My thoughts on Dr Who missing episode rumours.

It seems that after the recent finds of ‘Enemy of the World’ and ‘The Web of Fear’ a new found optimism has been found among Doctor Who fans regarding the recovery of further missing episodes. With Phillip Morris’ amazing work, he and his company TIEA found 9 missing episodes located at a TV station in Nigeria. This is quite remarkable and I think we should remember this. It seems though that such a find has created an odd reaction amongst fans. 

In 1978 136 episodes were declared missing and with Phillip Morris’ recent finds that number has now been reduced to 97. The recovery of 9 last year is an extraordinary number considering that the previous record found in a calendar year was 13 in 1984 (Thirty years ago!). In 2013 Doctor Who celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and considering the fact that any cans have survived almost fifty years without being lost or suffering irretrievable damage is quite frankly astonishing! I for one had resigned myself to the fact that no more would ever be found! I’m truly grateful and elated at Mr Morris’ sterling work. This find is astounding when all the facts are considered!  

It seems though that many fans optimism for finding more missing episodes has almost reached a fever pitch  of irrationality. The internet has been filled with many wild claims from a dozen to all the missing episodes have been found. The wildest accusation is that of episode 'hoarding' towards Phillip Morris. In Doctor Who Magazine issue 466, Mr Morris himself, when asked the question regarding more finds of Doctor who, said “Expect the unexpected. There’s always hope….I hope I can do it again. I like to think this isn’t just a one-off” and concluded with “Fingers crossed”. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with such comments or anything to be implicated from them. Yet People read so much into such comments, seeing this as a statement of fact that more will definitely or have already been found. Surely this is just an optimist comment? There is nothing to be read from it.Would you rather him say, ‘nope, no more, we’re continuing the search, but to be honest I don’t see the point’. Yet fans read this comment as ‘he knows something, he has more and we want them now!’ Madness. I've no idea if Mr Morris knows of such accusations but as far as I am aware he has stayed silent on the matter.

Missing Episode finder and self-proclaimed Doctor Who ‘super fan’ Ian Levine has engaged in an open assault on Mr Morris via twitter. Mr Levine publicly claiming that Mr Morris has “found tons. He's just f*****g with all of our heads. And making us wait.” When asked why Mr Morris would do such a thing, Mr Levine claimed it was for Mr Morris’ own personal fame and admiration and that “Philip had the entire Dr Who world ADORING him, PRAISING him” When asked about what Mr Levine knew, he twitted, “I waited three long years and kept my mouth tightly zipped. When I found out only nine were being returned I complained, to be told to publicly embrace it because if he saw everyone was praising him, he'd then hand back the rest. But here we are, eight months after he returned the first 9, and no more have been returned to be restored, and worse nobody is doing anything to speed things up” 

When Mr Levine was asked to use his detective work to find Mr Morris’ secret ‘lock up’ Mr Levine replied with “Oh I even have a photograph of it. But publicly leaking that would do none of us any good whatsoever.” Now I admire Mr Levine’s work in finding missing episodes over the years but this cannot be healthy in any sense in making such claims. If any of this is true, Mr Levine is just feeding the rumour mongers amongst the fans. He has backed such claims with no evidence and could well lose much credibility. Internet forums and websites are awash with fresh rumours and accusations and I for one am sick of it. Mr Levine is surely not helping with such accusations and scathing comments towards Mr Morris, who only a couple of months early was every doctor who fans new hero. He is simply feeding rumour mongers and damaging his own reputation. All this 'bickering', claims and accusations are quite frankly 'doing my head in!'

Almost every unofficial Doctor Who website is awash almost daily with missing episode rumours and every time none of these claims are backed up and always seem to return to ‘Oh I heard it from a friend of a friend’, yet so many fans seem to jump on the bandwagon of such rumours. I always believe the saying that if something is too good to be true it probably is. If however, more episodes have been found, and if indeed in numbers, it makes sense that these films will need to be categorized, cleaned up and remastered. 

We are still waiting for an official release of episode two of ‘The Underwater Menace’ which was found in December 2011. These things do take time folks! If indeed episodes have been found in numbers it will take many months, if not years to complete all necessaries. There are negotiations to be made, publicity, release schedules, so much to consider beyond the restoration work. The BBC must have learned after ‘The Underwater Menace’ find, that fans are highly impatient. Announcing any find and then making fans wait before they can see it will irritate many. Surely it makes sense that any announcement is made after restoration is complete and once the material is ready for public release. The iTunes releases of ‘Enemy of the World’ and ‘The Web of Fear’, so swiftly after the public announcing of their find, were a huge and very lucrative success and the BBC must have realized this. Arguing about it online and amongst ourselves will not bring them back any quicker, so take a deep breath, relax and get on with life. If any have been found they are in safe hands and not rotting slowly away in a television archive or an attic, etc… There’s precious little else we can do but wait.  Be optimistic by all means guys and gals but let’s be realistic too! Now, put the 'Enemy of the World' DVD on, go make a cup of tea and have a couple of jammy dodgers!