The cost to make a digital copy from film stock has gone way down, to the point that fan groups [1][2] frequently encode and clean up old copies of film:

[1]: https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k77/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/c/kinekovideo

This of course has various IP implications...

Companions are still useful, they just bring different skills to the Doctor (humanity?).

That era of companions was a response to the eras before then when companions were expected to just look pretty and scream on cue.

I think there's LOTS of media out there, but there doesn't seem to be easy ways to convert it.

There was probably a renaissance period when conversion equipment was being actively developed and available, but that time is probably gone. For example I think a good film scanner would be the Nikon Super Coolscan 8000 ED, but current state of the art falls far short. For film, vcr tapes and more we should be doing so much better.

I have old family super-8 films that are kind of convertible, but not the magnetic sound strip.

There are several "holy grails" in British TV history.

Lost Doctor Who episodes are one of them. Dad's Army also has lost black and white episodes (the colour ones have been repeated ad nauseam all my lifetime).

I can think of a few others. Scotch on the Rocks was a political hit piece written by Douglas Hurd showing an armed Scottish uprising along the lines of Northern Ireland. It was supposed to frighten people away from Scottish nationalism, but ended up causing copycat incidents. It vanished shortly after being broadcast probably because of its unintended effects.

The ultimate would be some of the pre-WW2 television broadcasts. Most of these were broadcast in the London area and practically nowhere else. Almost no one had recording equipment back then and they were often broadcast live.

Why should that be strange?

> still strange

wrong doctor

You're correct but as Uvix has said, BBC Enterprises made film copies for overseas sales before the original tapes were erased.

The earliest episode to survive on its original videotape is Ambassadors of Death episode 1 from 1970. None of the original 60s tapes still survive, though I believe there is at least one tape that we know used to have Doctor Who on it but which now has another programme.

The earliest episode to survive in its original medium is possibly The Dalek Invasion of Earth episode 5 (The Waking Ally). That's because, while this was shot on electronic studio cameras as usual, there were no videotape machines available to record.

Instead the output of those cameras was telerecorded straight to 35mm film. AIUI the negative of that telerecording still exists.

Somebody spent a small fortune trying this a while ago with disliked results https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/entertainment/ailing-doctor-wh...

Do we also have stills of all the episodes? Or only audio?

Feels a bit like Jurassic Park

The BBC used a kinescope much longer than the US. (A kinescope recorded TV to film.)

The US pushed a lot harder than Europe for videotape because kinescopes dropped frames off of American 60i frame rates, but worked really well for European 50i frame rates. Thus the BBC continued to use kinescopes for a long time.

From a utilitarian pov yes. But that's completely missing the artistic point. Why shoot a film when you could just feed the script into an AI?

If you have something precious on home movie film, this lab in Burbank, CA that does a lot of the movies will have sometimes deals on film transfers for holidays, or you can call them for a quote. No relationship, but I did have some done and they were very good. https://www.pro8mm.com/

Wait, what's wrong with Cintel? I've not used it myself but got a really good impression back when I worked at BMD a few years back.

I just wanted to mention at this opportunity that some British TV series from the late 70s, early 80s are absolutely brilliant and some of the best stuff I have ever watched. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, Danger UXB, Sandbaggers and Sherlock Holmes are some of my favorites.

Film prints were made for overseas sales.

They seem to have been pleased with the results:

> “It has to be worth it for the pleasure it’s brought me to see them,” Levine said. “Doctor Who runs all night in my bedroom, complete, nothing missing.”

> there is at least one tape that we know used to have Doctor Who on it but which now has another programme.

Recording over another recording does not completely erase the other. I wonder if it could be recovered.

I think Doctor Who was finding its feet in the Hartnell era and it was Troughton who really first defined the character to what he became later.

In the Hartnell era, the Doctor was a grandfather I think, looked old (although Hartnell was much younger than he appeared, thanks to the war etc) and seems to have been human.

There are production stills that are used like a slide show and combined with the recorded audio. Certain episodes have been reconstructed using animation such that the basic scene blocking and events are played out alongside the recorded audio.

The risk of the episodes going wild and kill lawyers seems minimal though.

It could recreate missing episodes using the extant episodes. That's something worthwhile doing until someone finds them. It's not creating a complete new series.

Ah I mean others disliked the results.

Make up your own mind I suppose, I doubt you will find them rewarding: https://youtu.be/rQabMPpdQnk?si=Fm9Yqj7EwAjYp5np

It has been suggested numerous times, but the BBC didn’t just record over the top - the tapes were erased with a degausser before reuse.

Then what is AI even good for? :(

Risk or benefit?

Even if it's motion comic level animation, it'd still be nice to see combined with the audio recordings.

People want to find the missing episodes because of their historical value as actual human artistic creations, and not because they want to watch a thing that looks like an old missing episode.

There would be as much value in an "AI-recreated" missing episode as there would be in taking the audio of a modern episode and using AI to create a new video track for it.

Well heck - many don't even like the originals at all :p. On the contrary I found these much more enjoyable than the audio and stills! Of course I'd prefer more of the original copies be found... but for now the AI ones fill the gaps in my collection instead of the audio reconstructions.

Oh well.

> People want to find the missing episodes because...

Speak for yourself!