If I was the BBC I would simply just not fall for hoaxes

As one who watched "An Unearthly Child" when it first aired (Delayed by the Kennedy Assassination) If I happened to encounter a missing episode of Doctor Who (Or "A for Andromeda," or other important series), I would immediately do everything within my power to get it back to the BBC, just cover the packing and shipping cost. The irony is that, considering these various hoaxes, with my being a Nobody, I'd have great trouble getting anyone to accept that I DO have such! And I know about hoarders -- a fellow stole all the Al Jolson sequences (on 78 and 33 1/3 transcriptions) for the Paul Whiteman Kraft show of 1935, from Williams College. There were desperate attempts to get the material back, the fellow died, and the episodes were trashed by the family, with highly desirable musical history gone for all time.

Not all private collectors keep their copy because it's rare, I think it's more about having trust issues with the BBC. I recently saw some people arguing about it in some forum years ago and the reason why some of them didn't give their DW episodes are simply because: - They are afraid of not getting their copy back - They want to remain anonymous - Not getting treated kindly by the fans - They don't get enough or any thanks for bringing the episode back It's not just about it's rarity, it's more about trust and I had read in the forum that private collectors known each other, so if you attract negative attention from anyone of them, that's basically it for you, because word of it gets around among them. Also sorry if my grammar is bad, I'm not an english speaker.

Regarding film print deterioration: While it is a serious concern, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic. The missing footage from Metropolis (1927) was recovered in watchable (if rough) state in 2008. For something a bit more recent than missing Doctor Who, the theatrical cut of The Big Boss (1971) was rediscovered and released in 2023. And while the missing footage stands out from what was not lost, it still got a well-received 4K release. While the clock is ticking on degradable media, time may yet be on our side.

This happens in the video game preservation community too. There's lost prototype arcade games that people refuse to dump and distribute. One infamous one only had 3 copies that existed in the world, and one owner would take theirs to conventions to let people play it, but not distribute it. It eventually leaked online, according to the owner someone who they hired to maintain their machine dumped the board without their permission. Because of this, Atari actually were able to rerelease the game digitally in an official capacity. It may have been a "stolen copy" but that meant that Atari now had access to a game they previously lost and still legally owned. Thankfully it is now available officially and legally to anyone who wants to buy and play it.

There are people out there who have famous stolen paintings worth millions that nobody is ever going to see.

4:25 "The true story may have been lost to time" The idea that an attempt to preserve the past, the story of what happened or which version is true potentially being lost is a great statement on how quickly and often we need to be concerned about the preservation of history.

When the world needed them most they returned ❤

You're bang on about the collector hoarders. The exclusivity is the most important thing to them, which is even sadder when you consider that if it was returned to the BBC, they would take a copy for the archive and then return the original to the owner (at least, that's my understanding of how these things go), so they would still possess the original film/video reels.

Thanks for these stories. It's shocking what some people will try to get away with!

It is very hopeful that of web of fear 3 is still existing. It went missing from the TV station in Nigeria just before Philip Morris could arrange for the films of the web of fear to be returned to the BBC in 2013

It’s always a good days when Josh Snares uploads a video!

In the case of some private collectors, some might not even know that the tape is highly sought after, like in the case of the owner of Galaxy 4 episode 3 and Underwater Menace episode 2. I really hate those who know the tape is valuable, and keep it for themselves. It’s so greedy and selfish.

About the private collectors part: There are a few reasons why people don't return the episodes back to the BBC. The main reason why they hold on to the material is because they do not own them and they could be sued by the BBC. I don't think the BBC would do that and I'm pretty sure they'd be happy just getting it back, but it worries these collectors. The second reason is that collectors just doesn't trust the BBC. The last person to have an episode of "Dad's Army" sat on it for decades because the person thought it would just get junked. And then there are also people who don't even know they have a missing episode or don't know that Doctor Who episodes are missing! I remember reading that someone had all the episodes of The Celestial Toymaker but threw them away after watching them, because he thought the episodes where terrible and he didn't wanna keep them. He didn't knew the episodes were missing.

I'm glad you're back and feeling better! I think we'd have a better shot of developing relationships and maybe, hopefully, convincing collectors to return missing episodes to the BBC if we could just be *normal*. Don't be weird! Don't threaten people by printing magazines that say someone is "hard to track down" or wanting to shake people if they could just get a hold of them, etc. Develop positive relationships with the collecting community and maybe we'll get some stuff ffs

Always a delight to see you Josh. It's 7am here in Brazil and I haven't slept yet, I just had to watch this. Here's hoping that guy that said he has one episode of Marco Polo is telling the truth!

Thanks for the new video, Josh!! Personally, I hope that the Smugglers is found because pirate stories are always good

babe wake up, Josh Snares uploaded

Excellent video Josh! It's so frustrating that hoaxes pop up and get fans' hopes up. The same frustration in knowing that there are missing episodes of Doctor Who out there that may never be returned, but I try not to worry too much about that and be grateful for what does exist because it could have been so much worse!

Thanks for this Josh! Always a pleasure to watch your videos as/when you upload 😊

I always enjoy your videos Josh. Thank you for carrying on with them! 😊

I've always been curious about that Britbox listing error, having episodes like The Myth Makers 2 and 4 and Celestial Toymaker 2 on there. A part of me feels like some disgruntled missing episode researcher who knew what some private collectors had just said "We have these!" to Britbox just to get the word out there.

These videos are always so fascinating. Keep up the brilliant work

I love these videos on missing episodes! I've been hoping you'd post something soon!!!

Always look forward to seeing new stuff from you regardless of how often you upload, interesting and informative as always. Hope you're feeling much better than when you were earlier in the year. I look forward to the next video and set of stories and fun facts you have no matter how far off that may be :)

Thanks for another great video and perspective. Also love your television and the video you posted about its restoration.

Ive been craving some Snares content for Ages, it was worth the wait!

Very happy to see you upload again, missed the content

Great video Josh on everyones favourite subject, love anything ME related. This takes me back, I remember reading all these rumours back in the day. Glad you are feeling better. Take care and "Keep Warm" :-) - Also ALL HAIL MILO CLANCEY

5:18 Boy do I feel what Mr. Levine said there.

Hope you're feeling much better now! This was another great video - you do a great job of putting all the information in a clear and entertaining video. All hail Milo Clancy!

Great vid, Josh! Interesting and informative

Josh. You are loved. This video is amazing. Keep being you. Thank you! ✨✨✨

Continuing your addendum to the lost and missing episodes. Great job Josh! I hope you’re well/will get better. I’ll send you a beer

Good video, hope you get fully better soon! Missed your videos.

Nicely done, Josh!

No need to apologise for the lack of uploads Josh! Brilliant video. I think you're right that private collectors see their films as an investment and so returning those films to the BBC would impact said investment.

Nicely done, as always

Great upload. Always enjoy your stuff. 😁

Thank you for providing the Ian Levine content that I live for.

Great video and sorry to hear you have been unwell! I always enjoy your videos but would like you to keep yourself well!! Yeah it's a funny one this. Collectors are a different breed. I suppose at least the episodes are in safe hands for now. But knowing there are missing episodes but we won't see them soon - if ever - is just the same as them not existing for me! I mean I can't pop a shiny disc in my machine and enjoy it!!

Great Video! Here's to hoping there's still more out there!

What's a good strategy for politely asking the owner of a potential missing episode to kindly share it? (It's so scary how accurate your description is. A coworker of mine let it slip that their father owns something "rare and lost". I only ever enquired once as to what it was but because neither her nor her father were actual fans of Doctor Who, she's not sure. From what I could gather it sounded like a TV reel of an episode of The Mind Robber which, if true, isn't exciting or even missing. And yet I've never stopped imagining this guy who inherited alot of old broadcasting stuff might be sitting on a gold mine)

New Josh Snares video babe ❤️

Annother super interesting video Josh! You are more than welcome to upload anytime you like, we'll be here 😊

6:58 true about private collectors although I think you just perfectly described Ian Levine lol

Fantastic video!!! Sad but hopeful topic to talk about!!!

10th planet e4 was taken from the archive on the 27th April 1973,at about 2:25 p.m.,by a man named john,and taken to his house in the grove,near Ealing Broadway,to be copied then returned,but failed to do so for fear of getting nicked,he let me and my mates watch something called out of the unknown,and i recall seeing the last Hartnell story,as years i became aware of telesnaps and wondered why the screen froze on episode four,it does exist,he also must have been a collector,had loads of its sci fi as well.

Hope you are well now, love your videos better than most on KZfaq Quality over Quantity any day.

Excellent video. This subject always fascinated me. As a kid I always used to record over stuff when I was done, thinking it would be kept in the archives. Shows like No.73 and Motor Mouth only to discover that the master tapes were skipped/dumped by Disney about 15 years ago! I met Philip Morris, Paul Vanezis and Sue Malden in June and they said there are still retrievable eps out there but probably not ALL of them. I feel the same about all missing shows Hancock and Morecambe end Wise etc there's still hope for Web of Fear ep 3

People who collect things, but don't use them... That's genuinely insanity. It's just hoarding for people who think imagined monetary value that will never be cashed in on outweighs the actual value of having something in the first place: putting it to use. I don't think they're malicious, I think they're mental.

Good to hear your getting better.

A JOSH SNARES VIDEO?! It's not my Birthday.....good to see you. Entertaining and informative as always. Hope you feel better

I gotta say, that was a well done video!

You're Back!!! Awesome :D

Great to see you back, Josh. I implore anyone out there with missing episodes to please return them to the BBC for restoration and preservation, and so they can be enjoyed by a wider audience as first intended. Meanwhile, the good news is that the animated Underwater Menace will be released November 2023!

you are good dude Josh Snares! Thank you for your awesomeness!!!!

I love hearing stories missing episodes, it always has an air of spooky mysteriousness. Wonder if we’ll see any more episodes found again?

It is bittersweet knowing that some episodes could still be out there in collections but won't be returned. Who knows what could exist out there? The worst is "The Web of Fear" pt 3. where you know the person who took it understood exactly what it was (first appearance of the Brig,) then either hoarded, or more likely sold it. The sad truth is most there probably aren't many more episodes to recover, it's been 12 years since the last find. But, like the Doctor, we must choose to live in hope.

It really is difficult to explain today how rumour and innuendo could spread unchecked and unchallenged in a world before greater connectivity. Even today it's difficult to control. Which is why fan myths are still repeated today. And the 1980s really were a hotbed for 'characters' who drew their importance from being big fishes in a small pond. This inevitably had an effect on how the BBC - and those involved in the production - viewed the fanbase. One of the most positive outcomes of the post-2005 era is seeing the show open up and being widely appreciated by enthusiasts that don't have an axe to grind - unless your life is spent on Gallifrey Base - for a given definition of life...

7:02 - Yes. Yes they are. Don't make excuses for them.

Excellent video - thanks. Regarding the secret hoarding of lost episodes, and the collectors' motives for doing it, I think it's pretty easily explained. Sadly, we've all met fans whose attitude to the material is proprietorial. The attitude is most obvious among fans with a higher profile than the rest but not, I suspect, exclusive to them.

Hey by the way one of your videos got mentioned in doctor who magazine (issue 590)!

Let's be hopeful. Feel better. Thank you for your content.

I think another reason why these episodes aren’t getting returned is because of the way BBC handles returns as they consider it stolen property, which technically it is but they would’ve thrown it out anyway and it was so long ago it shouldn’t matter. Their attitude needs to change and actually celebrate someone coming forward with an episode and offer a great amount of money, I’m sure the owners of these episodes aren’t all too wealthy to accept a big amount. It should also be in the BBC’s interest as this would likely be cheaper than creating an animation for the missing episode in future and allow for a DVD rerelease of the story that had the missing episode. They should also offer for the seller to have the episode digitally backed up even if they don’t return the episode though I’m sure many people wouldn’t trust doing that, it would be good to offer.

The sound of the crt in the background is really noticeable around 4:30.

Great video as always Josh! ALL HAIL MILO CLANCY! 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

WAAAAAAAAY before you were born..... Back in the mid 80's, there was a guy from Blackpool who used to put adverts in "Exchange & Mart", offering VHS copies of Tenth Planet pt4 for £200 (which was a LOT of money back then), but he never would send out a clip as proof, nor let anyone visit him to see if it was real or not. Needless to say it still hasn't been seen by anyone....

So these "collectors" are basically the NFT bros of the olden days

That TV 's high pitched wine, It's just so.... there, I could feel it in my sinuses

Wow what a coincidence. Josh releases another video relating to the missing episodes and around the same time, we get an announcement of The Underwater Menace getting animated!

I'm still so annoyed that at least 2 Missing Episodes are known to be in collections, but no deal has been struck yet to return them. Surely a copy could be made and the original given back to the owner? Even if the BBC disagreed to that, I say send it to them anyway. Worst case scenario is that the owner dies and the family dumps it. It's a unique piece of British history, and they won't let the world partake in it. If the owner gets their name out, I should hope they'd be hailed as one of the saviours of Doctor Who.

Always thinking of such collectors are like Fafner the dragon sitting on his treasure and sleeping

Your missing episode videos are fascinating, thanks for posting.

The saviour has returned!

I’m a simple man. I see Josh Snares post a video, I click it

Omg the official Josh Snares KZfaq channel!!

WELCOME BACK

7:07 That.. sounds like something a private collector would say! 👀

To be honest there are some collectors like myself that are super fans of many things, but if something rare comes along it is a good feeling knowing you own something no one else does. I would return any DR who, but there was a time if I had something I would maybe have choosen to keep it. I have matchbox and thanks to family member working high up in the 70s & 80s my collection has some rare one off items in it. The toy car world would go crazy to see two of my items, as crazy as dr who fans would for lost epps. Yet im not ready to show to people and enjoy the if only posts or what if comments.

I’m starting to think theirs going to be a massive dump of missing episodes around the time of the 60th,I find it hard to believe the BBC haven’t found anything in 12 years

I'd love a 5-ish doctors-ish special where a group of fans heist a collector's home, only to find their intel was wrong and they only have the space pirates. In the end they decide to leave it there. "Some things are best left missing"

4:57 Yes, but not to me. Interestingly, in the 90s we used to just call them video-tapes, not VHS. Because other videotape formats were all gone. ... except the newly emergent VHS-C for handycams. I didn't bother with those, we just got a full-size shoulder mounted Panasonic VHS "Movie" cam. Which got stolen as soon as I took it to Bangladesh... But we got another one a few years later. Later I got a mini-DV camcorder, which stopped working when I took it to Thredbo. I've repaired it once and it stopped working again, but I don't know what I've done with my 9 tapes of home videos (some in Bangladesh), which I want to hand to a pro to copy to hard drive ...

"Never say never" - yeah... except for "The feast of Steven". There is no chance this one will ever turn up again. The tape for the episode was wiped September 17th 1967 and was no official film copy made because it was never meant to be broadcast anywhere ever again. 1967 means there is no way for someone to have made a copy directly to any type of consumer video tape or taped it at home. So if there was a copy it would have been a telerecording. Copied to film with one of those special TV to camera devices. This would have been either done officially but not documented, which would be strange. Or someone would have made a copy in secret which means this person had access to the tapes and the recorders and everything without anyone knowing (or caring to report them). The filmstock would have either been taken from and later developed inside the BBC which seems risky as well or the person brought their own material and got it developed provately or did it themselves. They would need to do this twice as the first one would be a negative from which a print needs to be struck to watch it. Something like this is not cheap and never was very cheap. The chance that someone would have done this is so tiny. I would like to be proven wrong but I don't think there is a chance for this one.

I'd like to see the return of Invasion of the Dinosaurs episode 1, as it's meant to be. One of the best Who episodes of all in my opinion.

I also feel like maybe some collectors worry about how they'll be viewed by fans if they don't return it or it takes ages for them to do so. they might just get a lot of angry messages from fans

Josh, random question, what would you say is the toughest part of making a KZfaq video? And what do you think makes it difficult to keep up with it weekly? (I'm asking as I face the same problem lol.)

the only issue i would see - is that... say they have a fire ether in their house or storage unit, and the rare copy is destroyed, were as it could have had copies made of it by the BBC or who ever so that more exist, and the story has more of a chance of surviving the test of time.... or that as you say.... film can deteriorate over time.... by ether case... the episode can indeed be literally be lost to time.

In Queer As Folk by RTD, there’s a story about someone who has The Tenth Planet. I wonder if this inspired it haha.

Another great video Josh, keep ‘em coming TimeLord. 👍

This is such a great thing to wake up to, i cant even tell you

The Returnnnnnnn

5:18 LOL Ian!! 😂😂

I full agree with what you think, Josh. At the end, anyways. I do hate people that keep the episodes to themselves, I DO think they do it to get the fans off. But I at least hope that they're taking care of the prints and that we'll see them someday. In private hands is better than destroyed. I just wish we knew which episodes, and had plans for the owner's death.

Josh is there a list of episodes that are believed to be in private hands? I saw a list in a fanzine the 80s which included The Highlanders 2 & 4

Heard about the tenth planet story. Fascinating and frustrating at once. Knowing you have to go through😮 all the dross to get to the very real likely hood that missing episodes can be found😅🙉🙊🙈

Speaking of lost episodes, it was recently announced that "The Underwater Menace" is going to be released in animated form.

Wouldn't it be cool if David Bradley and the BBC refilmed episode 4 or even the whole story for the 60th Anniversary.

Ah....Doctor Who Bullytin. That takes me back. And that's not a typo btw.

I'm pretty sure there's definitely someone on Earth who's holding onto Web of Fear pt 3, purely because it's the Brig's first appearance.