Dr Who is being repeated on Sundays on BBC3 starting 17th July at 7pm

With very cut down DW Confidentials following the episodes.

I would love the BBC to repeat every episode of Who starting with the first ever episode in 1964.

http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0276092

Aitch,

Um - that's actually 1963, 23rd November to be precise. The day after JFK was assasinated.

Unfortunately every episode is not possible owing to the 109 missing episodes that were junked by the BBC in the 1970's. Also the condition of some of those early one's makes them unbroadcastable.

The first three stories, An Unearthly Child (also known as 10,000 Years BC), The Daleks and Edge Of Destruction (AKA Inside The Spaceship) are scheduled to be released on DVD next January as a box set. These have been restored by the Dr Who Restoration Team. Also the famous Zarbi story with William Hartnell is out in September on DVD also lovingly restored by the Team.

No - everything which exists could be shown on TV (and indeed has on UK Gold)

Ooooh! I remember reading the Zarbi one as a kid!
Would be interesting to see the actual show after all these years

I prefered the Troughton & Pertwee stories though - Hartnell always came across as rather stuffy even in print.

It's UK Gold who claim they wont show the B/W episodes as some are unbroadcastable. I recall the last time they did the rounds, about 6 years ago, the quality of stuff like The Keys Of Marinus and War Games was pretty grim.

That's only because they go to the archives and grab whatever happens to be there - usually poor quality film prints that have been gathering dust.

The BBC has said that it intends to release on DVD all the existing stories. All are currently "broadcastable" but once the Restoration Team has waved its magic wand, the stories positively shine.

You should have a look at the descriptions of some of the restorations there - some have pictures which you can hover your mouse over to show the difference in quality between the old ropey VHS releases and the new DVD versions.

As a bonus, all of the stories released so far have been transferred to digital videotape. Many of the stories not yet released only exist in the archives as either telerecordings (black and white film reels originally used for export to foreign markets) or 2" Quad tapes. The aim is to release all the existing stories within the next 5-10 years.
The big challenge for the Restoration Team is likely to be the early 1990s colour restorations of Pertwee episodes.

I think the chances of seeing everything released within 5 - 10 years are very slim. It's likely to take a good bit longer than that at the current rate of releases.

Transferring the telerecordings to digital video tape doesn't improve the quality of the picture - they have to do a lot of work on them first. One of the major things to happen to (most of) the telerecordings is to use a process called VidFIRE which restores the video look to episodes which are currently only held on film.

I am well aware of what the restoration team do and normally buy each DVD on the day of release and yes the quality is excellent. I am also aware of the magnificent articles on the web site - each of which is fascinating.

However the point was about repeating Dr Who on the BBC not the DVD releases. The Restoration Team work is done specifically for the DVD releases and, as you say, at the current rate of releases (5 a year plus a box set) it is unlikely that they will complete all their restorations for at least 15 years maybe longer.

One other point the Restoration team no longer work for BBC but for 2Entertain. It is very unlikely that the material would be made available for broadcast if it is likely to undermine DVD sales.

So I stick to my original point about the quality of the material being considered unbroadcastable by UK Gold.

Stick away but you're wrong. One of the stories which is in the worst condition is The Time Meddler. It's so bad that the RT couldn't even VidFIRE it for the VHS release.

This story was shown on BBC Two during a repeat season in 1993 and has also been shown on UKTV Gold (or UK Gold as it was then). So sorry - although the quality of some of the early episodes is poor, none of them is untransmittable.

I'm not wrong - let me say it again - The material is considerd unbroadcastable by UKTV Gold and this is the reason they give for not running a season of the old B/W Doctor Who's. It's not my decision but there's.

The last run of the B/W's was in 1999 - I videoed them all and have subsequently transferred to DVD to save my deteriorating copies pending the official releases on DVD. They have almost certainly deteriorated further since then - that is the nature of video tape. And the recent showing of The Time Meddler shows this only to well.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree on this. I'm amused at your comments on the deteriorstion of video tape - if you read the RT forum, you'll know that all of the BBC's existing archives have been transferred to D3 digital VT and is kept in optimium conditions.

VT programmes date back to the late 60s and are in excellent condition - surely you've seen repeats of stuff from the early 70s and it's been fine?

Anyway, the early DW episodes are stored as telerecordings on film and again, they are stored in conditions to prolong their life.

UKTV Gold is only using the word "untransmittable" as an excuse - they now have an aversion to black & white material. There is no technical reason why these episodes cannot be shown.

If you don't believe me, why not go to the RT forum and ask the question there?

I still have a VHS tape of that from 1993 and the quality when broadcast was not much different from that of any of the other William Hartnell episodes I have seen. Of course, my VHS tape of it isn't too hot but that is VHS for you.

I suspect that the reason UKTV Gold don't want to show it is due to its slow pace and lack of much of anything they would recognise as sci-fi.

The thing I find annoying is those early colour episodes where some footage is video and some is film. The changes in colour are quite unnatural. Making it all consistent would be sensible however I can't see any big advantage to making a whole episode stored on film look like video again unless we are talking about stories where they have video of some episodes and film of others and wnat to make them consistent.

That's just how TV was made in those days - studio work was on VT and location (and model) work was done on film. It looks a bit bizarre to us nowadays but I distinctly remember the first time I saw a drama which used VT for the location work (I think it was Z-Cars) and it looked very odd. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time but I knew there was something not quite right.

The VidFIRE process returns the older DW episodes to the way they would have looked on transmission. Although they were mainly transmitted from VT (with film work for locations), they were recorded for sales overseas on film and this is what survives today as the original tapes were destroyed.

By applying this process, they can return the video look to the studio sections and leave the film parts as they were. the improvement is quite remarkable.

I guess it depends on what the aim is. This is a good way to get back to the original state, but why not improve it further? Why not try to make it all look like it was shot on video or all shot on film. OK, that isn't the way it was originally made, but it would look a lot more consistent.

The William Hartnel episodes had dreadful sound with lots of pops on the edits. Again, there is scope for the new versions to be improved until they are better than the originals.

I know this might upset some purists but we have to remember that Dr Who never had the budget it deserved. These defects in the original program were not made by the choice of the production team. Surely cleaning it up a bit gets us closer to what they wanted to achieve.

Sorry to be picky, but it's actually 108 that are missing.

Also, NONE of the early episodes is unbroadcastable. The BBC have broadcast episodes of Steptoe & Son that are in much worse condtion than any DW episode without a problem...

Yeah, I'm in a pretty bad way these days.

Just watched the repeat of Rose 2night on BBC Three-really enjoyed it! I think I even spotted the Nestene Consciousness mouthing the words 'Bad Wolf'. Or maybe I just thought I did!

I rewatched 'Rose' too. So come on, own up - I bet we're not the only ones
Last edited by DenWatts : 18-07-2005 at 17:14

Damn I completely forgot I'd been away overnight on the Saturday (it was my birthday ), but I was back home by 7pm - damn damn and double damn

Fret not! It's on again on Friday at 9!

The repeat is repeated Eileen, on BBC3, Friday 22nd at 21:00 hours.