Doctor Who archive legend says missing episodes "certainly" exist in private collections
Doctor Who archive legend says missing episodes "certainly" exist in private collections
There are certainly some Patrick Troughton serials I'd love to be able to watch in their original form. Also "Marco Polo", but mostly Troughton. I hope they'll materialise before my eyes give out.
Well, yeah...
The BBC didn't give a shit about archiving, especially pulp sci-fi like Dr Who.
So private collectors goobled up all the tapes as they were found in the closets of random BBC regional offices.
By now the BBC has almost certainly located multiple copies of "missing" episodes and know exactly who has what.
It's how they have a slow trickle of "found" episodes whenever they want.
If that's the case, why hasn't there been a missing episode released in over ten years? Not much of a trickle if you ask me.
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a64001894/doctor-who-update-missing-episodes/
Because they were filling in gaps of episodes with animation and that's done cheaper in bulk than one episode at a time.
If that were remotely true, the BBC wouldn’t be so stuck releasing the early years on Blu-Ray.
It's how they have a slow trickle of "found" episodes whenever they want.
Except... they don't. There is no "slow trickle" of episodes found in private collections, most recoveries we've seen were forgotten in archives around the world.
Quite the contrary, "Web of fear" was reported found in its entirety, but the episode featuring Lethbridge-Stewart's first appearance disappeared (again) before the serial could be returned. This episode has been rumoured to have been scooped up by a collector.
Sorry to burst your conspiracy theory, but there is absolutely no evidence or even motivation for the BBC to secretly sit on missing episodes. That would just be a whoppingly bad look after the archive purges in the '60s and early '70s.
Such a bummer. If I found out something I owned was this rare or special I’d share with the world.