"106" long-lost Doctor Who episodes found in Ethiopia

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There have been rumors of lost-episode caches before, so donā€™t put in an order for chips, soda, and jelly babies until the BBC or whoever actually makes an official announcement.

Not much word on the condition, either, but could be a spectacular trove.

Itā€™s still hard to believe these things get lost in the first place.

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I guess all the missing episodes are somewhere in the TARDIS.

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A Mr. ā€œJohn Smithā€ apparently just came by and dropped them off.

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That sounds awesome, but Iā€™m not getting my hopes up here. I do hope these materialize, though.

They werenā€™t lost as in someone misplaced them. They were destroyed, apparently to save money and space and they had no idea anyone would care about the show 50 years later.

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Philip Morris the man who did the search killed these rumors months ago. Can we all just ignore this crap from now on unless we hear something official.

This rewarming the same tired rumor every three months is getting lame and could in fact hinder finding actual remaining episodes.

There is no reason to go all conspiracy theory on this. If they ever are found the BBC will have the collectors edition Blu-rays in our hand before the ink is dry on the press release.

As it stands right now everything has been cataloged, nothing is lost, itā€™s all there in black white as being destroyed.

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Thatā€™s because there were never lost, they were intentionally destroyed.

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Another thing I love about this is every-time this rumor resurfaces it includes more episodes. 106 would need to includes many episodes that were never sent to Africa.

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Not sure why the People decided it was worth publishing this story today. Itā€™s been doing the rounds for months (see Bleeding Cool).

The detail in the rumour claims that itā€™s every missing episode except the nine episodes that are missing from The Daleksā€™ Master Plan (which was, apparently, never sold abroad).

Thereā€™s nothing in the People story that gives it any more credence than it had two months ago. Itā€™s still just ā€œa friend of a friendā€.

Of course it would be great if it was true, but I wouldnā€™t get your hopes up until the BBC announce something.

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Thereā€™s an opportunity here for major hoaxy fun:

Find a bunch of actors who are close, but not perfect, matches for the original actors. Make some sets even cheaper than the originals, and write scripts even more clunky than the originals. Film five or six scenes. Post to Youtube as lost episodes.

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Hereā€™s more skepticism, though they return to it with a more hopeful update:

However, Doctor Who Online claimed: ā€œThere is definitely some
misinformation with the #DoctorWho Missing Episode rumours in todays
@DailyMirror. We will finally break our silence on subject by saying
missing episodes HAVE been found and some official news will be
released within the next month. Canā€™t say anything further, but it
seems various outlets are reporting this now. As far as weā€™ve been
told, itā€™s not as many as 100.ā€

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i know if i found 106 lost dr. who episodes, iā€™d be tempted to buy/make a blue police box, put the episodes inside, and leave the entire thing in front of the bbc with no note of explanation as to how they got there.

in this information age a little mystery and wonder is of much more value then some fleeting personal credit.

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RadioTimes gets quite specific, claiming that 2 Patrick Troughton episodes will be released Wednesday morning. I donā€™t know - are they relatively reliable on these subjects?

edit - and now thereā€™s this:

BBC Worldwide has now called a press conference and screening on
Tuesday in a London hotel.

The invitation sent out had he event details written inside the screen
of a old-fashioned sixties style television set, complete with a dial
to tune in the channels, seeming to hint at the type of news to come.

Journalists will be told exactly which old footage has been recovered,
with some of it then broadcast on screen to watch.

A senior BBC source said: "There will be big news this Tuesday
regarding lost Doctor Who episodes.

"It is great that in the showā€™s 50th year, fans will now be able to
look back with classic episodes as well as looking to the future with
the new film-length episode in November.

ā€œFor some fans watching their lost episodes will be like going back in
time.ā€

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From the immediately preceding BoingBoing.net article:

ā€œThe NYT is admirable in its attention to detail when it comes to corrections. But itā€™s funny how the specifics here (perhaps unfairly!) paint it as unbelievably unhip, as if these names were fringe-culture obscuritiesā€¦ā€

I think the exact same thing can be said about BoingBoing.net now. BB is unbelievably unhip.

BBā€™s journalistic and geek cred both take serious hits when you post poorly sourced rumors from a paper like The Daily Mirror.

And sadly my cred, when Iā€™m fool enough to re-post your reports on my Facebook. Fortunately my friends immediately warned me not to trust the ā€˜newsā€™, which had been bouncing around for months. Shame on you and on me. Thanks to the other commenters whoā€™ve crowd sourced better journalism in the Reply thread than the original article.

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This article from Radio Times says that two missing episodes will be available from iTunes next week! Unfortunately, the article also quotes a spokeswoman claiming the rumors of a huge cache of missing episodes are false:

Asked by RadioTimes.com if there were around 90 missing episodes from the 1960s a BBC statement said: ā€œThere are always rumours and speculation about Doctor Who missing episodes being discovered ā€“ however we cannot confirm any new finds.ā€

A spokeswoman added: ā€œWe canā€™t confirm because itā€™s not true, as far as Iā€™m aware."

The Daily Mirrorā€™s claim that 106 new episodes have been found is especially likely to be mistaken reporting, because 106 is actually the total number of missing episodes! See the first paragraph of wikipediaā€™s article Doctor Who missing episodes (as of Oct. 6 anyway, in a few days there will hopefully be an announcement of at least a few missing episodes found, in which case the number will get edited).

Greetings!

I am station manager for Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency. I have in my possession 106 episodes of Dcotor Who, that have been lost and are very valuable. However, I am in dire need of monies to transfer them to high quality DVD format. If you will wire to me the sum of $1000, I will share with you profits of DVD salesā€¦

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Yā€™know, from what Iā€™ve heard of the seasons before I started watching (I started with Tom Baker), finding them might not be anything to cheer too loudly about.

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Whovians love to argue. They love to present themselves as heretics.

Have you actually watched the episodes before T. Baker came along?

Spearhead from Space might be a good place to start, though the new bluray gives a misleading impression of what is to follow.

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