Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Story Code: WWW / Season 11	UK Airdate: 12 Jan to 16 Feb 1974	Doctor: Jon Pertwee
First airings by location	UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite	Previous Story / Next Story

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• A set of black and white film recordings of the serial (a print of part one was struck on 28 June 1974, and another on 10 July 1974) and a set of PAL colour video tapes were sent to BBC Sydney circa late July 1974, soon after the completion of broadcast of the season in the UK. The serial was offered by BBC Sydney to the ABC in Australia along with the rest of the season.
• The serial was viewed and assessed by the Australian censors circa early August 1974, probably between these two dates:
  • The Time Warrior was assessed (on b/w film) by them on 30 July 1974
  • Death to the Daleks was assessed (on PAL video) on 26 September 1974
• Serial WWW was assigned an "A" rating, and therefore could not be screened in the ABC's favoured early evening timeslot.
• A non-sale to Australia meant that the two other Commonwealth countries still buying the series, New Zealand and Hong Kong, both of which were also favouring colour broadcasts at that time, could not afford to purchase it.
• BBC London, probably in direct response to the 'rejection' by Australia, issued a "No Further Interest" notice for the story in August 1974, ignoring the possibility of future sales outside the Commonwealth.
• CONSPIRACY THEORY: Due to an internal administrative error this statement of "No Further Interest" was interpreted as a "Wipe" order, and part one was duly erased; when the mistake was discovered the other tapes were fortunately spared a similar fate.
• It was, however, too late to save the tapes held by BBC Sydney; issued with the same "Wipe" instructions, they presumably destroyed the films and wiped the tapes at the same time.
  • Of course, given the implications that would have arisen, and that someone should have been held accountable for wiping the tape in error, why has no paperwork documenting the investigation and its outcome come to light?
• The serial was still being offered for sale in 1974 and 1975, but only in black and white. Since the only other country buying Doctor Who at that time - United Arab Emirates – also preferred colour, the serial was never purchased, and was subsequently withdrawn from offer.
• By late 1976, when Brunei and Gibraltar had been offered season 11 (and when the documentary Whose Doctor Who was in pre-production), BBC Enterprises no longer held sales copies of the serial. (The five original broadcast tapes, plus a longer earlier edit of part three, were held by the BBC's Engineering Department; the black and white prints had presumably already been junked.)
• One of the black and white prints of part one was salvaged after being junked, and was eventually returned to the BBC in 1983.

Issue

• The story was eventually released for foreign sale in 1984, when it was sold to Australia. It was also included in a package of all 24 Jon Pertwee stories sold to the United States in 1985. However, the black and white part one was not included; the story was offered as a five-parter only or in an omnibus format. The opening titles captions were also adjusted, so PART TWO was now "PART ONE", PART THREE became "PART TWO", and so on. Part Two was also edited slightly to delete all references to scenes and events that occurred in part one, such as the Doctor and Sarah's discussion about the origin of the pterodactyl that had attacked them. To maintain the episode's duration, the 'deleted' sections were replaced by the dropping-in of shots extracted from elsewhere within the same episode - for instance, a cutaway of soldiers shooting at the T-rex was duplicated and dropped in to mask the above 'discussion' scene.

• The five-part version of the serial was sold to:

Australia	Nov 84	PAL
United States	from Mar 85	NTSC
New Zealand	Sep 86	PAL
Canada	1990s?	NTSC

Reissue

• All six parts – with the black and white first instalment included - were issued in the 1990s - UK Gold aired it episodically in July 1993; UKTV Australia screened all six in 1997; and Prime in New Zealand aired all six in January 2001. Prime also aired the extended first edit of part three.
• We suspect the reason why part one was not available until the 1990s was, when the BBC released the serial in 1984 only stories that existed entirely in black and white or in colour were offered since many US broadcasters wanted to air omnibus versions, and having colour serials with parts in black and white were not as attractive to US stations. There were only two serials affected by this - Planet of the Daleks and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Each was edited to "remove" their sole black and white episode. And since repeat fees had to be paid to the actors with speaking roles, with part one out of the equation, the BBC did not have to pay repeat fees to the half dozen or so actors who appeared only in part one. But after 1991, when the seven years rights period (1984-1991) had expired, the black and white first episode could finally be marketed under fresh repeats contracts.

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