HEADLINES SO BAD it can only be Great Britain: "Evil Mugabe hoards lost Doctor Who tapes."Not some random government official, mind you, but Robert Mugabe himself. Desperately hoarding Doctor Who tapes as his once affluent nation crumbles around him. And he's Evil too - not just evil, but Evil.
What The Sun's story is actually about is the possibility that buried deep in Zimbabwe's film archive are episodes of Doctor Who, purchased when the country was still a British colony in the 1960s, and the originals of which were wiped by the BBC in the '60s and '70s.
It isn't entirely unlikely - a good many episodes have been returned from overseas markets: The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) was returned to the archives in 1992 from Hong Kong.
But to point the finger at Zimbabwe is pure supposition. Any of the missing 108 episodes could be anywhere in the world - if, indeed, they exist at all.
Still, let's take a stab at which episodes President Mugabe is allegedly hoarding. The 4 missing episodes of the six-part The Enemy of the World, about a mad dictator? The 2 missing parts of 1964's The Reign of Terror maybe?
And given what's happening in Zimbabwe, does it really matter? Or is it just easier to think about nonsense like this?
Elsewhere - Evil Mugabe hoards lost Doctor Who tapes
The last "Woolworth" store, I ever step foot in was in Zimbabwe back in 1995.
ReplyDeletethat's wild
ReplyDeleteMaybe because I live "across the pond" along with I may just not know the whole scenario but, I don't get the significance. It's a TV SHOW. I don't think it would matter to most folks here if copies of Dragnet, ModSquad or Hawaii 5-0 were own by the President of the Phillipines or Guam. SO I don't get what difference it makes if he is holding on to them, if these tapes are his personal property maybe he's holding on to them for his own since of nostalgia. If they are property of the Government there then maybe he's waiting to sell them as a last resort. Either way, it's not like he's hoarding the crown jewels, right?
ReplyDeletethe picture is making me die inside
ReplyDeletePharaoh - You're completely right, it *IS* just a TV show. I think the point you might be missing, since this is a phenomena specific to Britain, is that the episodes in question have been completely destroyed, and in some cases haven't been seen since they were first broadcast over 45 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe nearest point of reference I can give is Star Trek, although Doctor Who enjoys considerably greater mainstream appeal than that. Imagine if great chunks of that had been wiped, and there was a chance they might exist somewhere. People would be keen to find them.