Invasion of the Dinosaurs
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| 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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- Although The Time Warrior was the last full story to be tele-recorded onto 16mm black and white film, at least the first and second episodes of WWW were also transferred to film.
- However, by August 1974, only six months after the serial had aired in the UK, it was not being offered to foreign broadcasters.
WHY? That is the 1974 dollar question...
CONSPIRACY THEORY: Where does one even begin? To make some sense of what happened with this serial, let's bullet-point the key events:
- 12 January to 16 February 1974: Invasion of the Dinosaurs airs on BBC TV.
- 15 January to 17 February 1974: Invasion of the Dinosaurs airs on BBC Cymru (Wales)TV.
- 28 June 1974 and 10 July 1974: Tele-recordings are made of episode one (and possibly also episode two).
- 30 July 1974: The censors in Australia view and assess The Time Warrior (on b/w film).
- August 1974: BBC Enterprises confirms it has no interest in selling serial WWW overseas.
- 26 September 1974: The censors in Australia view and assess Death to the Daleks (on PAL video).
- 10 October 1974 : The censors in Australia view and assess The Monster of Peladon (on PAL video).
- 1974: A BBC sales 'brochure' includes Invasion of the Dinosaurs as being available.
- 1975: A BBC sales 'brochure' includes Invasion of the Dinosaurs as being available.
- 24 November 1976: Pre-production on Whose Doctor Who. BBC Enterprises does not hold any tapes for Serial WWW.
- 28 February 1977: A memo is drawn up recording foreign sales of Doctor Who (See BBC Records). Invasion of the Dinosaurs is blank.
- 1978: When the newly-formed Film and Video Archive is established, PAL video-tapes of episodes two to six are found to be held after all.
- 1983: One of the 1974 tele-recordings of episode one is recovered early in 1983. It is of poor not-broadcast quality.
Right. That's the chain of (known) events. But what does it all mean? Given that the rest of season 11 was supplied to Australia less than six months after UK transmission, but that by that time WWW was not available, then WHATEVER IT WAS THAT HAPPENED happened sometime between 10 July 1974 (when the serial aired in Wales) and August 1974 (when Enterprises declared no further interest).
BUT WHAT DID HAPPEN?
- The two 1974 tele-recordings were apparently of very poor quality. Maybe the reason why it was done twice was because the first did not pass the quality test. But did something happen to the original video tape of part one during this conversion process? Did the tape get mangled beyond repair after / during a third attempt to make a usable 16mm film copy?
- It has been suggested that the two low-grade film copies were made for other reasons: one was for training purposes. Did the tape get damaged during the test session before an official tele-recording intended for foreign sales was made?
- The BBC could have made tele-recordings of the remaining episodes and sold the serial in black and white only, but since very view countries were still buying black and white material at that time might not have justified the cost.
- Producer Barry Letts has gone on record saying he was far from satisfied with the special visual effects; did he perhaps pull some clout and have the story withdrawn to prevent further embarrassment by pushing less-than-satisfactory product on their colonial cousins?
- And what happened to the tapes between 1974 and 1978? It is thought that the ones found in 1978 had been returned from BBC Wales. But why did they not also return episode one?
- And if the story was not available in any format, why was it included on two separate sales brochures? Or was this purely down to a clerical error?
Yes, it is all very confusing. And we may never find out the answer to this one.
But, okay, for what it's worth, here's our take on this:
- Copies of all six episodes are sent to Cardiff.
- After the BBC screenings, Enterprises starts the telerecording process. On 28 June 1974, the first telerecording is made. Unfortunately, the machine used is faulty - not only does it produce a sub-standard film recording, it also damages the tape, rendering it unplayable.
- BBC Cardiff is instructed to send its copy of Part One back to London, which it duly does.
- On 10 July a second telerecording attempt is made, using the same machine, and unfortunately, with the same result - a poor quality film recording and a mangled tape.
- Serial WWW is now useless to BBC Enterprises, because they can't sell it as a colour story, and they are now not able to have a third attempt at getting a film copy.
- August 1974. Enterprises issues a "Wipe" order, and parts two to six are duly wiped...
- BBC Cardiff eventually return their tapes of part two to six back to London sometime after November 1976 (when Whose Doctor Who was in production) and before the establishment of the Archive in 1978...
Issue
- The story was finally released for foreign sale in early 1985, when it was included in a package of all 24 Jon Pertwee stories.
- However, the black and white part one was not included; the story was offered as a five-parter only. 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 remove all references to scenes from part one (such as the attack by the pterodactyl).
- The serial was sold to:
| United States | from Mar 85 | NTSC |
| Australia | Nov 84 | PAL |
| New Zealand | Sep 86 | PAL |
| Canada | 1990s? | NTSC |
- All six parts - the black and white first instalment included - were released in later years. New Zealand aired all six episodes in a Jan 2001 repeat season.
