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Who Has Dr Who?
By Brian Wilson
Irreplaceable
audiovisual materials from Zambia, Africa, Britain, and elsewhere
will be lost forever unless an immediate effort is made to save
them. And there is good reason to believe that some of the most
sought-after television programmes in the world may be among the
endangered audiovisual archives in Lusaka.
In 2003, a
workshop sponsored by the International Federation of Television
Archives (FIAT) discovered that audiovisual materials in the
National Archives of Zambia as well as the Radio and Television
Archives of ZNBC were in grave danger of destruction due to improper
storage. The FIAT report by Dr. Branko Bubenik, noted that there
were between 5,000 and 10,000 boxes of 16 mm films that were
unlabelled and uncatalogued in the ZNBC archive. Many of these films
have become infected by vinegar syndrome, a process by which film
decays due to the effects of heat and humidity.
 Four
years have passed, but a source of funding has still not been
located to finance an effort to catalogue, preserve, and transfer
these materials. A large amount of Zambia’s audiovisual history will
be lost if nothing is done.
However, there is
hope for international interest to save these films. This is because
in the 1960s and 1970s, Zambia purchased many television programmes
on 16 mm print from the British Broadcasting Corporation. In the
60’s and 70’s, the BBC purged many of its older programmes from its
own archives, a decision that the BBC has subsequently regretted. It
is thus possible that the only prints in the world of many lost BBC
programmes may be among the endangered Zambian film archives.
An excellent
example is the series Doctor Who, which portrays the adventures of a
traveller in time and space from an alien planet. It is the longest
running science-fiction television programme in the world. The BBC
destroyed a large number of the early episodes of this popular show
and only a fraction of these episodes have been recovered from
foreign television archives over the years. There are currently 108
episodes of this show still missing from the BBC archives.
When foreign TV
stations received prints, they were supposed to pass them on to
other countries (a process known as “bicycling"), destroy them, or
return them to the BBC. Fortunately, film prints have been known to
slip through the net. Some 16mm film reels were stored in wrongly
labeled cans and disappeared for decades in over-crowded archives.
Some TV station employees retained prints set aside for junking.
Occasionally, film collectors were given a tip-off by an archivist
and rescued prints from a skip before they were destroyed. In the
early 1980s the BBC issued a clear amnesty on any material that is
returned to the archives.
 At
least 73 of the episodes broadcast in Zambia were episodes that are
today missing. This means that Zambia received more missing episodes
of Doctor Who than any other nation in Africa. Only Australia,
Singapore, and New Zealand received more of the missing episodes
worldwide. However, a detailed search of the Zambian archives has
never been made to discover if any of the 73 missing prints are
among the large collection of threatened 16mm prints now housed at
ZNBC.
Please contact
ZNBC and FIAT to encourage a fund to be established for a complete
audit and restoration of the ZNBC and National audiovisual archives.
Many fans of lost British television series would be eager to
contribute to such a fund and, in the process, the television past
of Zambia, Africa, Britain, and elsewhere might be saved.
FIAT: Website:
http://www.fiatifta.org
There is also the
possibility that episodes of Doctor Who found their way into the
hands of the general public in Zambia or elsewhere in Africa. These
episodes would be on 16mm film. If you think you have any
information pertaining to these episodes please write to:
BBC Information &
Archives,
Treasure Hunt,
Room S53,
Windmill Road,
Reynard Mills
Estate,
Brentford,
Middlesex,
TW8 9NQ
or email:
TreasureHunt AT bbc.co.uk (replace AT with @)
A detailed list
of lost British Television can be found at
http://www.missing-episodes.com
Below is a list
of the missing episodes of Doctor Who, some of which might still
exist on 16mm film in Zambia or other parts of Africa.
Marco Polo (7
episodes missing)
The Roof Of The
World
The Singing Sands
Five Hundred Eyes
The Wall Of Lies
Rider From
Shang-Tu
Mighty
Kublai-Khan
Assassin At
Peking
The Reign of
Terror (2 episodes missing)
The Tyrant Of
France
A Bargain Of
Necessity
The Crusade -
Sent 10/66 (2 episodes missing)
The Knight Of
Jaffa
The Warlords
Galaxy 4 (4
episodes missing)
Four Hundred
Dawns
Trap Of Steel
Air Lock
The Exploding
Planet
The Myth Makers
(4 episodes missing)
Temple Of Secrets
Small Prophet
Quick Return
Death Of A Spy
Horse Of
Destruction
The Massacre (4
episodes missing)
The War Of God
The Sea Beggar
The Priest Of
Death
Bell Of Doom
The Celestial
Toymaker (3 episodes missing)
The Celestial
Toyroom
The Hall Of Dolls
The Dancing Floor
From this point
onwards episodes were numbered rather than being given individual
titles;
The Savages
(missing episodes 1,2,3,4)
The Smugglers
(missing episodes 1,2,3,4)
The Highlanders
(missing episodes 1,2,3,4)
The Underwater
Menace - Sent 03/70 (missing episodes 1,2,4)
The Moonbase -
Sent 03/70 (missing episodes 1,3)
The Macra Terror
(missing episodes 1,2,3,4)
The Faceless Ones
– Sent 03/70 (missing episodes 2,4,5,6)
The Abominable
Snowmen (missing episodes 1,3,4,5,6)
The Ice Warriors
(missing episodes 1,3)
The Enemy of the
World - Sent 10/74 (missing episodes 1,2,4,5,6)
The Web of Fear -
Sent 10/73 (missing episodes 2,3,4,5,6)
The Space Pirates
(missing episodes 1,3,4,5,6)
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May
2007