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Lost Doctor Who Episodes and Unions
I am a Doctor Who fan but for me, Doctor Who started with Tom Baker. I knew there were previous Doctors but I am not so avid a fan that I knew the history of the show. I was recently reading that many of the episodes from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton years were "wiped" by the BBC. Some were recovered but many are gone forever. I just read today that some of the impetus for the "wipe" came from one of the British Unions. It seems that they were worried that if the BBC had a large archive of material, they would be able to replay them and avoid making new shows. The unions figured that would jeopardize jobs. Incredible!
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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it
Learned Hand
In the past men created witches: now they create mental patients.
Thomas Szasz
Relinquish liberty for the purposes of defense in an emergency?
Why? It would seem that in an emergency, of all times, one needs
his greatest strength. So if liberty is strength and slavery is weakness,
liberty is a necessity rather than a luxury, and we can ill afford
to be without it—least of all during an emergency.
F.A. Harper
I am a Doctor Who fan but for me, Doctor Who started with Tom Baker. I knew there were previous Doctors but I am not so avid a fan that I knew the history of the show. I was recently reading that many of the episodes from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton years were "wiped" by the BBC. Some were recovered but many are gone forever. I just read today that some of the impetus for the "wipe" came from one of the British Unions. It seems that they were worried that if the BBC had a large archive of material, they would be able to replay them and avoid making new shows. The unions figured that would jeopardize jobs. Incredible!
Yeah! I had read about that, and it IS one of the reasons that's been mentioned. A real shame, since some of the Episodes, including "The Romans" and "Marco Polo" were epic. But get this! Just as my brother and I used to record the AUDIO tracks of shows onto reel to reel back in the late '60's (for him) and early '70's-'80's (for me), a lot of British kids did the same thing. Over time, they revealed that they not only had audio, but some even took snapshots of their TV images. They would get together at conventions and find out who had what, and then put together audio versions of the shows, from ancient tapes! The BBC finally realized these people were amazing, and approahced them to help them reconstruct the lost sections of certain stories ("The Romans is a blast to watch now, really good!). They actually became integral parts of certain DVD releases, and were called the "Restoration Team". I got to meet a lot of the guys in places like Stockton and Coventry, and they really did a lot to save many lost stories. Put them together with Mike Tucker, the great FX guy and writer of many Dr. Who novels, and you have a new life for some classic stories! :-)