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Doctor Who: Grand Theft TARDIS


Derfel Cadarn

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So it looks like Terror of the Zygons is out, might pick up a copy; I used to have it on VHS and it's one of my favourites. And by 'might', I mean 'will'. The Loch Ness Monster model is pretty crap. Not quite as lame as the toy Action Man tank used in Robot, or the 'fearsome' Myrka, but not one of their better efforts.


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From this excellent site -



http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4f.html



"On March 20th, the venue shifted to Charlton, with filming occurring at both the Fox Inn and a barn. The day after, Furnace Pond in Crabtree posed as Loch Ness"



Locations are all in West Sussex.


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Is the Loch Ness at least real, or doubled by a quarry in Wales?

We don't see much of it all. The monster uses fictional underground waterways to destroy north sea oil rigs, and attacks London via the Thames.

Eta: Having been to Loch Ness, what little we do see does it little justice.

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So that story a while back about a load of lost epsiodes supposedly being found? The Mirror now says they're in Ethiopia.

Apparently this is still the same unconfirmed rumour doing the rounds several months ago.Someone at the Mirror just heard about it last week and decided to run a story on it.

Why did the exterior shots always look so different from from interior shots on old Dr. Who episodes?

Exterior shots were usually shot on film, though later on (I think after the Davison era) they also shot exterior footage on video. Interior were always on video.

This is why we can't ever have old Doctor Who in HD, as it's impossible to upscale the video (the extra information needed for HD simply does not exist on the video print), though they can upgrade the film. That's why Spearhead from Space, the only old Doctor Who episode 100% recorded on film, is the only one available on Blu-Ray.

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So that story a while back about a load of lost epsiodes supposedly being found? The Mirror now says they're in Ethiopia.

The Mirror article is full of wild inaccuracies, but the basic idea of a large haul of episodes found (though most likely well under 100) is probably true. The first two episodes are apparently going to be available for download on Wednesday 8) 8) 8) No official word on the complete find yet, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that it's not just two episodes.

The Radio Times is a rather more reliable source than the Mirror.

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The Mirror article is full of wild inaccuracies, but the basic idea of a large haul of episodes found (though most likely well under 100) is probably true. The first two episodes are apparently going to be available for download on Wednesday 8) 8) 8) No official word on the complete find yet, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that it's not just two episodes.

The Radio Times is a rather more reliable source than the Mirror.

Amongst other things, it can't have been 106 in Ethiopia because only 77 episodes total were ever sent there, 66 of which the BBC has anyway. And even if other countries' stuff ends up there, they're not going to have The Feast of Steven.

Something certainly seems to have been found. We just have to see what they are. Bleeding Cool thinks they're from the Enemy of the World and the Web of Fear:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/10/06/those-doctor-who-missing-episodes-will-we-find-out-this-week

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Okay, that's developed quickly. There's a big announcement and press conference at the BBC tomorrow, as well as a BFI 'event' related to Doctor Who on Wednesday. So yes, it sounds significant, and more significant than just two episodes found like a couple of years back.


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The uber-sceptics are arguing that the two episodes could technically just be the two found in 2011 (since neither have been made available on itunes before). On the other hand, the rumour says two Troughtons (only one of the 2011 episodes was a Troughton), and would they really be organising a press conference just for that?



I really wonder if this is upstaging the 50th celebrations: fandom would sell its own collective grandmother to see, say, Marco Polo.


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And the press conference has been postponed till Thursday 8( But on the bright side, it sounds like it's probably going to be two recovered stories on itunes, not just two episodes.

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And the press conference has been postponed till Thursday 8( But on the bright side, it sounds like it's probably going to be two recovered stories on itunes, not just two episodes.

If this entire thing turns out to only be the recovery of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, it will still be awesome beyond words. It's been over twenty years since we last had a recovered complete serial, and it'd mean we have a majority of Patrick Troughton's episodes (67 of 119) for the first time since the wiping.

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Yup. It sounds like the press conference thing either means that there's a lot more than 2 episodes (and possibly more than 2 serials) that have been recovered, or there have only been those episodes recovered but that there's also been a larger haul of other BBC episodes recovered from other shows as well. If they could complete the run of Dad's Army (there's only three episodes still missing from that series), that'd be a major coup for the BBC.


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Latest: actors Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) and Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield), who were companions of the Second Doctor, will be part of the press conference, which is now scheduled for between 3pm and 7pm GMT tomorrow.



The rumour is that they will confirm that all of The Enemy of the World, all but one episode of The Web of Fear and possibly part or all of Marco Polo have been found and restored. Where there is confusion is if this is all of the haul, or all that the BBC will confirm for now as they are still working through the rest of the material. There still seems to be confusion over whether this is a Doctor Who-specific event, or a wider one that will also announce the return of episodes of other BBC shows from the 1950s and 1960s.



What I'm hoping they don't do is say, "Here's some stuff, we have more but will not say what it is for now," which is just going to piss people off and lead to months of more speculation. They should put a pin in it and fully confirm what has been returned, even if some of it may be unusable.


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What I'm hoping they don't do is say, "Here's some stuff, we have more but will not say what it is for now," which is just going to piss people off and lead to months of more speculation. They should put a pin in it and fully confirm what has been returned, even if some of it may be unusable.

The only conceivable reason for doing that would be if they were still negotiating the return of certain items. But yes, the current speculation is bad enough.

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