funny)"

      Sorry to be a square, but could somebody explain the reference?

      • Re:Get 'em ready! (Score:2, Informative)

        by DJTodd242 ( 560481 )
        Simpsons reference.

        http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F12.html

        • Re:Get 'em ready! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:41AM (#7995379) Homepage Journal
          Okay, I get the reference now.

          Here I'll digest it for everybody:

          The executor gives them each $100 (except Maggie), and the rest goes
          to Ann Landers, as was stipulated in Hortense's will ...

          Marge: What are you gonna spend your money on, kids?
          Bart: There's a special down at the Tacomat: a hundred tacos for a hundred dollars. I'm gonna get that. ...

          Marge wants the kids to put their money in the bank. When they get there, Bart spots the Tacomat and wishes he could get those hundred
          tacos. The comic book guy comes out with a wheelbarrow full of tacos for the "Dr. Who" marathon.



          I guess all this Deep Space Nine watchin I been doin has overwritten my Simpsons quote database.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:05AM (#7995137)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • My kids love these! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:07AM (#7995158)
    The really old Dr Who shows are being repeated (possibly in order) on the ABC in Australia. I thought my kids (7 & 5) would only be interested once they got to (a) colour episodes and (b) Tom Baker.

    Boy, was I wrong! These are kids who still don't understand that Dad once had a *black and white* TV, but they love the shows with the first doctor. Even when I was a keen Dr Who fan, I found the first Dr pretty tough to watch, but my kids never miss it.

    I'm still waiting for them to tell me the TV's broken because there's no color...

    • Re:My kids love these! (Score:2, Informative)

      by kubrick ( 27291 )
      The really old Dr Who shows are being repeated (possibly in order) on the ABC in Australia.

      They are in order, but they're skipping the storylines for which they don't have all the episodes.

      This does mean things seem to jump occasionally, and you have to resort to the BBC website to work out what was supposed to have happened in between.

      I wonder if they're planning this run to finish up around the time the new Dr Who series broadcasts here, sometime in 2005 or 2006?

    • Re:My kids love these! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cranos ( 592602 )
      Tell me about it, my five year old loves the show but keeps asking me why they don't use the colour version.

      The other things he's discovered is that he can sound like a Dalek if he talks into the fan.

      Ahh the Doctor, its amazing what you can achieve with some string and cardboard, oh and the one Welsh quary that was used for so many different barren worlds.

    • If a copy is sourced from the BBC - is it before or after what has been shown?

      Unfortunately I am working too late to be able to watch them (>6pm) each night and will not get time to watch the videos.

  • Dalek Masterplan (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cosmik ( 730707 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:07AM (#7995163) Homepage
    Could the episode appearing just now, out of the blue, be part of their masterplan?

    EXTERMINATION is near!

  • Dalek's operating system? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Debian Troll's Best ( 678194 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:08AM (#7995166) Journal
    Here's a question for all those die-hard Dr Who fans out there. Is there a mention in any publications (The Dr. Who Technical Manual, for instance) what software the Dalek's ran? I know at their core they were the shrivelled remains of a Kaled, but all those servo motors, life support systems and weapons had to be running some type of OS. Might it have been Debian? apt-get install davros? Just a thought.
    • Windows 2150 AD.

    • Re:Dalek's operating system? (Score:5, Funny)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:20AM (#7995240) Homepage Journal
      "Is there a mention in any publications (The Dr. Who Technical Manual, for instance) what software the Dalek's ran?"

      MacOS. See that plunger on their hand? What else would run such an elegant prosthesis?

    • Re:Dalek's operating system? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Muggins the Mad ( 27719 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:23AM (#7995258)
      > Is there a mention in any publications (The Dr. Who Technical Manual, for instance) what software the Dalek's ran?

      um, DavrOS?

      - Muggins the Mad
    • Sorry. It was closed source. Davros never liked the GPL. Besides, he didn't want any Thrals getting their hands on the source.

    • Re:Dalek's operating system? (Score:5, Informative)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:28AM (#7995287) Homepage Journal
      I think the software was the Kaleds. Like so much old scifi, there was really no concept of electronic circuits capable of branching, loops, and error correction. At best, it was a Babbage machine. More than likely, it was on the level of a mid-20th-century tank, albeit one with lasers. The technological innovation, and basic function, of a Dalek was to provide life support for the mutated life forms. The practical purpose was to provide an attack vehicle. The organics were in complete control of the vehicle.

      The question we can ask is were the Daleks meant to live forever, or was there some facility for biological reproduction of the software. We know the original facility that grew the mutated kaleds and produced the containers was destroyed. Presumable another facility was created, as we know that the original produced could not have produced the numbers that were to later antagonized the universe.

      In summary, this is a really dorky and embarrassing post. My only defense is that I grew up with dr. Who. I will not date myself by indicating how much of my life the series covered. I think we need a poll of our most embarrassing trivia knowledge.

      • Re:Dalek's operating system? (Score:5, Funny)

        by HorrorIsland ( 620928 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @01:05AM (#7995512)
        Presumable another facility was created, as we know that the original produced could not have produced the numbers that were to later antagonized the universe.

        Okay, I'll embarrass myself here. I had thought of that when the series was airing here, and decided that the kaled mutations must have bred true. I mean, there was no one to build another facility while Davros was out of commission, but the Dalek numbers kept increasing.

        All of this lead me to the mental image of Daleks chasing one another around, screeching "Inseminate! INSEMINATE!"

        There, I said it.

      • From memory (and much much geekiness) there were many many more daleks created than were destroyed by 'peter davidson' (i think) in Genesis of the Daleks. Some were sent off-world.

        Also in later stories it was discovered the Daleks worked out ways to convert 'humans' into Daleks. This resulted in two 'races' of daleks, one lot who were loyal to Davros (the Emperor darlek) and the other lot that were humanized and somewhat insane.

        Also, I understand they have lifesupport built in that lets them live indefi

        • Actually, what happened was the Dr at some point froze up old Davros in suspended animation as a kind of imprisonment. The Daleks at the time were commanded by the Emperor Dalek, successor of the Supreme Dalek (not a pizza).

          Now, the Daleks were at war with the Movellans, a race of very humanoid androids. Since both the Movellans and the Daleks were entirely logical creatures, they were at a stalemate. The Daleks then went in search of Davros, their creator, because they knew he was illogical and therefo
      • In summary, this is a really dorky and embarrassing post. My only defense is that I grew up with dr. Who. I will not date myself...

        Neither will anyone else :-P

      • One of the things that's always fascinated me about the Dalek future history is that we've already seen the final episode. We know what happens, some umpteen hundreds of thousands of years from now. All of the Pertwee, Baker (funny), Davidson, Baker (annoying), McCoy episodes are just filling in the gaps between now and then.

        So, I don't know what operating system they're running (PepperShakerOS?), but whatever it is, there's a human emotions loadable module for it. And Troughton's Doctor saw what happ

    • but all those servo motors, life support systems and weapons had to be running some type of OS.

      Yes, I believe it was called "Black string attached to sticks and some dude named Irwin who went 'Pssshhhbbb! Psssshhhb! Beep!'" Version 3.1.1

    • Re:Dalek's operating system? (Score:4, Funny)

      by siliconbunny ( 632740 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:13AM (#7995810)
      No, it was Linux ...

      ... owned by SCO even back then ...

      ... which is why they were called Darleks

  • video tape was expensive (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    they used to record over stuff all of the time.

  • Won't Happen Again (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lukior ( 727393 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:16AM (#7995216)
    In this new digital age where lots of people collect every episode of their favorite TV shows we won't have to worry about this again. Long live P2P.
    • "In this new digital age where lots of people collect every episode of their favorite TV shows we won't have to worry about this again. Long live P2P."

      MST3k is living on this way. Since the Comedy Central episodes aren't being re-aired, and few of them are making it to DVD, people have taken it upon themselves to digitize whatever episodes they can get ahold of and put them on P2P. The project is called the MST3K "Digital Archive Project [dapcentral.org]".

      If anybody ever needed a reason to use a home-brew PC as a PVR a

  • Faster than Light Travel (Score:3, Funny)

    by zambuka ( 301663 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:24AM (#7995266)
    is what we need to recover a the old episodes. Just zip out 30 to 40 light years record the old broadcasts and then bring it all back.

    that or build a time machine.
    • Just zip out 30 to 40 light years record the old broadcasts and then bring it all back

      This might just explain why they're missing in the first place. Some time-travelling fanboy takes the "missing" tapes out of the BBC vault, and transports them safely to the year 3001 :)

  • Doctor Who (Score:3, Funny)

    by darkpixel2k ( 623900 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:33AM (#7995325)
    I know I'm a young, but Doctor Who?

    ;)

  • What was worse than losing a few episodes... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Timbotronic ( 717458 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:34AM (#7995326)
    Was when they lost the ability to write good plots. As far as I'm concerned, the "golden age" of Dr Who was the Tom Baker era. "Seeds of Doom" and "Genesis of the Daleks" were absolute classics - every show ended on a cliffhanger, the stories were original and supporting characters were well developed.

    Things started going badly south during the Colin Baker era and the Sylvester McCoy episodes were just awful. What a shame that just as they finally had the ability to create decent special effects the writing fell apart.

    • just as they finally had the ability to create decent special effects the writing fell apart.

      This may not have been a coincidence!

      <--To Be Continued-->

    • Re:What was worse than losing a few episodes... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:44AM (#7995398) Homepage
      Things started going badly south during the Colin Baker era and the Sylvester McCoy episodes were just awful. What a shame that just as they finally had the ability to create decent special effects the writing fell apart.

      One of my cousins used to do the special effects for Dr Who. He did K9 and wrote some of the scripts. He even spent some years trying to get another series off the ground after Terry Nation died

      In their time they were not that bad. If you compare them to the Star Trek 'effects' of the same vintage there is no comparison, the BBC effects were low budget but they were much more imaginative. Star Trek's idea of originality was a new pattern of ridges on a new kind of alien's forehead.

      Of course over in the UK we teach this thing called evolution in the schools so there is kind of an assumption that aliens are likely to be completely different.

      The other thing is that the BBC still does a lot with radio, we are quite used to seeing stuff that leaves much to the imagination.

    • I may have the name wrong. I am talking about the director or producer who took over for the last year of Tom Baker. As far as I'm concerned, he ruined the show. Up til then, it was fun, it did not take itself too seriously, it just did a good job with a piss poor budget, and that was fine. I remember one comment in particular that summed up his regime, that up until he took charge, Tom Baker had used little or no makeup, but he insisted on full makeup. Why mess with success? he got more budget for sp

  • Whee! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16, 2004 @01:02AM (#7995497)
    I, for one, welcome our rediscovered Dalek overlords.
  • Only place I've ever heard the good doctor mentioned is on this site. If the show was that good, why haven't I seen it? I watched a lot of TV in my day, channel surfing till my AAAs went bad, never came upon a Doctor Who episode. I have BBC America now, is it on there?

  • Episode luck (Score:4, Insightful)

    by British ( 51765 ) <british1500@gmail.com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @01:25AM (#7995602) Homepage Journal
    I'm just feeling lucky that ALL(yes ALL) of the Tomb of the Cybermen episodes were restored. It seemed like the best story that was lost forever.

    With the Dalek Master plan, there's only 9 more episodes to go before that's recovered. 5 and 10 are intact, but aren't very interesting since you're only getting a fraction of the story.

    As for "The Moonbase", it was a horrible story. The special effects were very 1950s-esque right down to the Cybermen's saucer that looked like a dinner plate. Nowhere near as cool as the Invasion, where most of the episodes of that are intact.

    C'mon people, start searching your basements for more DW episodes.

    • Re:Episode luck (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RyatNrrd ( 662756 )
      Tomb of the Cybermen was good...

      but imho Evil of the Daleks would be better! The couple of episodes that are still around are great - they're worth sitting through the Dalek Documentary videa for.
    • I'm just feeling lucky that ALL(yes ALL) of the Tomb of the Cybermen episodes were restored. It seemed like the best story that was lost forever

      I must be the only person disappointed with "Tomb of the Cybermen". I read the novelisation as a child, and *that's* the version I grew up with.

      Then the real thing comes out, full of bad effects (the Cybermen were literally coming apart at the seams), some very stilted and generally poor acting and *very* bad staging of the climatic scenes.

      In my imagination, the

  • Maybe not much use though. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @01:34AM (#7995661) Homepage
    The touble is that Dr Who was a serial. Finding one lost episode doesn't really help much if the other half dozen that surrounds it are also missing.

    Of course if there was a serial with just one missing show - then this should be grounds for much rejoicing and the stamping of large quantities of overpriced DVD's. But with all those early episodes being missing, the odds are not good.

    My mother tells me that I used to have to watch Dr Who from the safety of a large cardboard box T.A.R.D.I.S down behind the sofa so I could hide when the scarey bits came on. (That would have been the Hartnell episodes - not the later stuff - which was much more tongue in cheek)

  • Oh no.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @01:39AM (#7995680) Journal
    Another evening of dodgy old b/w film on the BBC soon folks..
  • ust keep finding them lost epiusodes every couple months...
  • This story was published in novelisation form around 1989, in two parts due to the length of the original story (12 episodes). This was basically done via scripts and the author's memory of the show, and no doubt a fair bit of research.

    Anyway, based on the hype surrounding this supposed great epic lost story, I bought and read the two books that year as soon as possible. And it really isn't very good. An extremely thin plot padded by endless chapters of the Daleks chasing the Doctor through time and space, which had already been done by "The Chase" in the show the year before - and "The Chase" *itself* was mostly padding.

    Honestly, the entire thing could be told in 2 or 3 episodes, and it still wouldn't be much to write home about. It's full of holes and is ultimately just lame.

    It's nice that this was recovered for historical and completeness reasons I guess, but the article is trying to hype this story up as a lost classic and it just isn't. It's filler to reach the episode count for the season, using the ever-popular Daleks, pure and simple. There are some really good Doctor Who stories, and some are missing, but this isn't one of them in my opinion.

    As for describing it as "an all-round masterpiece" ... that's just garbage. "The direction of Douglas Camfield combined with the scripting of Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner gelled in... a way that defied description," - now *that* I can agree with ;)

  • YES! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dalek_killer ( 661544 )
    I think that I have died and gone to Sci-Fi heaven. Isn't time travel wonderfull.

  • Wow I am shocked and amazed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Orion Blastar ( 457579 ) <orionblastar@@@gmail...com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:35AM (#7995880) Homepage Journal
    that Doctor Who does not have its own Slashdot topic. What is up with that? :)

    26 seasons, wow, Tom Baker is my favorite Dr. Who actor. Favorite line "Harry Suluvan is an imbecile!" from when Harry tried to remove a bomb from Dr. Who's body that was rigged to explode if tampered with. :)

  • Correction (Score:2, Informative)

    by Lelon ( 443322 )
    The BBC did not "junk" its episodes. It archived them very poorly, and a single wharehouse fire wiped out most of the missing 1st and 2nd Doctor episodes.

  • Doctor Who missing episodes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BigBadBus ( 653823 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @04:21AM (#7996239) Homepage
    So, we're now down to 108 missing episodes (in 1982, it was 136)... For more info, look here [btinternet.com] and here [btinternet.com]. For some info on lost UK TV in general, have a look at this page [btinternet.com].

  • found clips from missing episodes (Score:3, Informative)

    by bstil ( 652204 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @12:00PM (#7999152)
    "the last time a lost episode was turned up was in 1999"
    Several short clips from lost episodes have turned up as recently as 2003.

    The original broadcast of Fury from the Deep was censored in New Zealand. Certain scenes (eg, "the weed creature attack" scene) were deemed to be too violent or explicit. Ironically for the censors, these censored clips are now all that is left of some episodes.

    A selection of scenes from episode six of the 'lost' Troughton tale Fury from the Deep have been found.
    link [bbc.co.uk]

    THE DOCTOR WHO CLIPS LIST by Steve Phillips
    link [steve-p.org]

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