The Tomb of the Cybermen
| Story Code: MM / Season 5 | UK Airdate: 2 Sep to 23 Sep 1967 | Doctor: Patrick Troughton |
| First airings by location | UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite | Previous Story / Next Story |
This story aired in the following four countries. They are listed in chronological order according to known airdate. (Refer also to Selling Doctor Who for expanded airdates.)
| Australia | Jul 68 | b/w |
| Singapore | Feb 70 | b/w |
| Hong Kong | Jun 70 | b/w |
| New Zealand | Aug 70 | b/w |
- The films were evaluated by the Australian censors on 10 January 1968, but they had to be reclassified due to issues of violence. Likewise, the New Zealand censors, who viewed their copies in October 1969, had to assess the serial twice.
- Curiously, the same four countries to screen this, were also the same four to screen The Evil of the Daleks. Why did Gibraltar, Zambia and Nigeria not pick up the serial in 1973?
- In DWM #187 (June 1992), it is claimed by writer, Adrian Rigelsford, that the film prints for The Tomb of the Cybermen were sent to Hong Kong when war broke out in an unnamed country...
- The serial was recovered in full from Hong Kong in late 1991. It was subsequently released in late 1992 for inclusion in syndication packages:
| United States | 1992 | b/w |
| Canada | 1990s | b/w |
- The serial screened on UK Gold in October 1998.
Movement of the Films
Being one of the missing stories from the 1960s to have been recovered in its entirety, and for which there were only a few countries in which it aired, The Tomb of the Cybermen is a perfect case study for investigating and tracking the possible movements made by the prints.
Let's bullet-point the key dates:
- Australia:
- Censored: 10 January 1968
- Airdate: from July 1968
- Repeat: December 1969 (Perth)
- New Zealand
- Censored: 24-30 Oct 1969
- Airdates (regional): August to November 1970
- Singapore
- Airdate: February 1970
- Hong Kong
- Originally scheduled for October 1969
- Airdate: June to July 1970
What we can see here is that Australia had prints from January 1968 to December 1969. New Zealand held prints for over a year, from October 1969 to November 1970. New Zealand was the last of the four countries to screen the serial - so it's clear that New Zealand did not sent its prints to Singapore or Hong Kong. Presumably they were destroyed.
Of note, the recovered prints all exhibited a splice around the 12-minute mark, which suggests this was where the broadcaster inserted a commercial break. However, the timeslots for screenings of this serial in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong are only 25 minutes, whereas in Singapore, the slot was 30 minutes. This suggests these films may have previously been used in Singapore. (Note, sometimes BBC films were supplied in two halves, known as A and B reels. If "The Tomb of the Cybermen" was supplied to Hong Kong in that manner, that would also explain why the films have been spliced together.)
Hong Kong originally had the serial scheduled for October 1969, but that screening was replaced by The Abominable Snowmen. The serial did eventually air in June 1970. Why the delay?
- Maybe there was an issue with censorship? (Both Australia and New Zealand experienced censorship issues with this serial.)
- Maybe the expected film prints did not arrive on time? (Perth in Australia had completed a repeat run in December 1969. Was Hong Kong waiting for Australia to send these prints, and because of the late repeat in Perth, Hong Kong had to wait?)
- Were the prints they had unuseable (damaged?) and they had to source prints from somewhere else, but had to wait until that country had finished with them first? (If so, Singapore is the most likely candidate, as there is a four month window between the two screenings.)
SUMMARY
We don't know how many prints there were in circulation. The maximum would be four (one for each country), and the minimum would be two.
- If two prints in circulation:
- A1 - Australia to Singapore to Hong Kong (found in 1991)
- A2 - New Zealand - destroyed?
or
- B1 - Australia to Hong Kong (found in 1991)
- B2 - New Zealand to Singapore back to New Zealand - destroyed?
- If three prints in circulation:
- C1 - Australia - destroyed?
- C2 - New Zealand - destroyed?
- C3 - Singapore to Hong Kong (found in 1991)
or
- D1 - Australia to Hong Kong (found in 1991)
- D2 - New Zealand - destroyed?
- D3 - Singapore - destroyed?
For what it's worth, we favour their having been four prints from the out-set, one for each country, but with Singapore having to supply Hong Kong with replacements, as that best accommodates the fact that the serial was delayed and screened in Hong Kong months after its original scheduled airdate. It would also explain why there would be "commercial break" splices in prints recovered from a country that didn't have breaks during Doctor Who...
