"...wearing a bit thin..."

There was a time, back in the day, when I was fascinated by the rumours surrounding missing Doctor Who episodes. Heck, over a decade ago I wrote a splurging mess of an article about the topic. I'd always meant to update it, but other things got in the way, and eventually it fizzled out.

But I still kept  up with all the rumours...

Then, something changed, and I can pinpoint the exact moment it did so. 

It was the explosion of the so called "omnirumour". A big collation of a number of seemingly disparate rumours drawn together to form one mutant gestalt whole. A collation of rumours that made it impossible to get at the truth. to be fair, it did kind of creep up on me as I'd had my eye off the ball for a while. Other things getting in the way, see... 

And if it had just been the rumour, that would have been one thing, but the sheer amount of bile that's been spewed on internet forums has been overwhelming, and I've largely stopped looking at missing episode threads. I do occasionally dip a toe in the GallifreyBase thread, and then take the toe out again; and that's one of the saner places out there . The only place I look at regularly is the FaceBook group. But, I have dipped my toes in a couple of other places, and would have felt less unclean had I dipped said toe in to untreated sewage. 

The thing is, there was some truth to the omnirumour; nine episodes of Doctor Who were returned in 2013. The biggest recovery ever, as I recall. But hey, this isn't enough; the omnirumour says there's 90ish episodes recovered still to be announced. Never mind being grateful that these nine episodes are back, people are getting agitated that there was no announcement concerning the whole of this alleged haul.

Which, of course, presumes the whole of the omnirumour is true.

And there's the key thing... are there further elements of this that are true? Frankly, we just don't know. This rumour includes not only further recoveries by Mr Morris, the chap who found the nine episodes last year, but also from several private collectors who seen to have decided en masse to send in their episodes... What's true, what isn't? Who can tell.

The thing I'm sure you're all wondering is what I think; I just don't know. I hope there's more, but I'm certainly not going to get all stressed worrying about whether there are further episodes, or whether posts on the internet can be parsed to read in a different way to what they appear on face value. If there are people feeding deliberate misinformation in order to protect confidentialities, or because of contractual obligations, or non-disclosure agreements, or a pact with the Devil himself, then so be it. I just don't care. I genuinely wouldn't give two hoots if someone were to lie to my face. Right now, at this time, I just don't need to know; chances are all of you reading this also don't need to know. At least, not until the BBC decides that the time is right...

If there are any more, that is. 

It is worth remembering that when the nine episodes were announced, it was a matter of moments before we could download them from iTunes. If there are more episodes can you just imagine the excitement of the BBC announcing that The Underwater Menace is now complete, and if you head over to iTunes that you can buy it, now. That would be so exciting. I'd buy it in a shot.

Mind you, this alleged haul of missing TV supposedly contains something like 6,000 cans. Or is it 8,000? Or 64,000? Gah! I expect by the time I next summon up the strength to dip a toe in it'll be half a million cans... and it'll probably all be duplicate copies of The Space Pirates episode 2...

"...you are a pirate..."

I've been thinking about this the last couple of days since the closure of Megaupload, and the Wikipedia (et al) blackout protesting at the forthcoming Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Now, it's clearly obvious that those who create a work of art (of any type) should have the protection of that work to ensure that they receive the remuneration they deserve for it, and to ensure it is not used for purposes they deem inappropriate.

However, there are flaws at the heart of the any estimate of revenue lost to piracy. The figures quoted always seem to be based on the premise that every download of a copyrighted piece of work constitutes a lost sale. This is, of course, rubbish. To state that every person who downloads something without paying for it would have bought that work has they not downloaded it is clearly a massive overstatement. I do not deny that there will be lost sales there, but actually gauging the percentage of these downloads that would probably have cost a sale is quite probably impossible.

Anyhow. I'm starting to digress here from the main point I was really going to be making with this blog post, and that's to do with the question of the ethics of downloading from non-legitimate corners of the internet; when is it okay to do so, and when is it not okay to do so?

Now, I know there will certainly be some reading this who will say it's never ethically okay to download something from a non-legitimate site, and I respect that opinion. It is not an opinion I agree with, and here are some examples as to why not;

You will never be able to convince me that a person should not download a copy of an off-air recording of a TV show. If there's a TV show someone wants to see, and it's available as an off-air recording, then they're downloading it. This is no different to borrowing a VHS or DVDR recording from a friend. If it's the latest episodes of a US TV show not yet aired... well, again it's no different to a friend over there taping it and mailing it. It's all the same thing, just via a quicker, more efficient, method. In no way can the copyright holders be said to be losing out here. If something's broadcast on the television, it's going to be recorded, kept, and copied. It's inevitable.

You will note in the above I specifically refer to "off-air"; this is to differentiate between this and a copy of a commercially released DVD. The downloading of a commercially released DVD can never be justified; if you can't find an off-air of a show, and only a dodgy DVD copy you should go out and buy the DVD... No question. Ditto any material exclusive to the DVD release; you should buy the thing.

Mind you, sometimes the off-air version of a show is superior to the version released on DVD; music substitutions sometimes blight a release with inappropriate music used in place of the originally aired songs. (In extreme cases, it can lead to whole scenes - sometimes important ones - being excised from the DVD.) The wrong music may seem a minor, trivial, issue; but it can have a massive impact on the scene. A notable example being the replacement of the song Georgia On My Mind with some generic plinky-plonking in the episode of Quantum Leap called MIA on the US DVD release; it completely ruined the impact of the scene, which is one of the most tender, sad, moments in the show. Fortunately, the UK version had the correct song intact.

And music... Music is a veritable minefield, but there are certainly examples that can be cited. Most notable is when you're a dedicated fan of a particular band. You'll want everything they release, and you'll buy it all. But there will come a time when there will be things unreleased. Those obscure radio sessions. Bootlegs of gigs. Interviews. Live TV performances. Now, being the dedicated fan that you are, if such goodies were released you'd buy them in a shot. But they're not... so, really... realistically if you find a website with those rare, unreleased, not repeated for 20-odd years, Peel Sessions (for example) are you really going to say "ooh, no; mustn't download these, must respect copyright..." Nah... of course not. You'll be downloading them in a shot. As a dedicated fan you just must have copies.

I would also say it's possible to mount a defence for downloading an album to see if you like it. The outcome here is obvious; if you decide you like the album, you buy a copy. If you don't like it, you delete it. I would suggest this is defensible purely on the basis that this is not really any different from borrowing a copy from a friend. Of course, if you decide you like it and don't buy a proper copy, keeping the dodgy one, you're clearly in the wrong. Obviously, opinions will vary here...

The trouble is, copyright is so often seen as a black and white issue, with no shades of grey in the middle. This is unfortunate, as it's clearly not an issue that can be polarised like this. Yes, there will be those people who never pay for any of the media they consume, and this is clearly wrong. But I do put it to you that there are examples - some of which are outlined above - where although copyright is breached there is no financial loss to the copyright holder, and these should not be bracketed with those breaches of copyright where the intent is to deprive the copyright owner of the remuneration they are due.

One final thought; there are currently 106 episodes of Dr Who missing from the archive. There are vast numbers of episodes of other TV shows missing, too. Loads of early Peel Session. Virtually everything the Beatles ever did for Top of the Pops.... I could go on... Just think... if the means and methods we have today for "breaching copyright" were available back then, the gaps in these archives would have been so much smaller...

"...another year over..."

I've kind of been a little lazy on the ol' blog this year, as the number of posts contained here attest, as well as the large gaps between posts. Must try to improve this in the new year. Anyhow... 2011... what did you bring us...?

Well, politically speaking there was the realisation that Cameron and Osborne managed to succeed where Blair and Brown failed. That is, they appear to have achieved an end to boom and bust. The nation rejoiced, until they realised that meant we were stuck with bust...

Actually, much about the government continued to depress and annoy. The announcement, the day before the public sector strike on November 30th, that after a two year pay freeze for public sector workers (2011, 2012) that the next two years' pay increases would be capped at 1% (2013, 2014) was rather less a case of bad timing, and more a case of perfectly calculated timing by Osborne. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Prime Minster's questions continues to be a fascinating insight in to the machinations of government, and really makes you wonder how they ever get anything done. However, the reaction to Cameron's "Calm down, dear"comment was somewhat overblown, and totally out of perspective. I'm no great fan of his, but if you're going to berate him at least do it for something worthwhile, not because he quoted a Michael Winner TV ad.

The braying that goes on in the chambers when PMQ is on does Parliament no favours. The number of times the Speaker, John Bercow, has to upbraid unruly MPs for their behaviour is astonishing. These are meant to be the people governing our country; yet they act worse than a pack of unruly school children. And this applies to members on both sides of the house. When a member stands up to ask a question, I want to hear that question. And when the Prime Minister answers, I want to hear the answer. That's the point of it.

I can't help but wish more of the Houses of Parliament was available in an easily downloadable format. Only PMQs really is via a Guardian podcast, and that's not always entirely reliable. Other debates can be watched on parliament.gov (I think that's the right site), but you can't download the audio to listen to on your iPod on the way to work. There's been a few debates this year I wouldn't have minded listening to in full. Notably, the phone hacking one.

The phone hacking hoo-ha can't really have been any great surprise; back in the day when you could listen in to any old mobile phone conversation (with the old analogue mobile networks), the papers were at it al the time. There were whole conversations of Princess Di's printed, for example. So, if there were a way to listen in to voicemails, then it's not a stretch of the imagination to think that the press would do so... and, indeed there had been all sorts of mentions of it in years past. Piers Morgan even mentioned the trick in one of his books (though it should of course be noted that at no point in his books does he state that he ever hacked, or sanctioned the hacking, of a phone). But, a surprise it was to many, and in the end caused the closure of an entire newspaper. An action which many thought an over-reaction. It's not like they were the only paper to use the tactic.

The best single of the year arrived suddenly, at least to me, in the last fortnight of the year. On the way home one day very close to Christmas, Tarrant (standing in for Wrighty) played a song that entranced me. It was playing just as I was parking, and unusually I stayed sat in the car listening to the whole song to its end, even after the point Tarrant started yakking over the end. This song was Dance by The Brilliant Things, and as the band's name would suggest, it is quite, quite, brilliant.

Of the films I saw this year (and I am well aware there were some glaring omissions that I never got around to seeing; TTSS, and ROTPOTA, to name but two) my favourite came as quite a surprise to me. Not only was it a documentary, but also it was about a sport that I'm not overly enamoured with. This movie was Senna, which told the story of Ayton Senna's career in F1 racing; it was absolutely wonderful. All the footage was contemporaneous, and totally eschewed the "talking head" approach to documentary making that seems to be all pervading. All interviews were from the time, with none looking back from a 2011 perspective. This was quite a refreshing approach as it allowed the story to unravel as it happened, with everything seen as it was with no modern spin put on things.

Really, I would urge everyone reading this to watch Senna; even if you have no great interest in the sport.

The saddest thing on telly this year was the last ever episode of Spooks. It should have been expected that there would be no happy ending... but when it arrived it was devastating. The final shot of Harry, back at work, answering the phone... knowing how it could have played out, what the happy ending might have been. It just gave you a big lump in your throat. And you just knew that Harry would remain with 5 for the rest of his days.

The third generation of Skins arrived, and were probably the least impressive lot yet. The main trouble for me was that I really didn't think they gelled as a group anything like as well as the first two generations. It's not like I expect them all to be bestest of buddies or anything (that would make for terrible drama), but I just didn't think the group worked. There were individual episodes that were really great, but on the whole the weakest season yet. It'll be interesting to see where they go with Season 6, which must surely be on telly very soon in the new year.

There was good news at the annual Missing Believed Wiped event at the BFI in December with the return of two previously missing Dr Who episodes; Galaxy 4, episode 3, and The Underwater Menace episode 2. The latter was probably the most new episode of Dr Who I'd seen all year, and only went to reinforce how sad it is that the majority of Patrick Troughton's episodes of Dr Who remain missing, believed wiped...

A sad thing Dr Who related was that the new animated version of the never completed Season 17 story, Shada, was turned down for a DVD release. This version had been privately commissioned by Ian Levine, using as many surviving cast members as possible (the only notable omission being Tom Baker; whose lines were performed by Paul Jones, who does a decent impression of the great man). This version uses all the existing filmed footage, and animates the rest. It's a great shame that as things stand it's not going to get a much wider audience, as it's without any doubt the best version of Shada yet made (the other three being the 80s version with on screen text describing the action, the 90s version with Tom narrating the gaps, and the 00s version with Big Finish remaking the entire thing replacing Tom with Paul McGann). With luck, the position on this will eventually change and it will get the release it so very much deserves.

Of course, the other two sad events in the Dr Who world were the deaths of Nicholas Courtney, and Elisabeth Sladen. I made the mistake of reading Doctor Who Magazine's tribute issue to Courtney on the train to work; by the time I'd got to Tom Baker's tribute there were tears in my eyes. I made sure I read the Sladen issue safely ensconced at home.

So, farewell then, 2011... and hello 2012. What will you bring? Certainly not the end of the world due to "Mayan prophecies" or any of that load of old Tottenham... : )

"...every silver lining has a cloud..."

After the good news about the two missing episodes of Dr Who turning up, there's been a bit of less good news, in a "so close, but so far" style. Over at the missing episodes forum someone asked;

Was reading through the comments of the Guardian article on the recent find and came across a poster who posted:
"An ex-brother-in-law of mine from Sierra Leone claimed in the early 1990s that he had seen a stack of tape reels of Dr. Who shows archived in a Freetown broadcasting studio. Some of the more intrepid Whoies may want to follow up on this as I've since lost contact with the man.
http://www.slbc.sl/ "

Not sure if Sierra Leone has been searched or not (I'm new, still reading through the thread!), just thought I'd bring it to someones attention

Paul Vanezis responded to this;

Well it's a good spot, although a few people have already emailed me with the info. I can now confirm that there is no material in Sierra Leone, but I can also say that we think the report is correct, that there were Dr. Who and other films in Sierra Leone in the early 1990's. In fact, we think we know which ones.

I'm afraid that between 1991 and 2002 the civil war prevented any meaningful exploration of their archives and we very recently discovered that the TV station, including their entire archive, was destroyed during the civil war, we think in 1999.

The list of material lost is far too distressing to print here.

A look at the episodes they got over there, and a bit of reading between the lines, makes for depressing reading...

"...he's as mad as a hatter..."

So. Today was Missing Believed Wiped at the BFI. Only the second time I've been. The lure of a previously missing Dennis Potter play, and the... speculation... as to what the sci fi treat was tempted me down again. And, boy was I glad.

The event kicked off with a screening of the aforementioned Potter play, from the Thirty Minute Theatre strand, called Emergency Ward 9. Present at the screening was Kenith Trodd, who worked with Potter on so many productions (including this one), who spoke briefly about the play. It was every bit as good as I had expected it to be, and was well performed by the cast (I have a memory it was done live, but would have to check to be sure). The racism of one of the characters, Flanders played by Terence De Marney, was quite shocking, really, and there were many nervous laughs throughout the audience. The thing was, though, that you never got the impression he was being malicious, rather he was a very misguided character; so much so, that when there was a sudden act of violence towards him, you couldn't help but feel sad for him. I very much hope it gets a DVD release at some point in the future.

Next up was the Mumford Puppets, and this really was my least favourite part of the event. I'm not a fan of puppet stuff at all; I don't even care for Gerry Anderson's stuff. I can't help but wish that this section had been canned, and the time given over to showing one of the other shows in full, rather than an extract...

An episode of Overseas Press Club called The Man Who Changed Faces followed. This was... interesting. It was one of those shows that initially started off bad, and got worse, and then sunk to such depths that it became so bad it was good... a resistance fighter has plastic surgery to resemble a high ranking Nazi soldier, who then passed on information back to the resistance... The quality of the acting was such that the wooden chairs had more charisma. The script, for what it was worth (about 7p) was full of lines that made everyone chuckle. Yet, somehow, it worked. And made me want to see more...

Next was a clip of Pete 'n' Dud from a show called Showtime; it was just brilliant. But then any Pete 'n' Dud clips usually are brilliant; the way the par sparked off each other... wonderful.

Then came the sci fi treat... and what a treat. 35 minutes of previously missing Dr Who...

We started with about 10 minutes of Airlock, the third episode of the Hartnell story Galaxy Four. We got to see a Rill on screen for the first time in many years indeed, which for most of us would be the first time we've seen them. Poor ol' Billy had a bit of a fluff with one of the props in the Rill ship as a piece clearly fell off the controls as Vicki got trapped. There was, also, a great scene with Maaga berating her clones. The performance was great, a real sense of exasperation as she complains about how crap they are. But, just as it was getting started, really, the screen cut to black...

...and we got a complete episode, The Underwater Menace 2, which is now the earliest surviving Patrick Troughton episode, and boy it's a good one. Now, I love The Underwater Menace; I think its previously sole surviving episode, #3, is probably the single episode of Who I've watched more than any other. #2 is just as good. A good chunk of the first half of the episode consists of Troughton and Josef Furst's wonderful Professor Zaroff sparking off each other in the Prof's laboratory. And it works really well. The expressions on Troughton's face as Zaroff does the usual bad guy thing of explaining his plan are just brilliant, and make you so glad the episode was found. We don't get to see Zaroff's pet octopus, though...

Later, when the Doctor is trying to convince Thous that Zaroff is mad (as a hatter, in fact...!) we also get some great expressions from Troughton. In fact, the more Troughton you see, the more you wish that we could get lots more of his stuff back. Let's not forget, shall we, that this episode is the first Troughton to be recovered in the twenty (yes *twenty*) years since The Tomb of the Cybermen was found.

The episode is physically not in too great shape, but this was an unrestored copy, so I'm sure that by the time the restoration team get working their magic on it, it will look brilliant. It was also very interesting that the copy of the print was one that must have been down under in Australia at some point, as it was missing the censor clips recovered from there a few years back; these will be reinstated when restored.

I was just so blissfully happy watching the episode. I really never thought I'd get to see any more of the Underwater Menace, and had pretty much started to get to the thinking that there were no more to find. But, from out of nowhere these two episodes came. And, like The Lion and Day of Armegeddon, they were in the collection of a person who had no idea they had the only copies of these episodes.

Makes you wonder if there are any more out there...