Doctor Who - Documentary s08e15 Episode Script
Tomorrows World
Hello, and welcome to Tomorrow's World.
Tonight, how to regenerate a Time Lord and also bring the colour back to the cheeks of Doctor Who.
Ah.
Easier to fly than I thought.
This looks like the right place.
Now, I've brought you back to 1 971 , for the start of a very interesting rescue story.
Yeah, the Radio Times from May of that year.
Tomorrow's World on a Friday then.
And inside, new series of Doctor Who.
''The Daemons''.
A timeless programme, the repeats of which we should have been enjoying ever since.
But sadly for Doctor Who fans, ''The Daemons'' were never seen again.
Until now.
This week it will be revived for the first time in nearly 20 years, thanks to a tidy piece of detective work and the wonders of modern television technology.
The story continues in the mid-'70s, when the BBC wiped a whole lot of videotapes of programmes like Tomorrow's World and Doctor Who.
Slight lapse of judgement I think there.
And all that was left of ''The Daemons'' was this.
It's a black-and-white version, which had been recorded on film to sell to countries where tape was not yet used.
Well, the colour version it seemed was lost forever.
But Doctor Who fans are a persevering lot.
One in particular made it his mission to collect the entire Doctor Who archive.
So when the programme was shown in the States, he arranged for it to be recorded at a friend's home.
Stroke of luck, as it happened, because the Americans wiped their master tape soon after.
With a domestic tape like this, the picture was there, but the quality, well, it wasn't, really.
Now, that doesn't look too bad, but the detail really isn't good enough for transmission.
But this year, a team of fans and BBC engineers realised there might finally be a way to use the American tape and the black-and-white film to restore ''The Daemons'' to its former glory.
Now, every TV picture can be split into two parts, a black-and-white image containing the light and shade in the picture, and another containing the colour.
The idea was to take the high-quality black-and-white version, combine it with the colour from the American tape by running the two pictures simultaneously, and recording the result.
Nice idea, but it doesn't quite work.
Can you see there that the colours don't quite line up with the black-and-white film version? And that's because when that was made, the picture shape was distorted.
But if you're a fan of Tomorrow's World, you may have noticed that we can deliberately distort a rectangular picture into almost any shape.
(SHUDDERS) Well, the team used the same device to match the two pictures.
Now, have a look at Jo's arm on the right, there.
You can see on the right it's in black-and-white.
But watch how the effect is in, and then it covers the black-and-white area perfectly.
You see the colour shifting over to the right.
And on she goes.
And this is the final version.
This is actually what the effect did.
There's no time for all these unecessary questions.
MAN: All the time in the world! And you should be able to see the difference, because you can now compare it with the original American tape, which is on the right, and the new version's on the left, which I'm sure you'll agree is much better.
-What's the matter with you all? -You're making all the fuss, old man.
Well, the first episode of the regenerated Doctor Who series will be shown on BBC2 this Friday.
And now you know what can be done if you've got a rare bit of Doctor Who or even Tomorrow's World lying around in your attic.
Tonight, how to regenerate a Time Lord and also bring the colour back to the cheeks of Doctor Who.
Ah.
Easier to fly than I thought.
This looks like the right place.
Now, I've brought you back to 1 971 , for the start of a very interesting rescue story.
Yeah, the Radio Times from May of that year.
Tomorrow's World on a Friday then.
And inside, new series of Doctor Who.
''The Daemons''.
A timeless programme, the repeats of which we should have been enjoying ever since.
But sadly for Doctor Who fans, ''The Daemons'' were never seen again.
Until now.
This week it will be revived for the first time in nearly 20 years, thanks to a tidy piece of detective work and the wonders of modern television technology.
The story continues in the mid-'70s, when the BBC wiped a whole lot of videotapes of programmes like Tomorrow's World and Doctor Who.
Slight lapse of judgement I think there.
And all that was left of ''The Daemons'' was this.
It's a black-and-white version, which had been recorded on film to sell to countries where tape was not yet used.
Well, the colour version it seemed was lost forever.
But Doctor Who fans are a persevering lot.
One in particular made it his mission to collect the entire Doctor Who archive.
So when the programme was shown in the States, he arranged for it to be recorded at a friend's home.
Stroke of luck, as it happened, because the Americans wiped their master tape soon after.
With a domestic tape like this, the picture was there, but the quality, well, it wasn't, really.
Now, that doesn't look too bad, but the detail really isn't good enough for transmission.
But this year, a team of fans and BBC engineers realised there might finally be a way to use the American tape and the black-and-white film to restore ''The Daemons'' to its former glory.
Now, every TV picture can be split into two parts, a black-and-white image containing the light and shade in the picture, and another containing the colour.
The idea was to take the high-quality black-and-white version, combine it with the colour from the American tape by running the two pictures simultaneously, and recording the result.
Nice idea, but it doesn't quite work.
Can you see there that the colours don't quite line up with the black-and-white film version? And that's because when that was made, the picture shape was distorted.
But if you're a fan of Tomorrow's World, you may have noticed that we can deliberately distort a rectangular picture into almost any shape.
(SHUDDERS) Well, the team used the same device to match the two pictures.
Now, have a look at Jo's arm on the right, there.
You can see on the right it's in black-and-white.
But watch how the effect is in, and then it covers the black-and-white area perfectly.
You see the colour shifting over to the right.
And on she goes.
And this is the final version.
This is actually what the effect did.
There's no time for all these unecessary questions.
MAN: All the time in the world! And you should be able to see the difference, because you can now compare it with the original American tape, which is on the right, and the new version's on the left, which I'm sure you'll agree is much better.
-What's the matter with you all? -You're making all the fuss, old man.
Well, the first episode of the regenerated Doctor Who series will be shown on BBC2 this Friday.
And now you know what can be done if you've got a rare bit of Doctor Who or even Tomorrow's World lying around in your attic.