It’s almost like the forces controlling fate know it’s the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. First, the BBC uncovered a bunch of lost episodes in Nigeria, of all places. Now, all seven instalments in “Marco Polo”, a Doctor Who serial featuring William Hartnell as the First Doctor, have reportedly turned up.
According to a story published yesterday by The Mirror, quoting a “TV insider”, the BBC has come into possession of recordings of the episodes, which were made with a 16mm film camera.
So, yes, by the sounds of it someone went to the effort of pointing the thing at their TV in what has to be one of the earliest forms of TV piracy.
Since acquiring them, the BBC has been carefully transferring the series to a more appreciable form. The bad news is the films don’t have audio… but that’s not a problem as the BBC actually has the talking bits. Even so, it’s apparently been “painstaking process” to get the images and audio to work together nicely.
Unfortunately, all we have to go on is what The Mirror has published — we’ll have to wait for confirmation from the BBC before getting to excited.
[The Mirror, via Doctor Who TV]
Image: BBC