2017
January 2017
1 – On GB, evil johnny posts that his source is not on the
internet, and so is not subject to the “echo chamber effect”.
9 – On GB, Scot Ferre says his sources
are also reporting that a return has occurred.
http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9978786&postcount=1495
http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9978811&postcount=1498
http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9978829&postcount=1503
February 2017
11 – On GB, CyberSteve posts that Fantom Films are holding a
Missing Episodes Day (Missing Who) on 27 May 2017 in London. The day will
feature interviews with cast and crew of the missing stories, as well as
celebrating the 50th anniversary of Deborah Watling’s debut in The
Evil of the Daleks. Philip Morris is later announced as a guest.
The website features this text:
“Missing Who – Watersmeet,
Rickmansworth 27.05.17
Rediscovering Doctor Who’s Missing
Past
From the epic journeys of Marco Polo,
through the sandswept landscape of Troy, the Dalek infested colony of Vulcan,
to the weed controlled oil rigs of the North Sea; many of Doctor Who's greatest
adventures no longer exist for us to watch.
There are currently 97 missing
episodes of Doctor Who; this day will look at these lost tales, and the stories
of those returned to the archives, with the stars who appeared in the them, the
crew who made them, the team who restored them, and the valiant work of those
who have returned them.
We have a number of exciting guests
including companions William Russell, Anneke Wills and Peter
Purves; guest cast Tony Caunter and David Graham; as
well as script editor Donald Tosh and Doctor Who's first
director Waris Hussein.
Providing the same friendly
atmosphere we pride ourselves on, Missing Who will have the usual mix
of interview panels, signings and photo opportunities!”
The use of the word “rediscovering”
is somewhat tantalising…
19 – In response to a question from
Robert Mammone on GB, member EntropySoup posts what he heard at a missing episode
panel at Gallifrey One – that as Cardiff controls the Doctor Who brand, there
would have to be coordination with them regarding any future potential
return/announcement of missing episodes. Also, as PM “holds all the cards”, he could theoretically delay any returns
until Moffat has departed.
March 2017
27 – DWO tweets that The Crusade
may see an Easter release thanks to a recent find. (This could relate to evil
johnny’s claims from 26 December 2016 above). Further down the tweet chain,
they add that Doctor Who Worldwide have repeated their line "We're hoping
to release more classic Doctor Who and we'll let you know when we have news".
There were also apparently tweets
from DWO regarding Marco Polo and The Wheel in Space – however those
tweets now appear to be deleted. However, user joe.beresford posts the text on GB: that in a seemingly generic tweet
about the Enemy/Web three year anniversary, they capitalised the D in today and
SS in missing.
29 – On GB, DWO answers questions
about their tweet (upthread from post following) but also posts that another part-animated release
is being prepped for release later this year.
In a later post, Seb says that as well as Marco and Wheel, “a few
more” stories will be returned in the next couple of years.
April 2017
5 – Website Unbound Worlds reports that Britbox is now the exclusive streaming service for
classic Doctor Who in the USA (see July 7).
9 – The Restoration Team update their site with information about The Enemy of the World and The
Web of Fear.
25 – Steve Roberts makes a return to
GB, posting that when they had Enemy and Web at the Archive Centre (?), between
taking delivery of them and the release being announced, the films were locked
away in a secure vault, uncatalogued, specifically so they wouldn’t appear on
any computer system.
29 – On GB, Steve Roberts appears to pour cold water on the possibility of an episode
recovery announcement at Missing Who.
30 – Douglas Wulf counters this by saying if an announcement were to
happen prior to the event, there would be a lot to talk about on the day!
May 2017
4 – Fantom Films tweets that Anneke Wills will attend Missing Who. This brings the total list of guests who have
appeared in missing episodes to:
·
Deborah Watling (guest of honour)
·
William Russell
·
Peter Purves
·
Anneke Wills
Former Who production team
members include Waris Hussein and Donald Tosh, as well as Sue Malden (the BBC
archive selector who organised the first recovery effort) and of course,
missing episode hunter Phillip Morris.
7 – On GB, clouded yellow posts again to say that Galaxy 4 is the story with two
episodes returned. He posts later to say that it was discovered entirely complete at
the BBC.
Meanwhile, Fantom Films have also
been tweeting a series of missing story “posters” to promote the event:
The Celestial Toymaker
Fury From The Deep
The Evil of the Daleks
The Abominable Snowmen
The Wheel in Space
The Macra Terror
10 – Steve Roberts denies that any episodes of Doctor Who have been found at the
BBC since The Ice Warriors. He also says not to bother parsing his statements
in the post.
Clouded yellow then responds that he is passing along information he
has heard from a trusted source and that he has no proclivity for hoaxing.
11 – Clouded yellow points out that Deborah Watling is no longer attending
Missing Who. The Fantom Films website now carries a message to this effect.
23 – On PMF, The Ginger Cat reposts from the Kaleidoscope FB page, that a number of pop
music clips have been discovered. The BFI will hold a pop event in July 2017 to
detail the finds.
24 – Steve Roberts posts on GB that the RT had “no idea” that Ian had been
invited to Missing Who, but they are prepared to “bury the hatchet”. This is
shaping up to be an interesting weekend to be sure!
26 – Just as hopes were beginning to
rise…in what could spell a death blow for any scheduled ME announcement, Fantom
Films tweets that Phillip Morris (as well as Donald Tosh) is no
longer able to attend Missing Who. Derrick Sherwin is announced as a replacement guest.
If there was to be an ME
announcement, it is now almost certainly delayed.
Later in the day, the revolving door
continues – Derrick Sherwin withdraws due to ill health, but Michael Kilgarriff and Sonny Caldinez are announced as replacement guests.
By way of explanation, Steve Roberts posts on GB that PM couldn’t get back to the UK in time for
the event as his is currently working at his “real job”.
27 – On GB, clouded yellow observes that PM was out of the country the last
time there was an announcement, too.
However, as the day/evening wears on,
no announcement or even a hint of one comes to pass.
28 – On PMF, fishyphil1 gives a report on the Ian Levine/Sue Malden panel.
IL still believes that PM has 90 episodes of missing Who, and that Waris
Hussein was told in 2013 that Marco Polo
was back. However, Morris told the person negotiating for the serial “not to
buy it”.
Ian also said that he hates secrecy,
it’s not fair to Who fans and “condemned” Morris for keeping his cards close to
his chest.
Sue Malden who was also present
confirmed Ian’s role in the recovery of missing episodes.
Fishyphil1 also reports on a statement read out on behalf from PM; his
schedule has been disrupted due to complications with his wife’s pregnancy,
however they now have a healthy baby girl. He is currently in the Middle East
on TIEA business.
Meanwhile also on PMF, interference
(who was in attendance and had posted good photos of the panels) posts that IL confirmed it was Ed Russell, Doctor Who Brand
Manager at BBC, who leaked MEW to him at a BFI event.
On GB, Steve Roberts posts that PM’s “real job” consists of helping overseas
archives manage their assets, including sourcing equipment such as obsolete
VTRs to play their tapes on, helping repatriate material to their rightful
copyright holders and advising on storage and archival management.
June 2017
1 – On a thread on MEF, Jaspal Cheema
says he believes Morris has “definitely found more”, but
it’s anyone’s guess when an announcement will come.
“Just a
thought. If I was someone who did not like the show runner of a TV show and I
had the means then I would try and upstage said showrunner's exit. This is not
a rumour just some musing. “
The poster joined in 2010 but only
has 20 posts to his name – all of which occurred after the omni-rumour took
hold in June/July 2013 and most of which also concerned the subject of payment
for archive holdings.
7 – The 42 To Doomsday podcast does a feature on the failure of PM to show up at Missing Who and discuss the current
state of the omnirumour.
15 – On PMF, mr borusa says that a friend of his in Customs saw
the films when they “went through his hands”.
16 – Mr Borusa clarifies that his friend is not a Doctor Who fan,
but he described the labels to him and mr borusa worked out what he’d seen.
July 2017
7 – On PMF, Resno posts a link to a Nerdist article announcing that “a newly constructed, lost episode”
of The Wheel in Space will be shown
at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, 20 July 2017 at 5pm. The episode will then
be made available to US fans exclusively via BritBox. Much speculation ensues
across forums as to why a mere recon would warrant a panel at SDCC.
On 6 July, website Cinema Sentries
had reported that a panel will offer a “sneak peek” at
the reconstructed episode. No word on which episode!
20 – At San Diego Comic Con, the Classic Doctor Who panel reveals that The Wheel in Space will be made
available on Britbox later in the year with the missing episodes reconstructed
as telesnaps (“not seen for decades”, apparently). Den of Geek also report the story.
29 – On MEF, Paul Vanezis posts that a missing episode of BBC series ‘Hugh and I’ has
been found. The episode was found by a BBC producer, Richard Latto, in the
collection of Terry Burnett (see July
and September 2011).
September 2017
Sometime early in the month, jennaUK
posts on GB something like “Good times are coming. 7 MP + 2 WiS”. However this
post and others by her no longer seem to be available to link to.
11 – The Independent website announces that a missing episode of sitcom Only Fools and Horses from 1984 entitled
“License to Drill” has been found. The episode was found in the collection of
the late John Sullivan, creator and main writer of the show.
December 2017
17 – Seemingly out of nowhere, Philip Morris tweets an undated, redacted copy of a
letter to “Jan” by an apparently 14 year old Chris Perry formerly of
Kaleidoscope TV. In it, Perry reveals that “Jan” has in his possession episode
1 of Invasion of the Dinosaurs in
colour, as well as outtakes from The Web
of Fear (all episodes) and excerpts from Galaxy 4. Perry is attempting to bargain with Jan using promises,
blackmail and intimidation.
A tweet from Ford Timelord states that the Galaxy 4
excerpt is the 6 minute clip from “Five Hundred Dawns”, released on the The Aztecs SE DVD.
20 – A lengthy discussion of PM and
PV’s tweets ensues on PMF, with poster boysandgirls – whom some posters suspect
as being PM himself – weighing in. Then in reply to a post from snacky1973 who
believes PM has no more missing episodes, boysandgirls makes this post:
Fair comment i still believe he has some to give back when is
another matter let's hope it 2018.
I have always taken his hints to mean he wants to tell us more but for whatever reason he can't or won't i see them as something positive not negative i know others have a different take on things.
glad you are ok my niece went through a really bad time about 13 years ago when my Dad died she was ten at the time she had counselling and she's now married with two wonderful children and in a much better place.
The one thing that really stuck with me was what the counsellor told her try to never get upset with situations that you have no control over a good piece of advice which i try when possible to follow sorry for going off topic guys just thought it was worth saying.
I have always taken his hints to mean he wants to tell us more but for whatever reason he can't or won't i see them as something positive not negative i know others have a different take on things.
glad you are ok my niece went through a really bad time about 13 years ago when my Dad died she was ten at the time she had counselling and she's now married with two wonderful children and in a much better place.
The one thing that really stuck with me was what the counsellor told her try to never get upset with situations that you have no control over a good piece of advice which i try when possible to follow sorry for going off topic guys just thought it was worth saying.
29, 30 31 – Philip Morris tweets three parts
of a BBC article about advanced techniques being used in an attempt to recover
the damaged film print of the lost 1968 episode of Morecambe and Wise.
Tweets:
https://twitter.com/BBCRD/status/946563811921858562
https://twitter.com/archives1963/status/947032286721134592
https://twitter.com/BBCRD/status/947326024613842944
Links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-12-morecambe-wise-video-film-archive-restoration
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-12-morecambe-wise-video-xray-microtomography
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-12-morecambe-wise-film-recovery-processing-algorithm
In the first part of the article, it
is revealed for the first time that the M&W
episode was found in Jos – the same RKTV television station where Enemy and Web were found.
31 – On PMF, Rob Ocelot speculates that these sorts of new film recovery
techniques might also be used on episodes of Doctor Who previously thought to
be unrecoverable.
And all through the 31st,
PMF member boysandgirls continues to post in a manner which one would expect of
Philip Morris.
