Dad's Army missing episodes

Dad's Army missing episodes usually refers to the three lost episodes of the black-and-white second series of the British sitcom television programme Dad's Army. The whole second series of the sitcom was affected by wiping, although two episodes were recovered in 2001. An off-air copy of the soundtrack of one of the other missing episodes, and the 1968 Christmas sketch, were recovered in 2008. The episodes were erased (or "junked") by the BBC during the 1960s and 1970s for a variety of economic and storage reasons. In all, three episodes from the black-and-white second series and two of the four Christmas inserts are still missing, as of 2011.

Background

Between approximately 1967 and 1978, large amounts of material stored in the BBC's videotape and film libraries were destroyed or wiped to make way for newer programmes. This happened for a number of reasons, not least the restrictions negotiated by unions to prevent programmes being heavily repeated at the expense of new productions, making the old material redundant.

For the first two series, Dad's Army was made in black-and-white, with most episodes being made on two-inch quad videotape for initial broadcast. As a series thought to have commercial potential overseas, the first series was offered for sale to foreign broadcasters by BBC Enterprises. To this end, 16mm film copies were made of the first six episodes by the BBC Engineering department before the master videotapes were wiped for re-use. In the event, the first series sold very poorly and BBC Enterprises did not express interest in selling series two abroad, resulting in few film copies of series two episodes being made. The episode "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret" was recorded onto 35mm film instead of videotape, either because it required additional editing (which was easier to perform with film before the advent of modern electronic editing methods) or because no videotape recording facilities were available on the day it was recorded. This inadvertently assured the episode's survival: being effectively a production made on film it fell within the BBC Film Library's remit of keeping filmed productions for posterity.^[1]

From the third series onwards the show was made in colour on 625 line videotape. With overseas interest in the series picking up, BBC Enterprises resumed offering the episodes for sale in up to three different formats:

• PAL 625 line colour videotapes for countries with the same broadcast standards as the United Kingdom, including (from 1975) Australia
• NTSC 525 line colour videotapes for countries such as Canada and the United States
• 16mm film records for countries still broadcasting in black-and-white (such as Australia until 1975)

Until 1978 the BBC had no central archive, with the Film Library keeping only some programmes that were made on film (e.g. "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret"), whilst the Engineering Department handled videotape but had no mandate to retain material for posterity. BBC Enterprises only kept material that was considered commercially exploitable and had limited storage space.

In the mid 1970s BBC Enterprises disposed of much older material where the rights to sell the programmes had expired, whilst the Engineering Department routinely wiped videotapes that were no longer formally required. In 1978 the BBC created the Film & Videotape Library, the first time a permanent archive for all its old programmes was established.

Episodes affected

The first series of Dad's Army survived as a complete set of black-and-white film telerecordings. However, the second series was badly affected, with five of the six episodes not being held by the BBC in 1978, leaving the series two episode "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret" the only episode of the second series until the episodes "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage" were recovered in 2001, along with the soundtracks of both "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas sketch "Untitled Sketch" in 2008.

The third series was also affected, with the episode "Room at the Bottom" surviving only as a black-and-white copy until colour restoration in 2008.

The fourth series was briefly affected; the 1970 Christmas insert "The Cornish Floral Dance" still remains missing, despite being made in colour. It could have been either junked around 1971 to reuse the master tape or lost after being broadcast.

Recovery

The colour episodes in series 3-9 have been remarkably fortunate compared to many of their contemporaries, even series with very well preserved 1970s holdings such as Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Z-Cars and Doctor Who. Episodes were returned from overseas broadcasters, mainly from those in Europe, New Zealand and Australia, with the result that all episodes now exist in the original 625 line colour format.

By the 1990s the only exception was the third series episode "Room at the Bottom" which survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film recording. This episode has since been digitally restored into colour.

The first series survives in its entirety, though the 1968 Christmas insert, which was broadcast between the first and second series, remains missing.

Series 2 remains incomplete. In 2001 the two episodes "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage" were returned as 16mm film recordings,^[2] to much surprise as it was assumed that very few copies had been made of the second series episodes. It has since been established that the two episodes were film recorded to show to executives at Columbia Pictures during discussions on the structure of the Dad's Army feature film. In 2008 the soundtracks of the episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas insert were returned as off-air copies. Another Christmas episode, "The Cornish Floral Dance" which aired as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1970, is the only colour episode still missing.

The other three second series episodes "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "A Stripe for Frazer" and "Under Fire", are still missing and were probably lost for good once the original broadcast videotapes were wiped.^[3] The only currently remaining hope for recovery is that the lost episodes may have been recorded during their original UK broadcasts by a person wealthy enough to afford an early videotape recorder such as a Shibaden or Sony CV-2000 machine, and also of sufficient means to be able to afford new tapes rather than wiping and reusing their existing recordings. It should be noted that these three episodes were among 67 adapted for BBC Radio in the 1970s and that recordings of the radio episodes still exist.

In 2001 the BBC launched the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal for the wiped episodes, encouraging anyone with copies to contact them.^[4]

Colour Restoration

Due to the way in which the original black & white telerecordings were made, colour information was sometimes inadvertently preserved in them even though it could not be displayed. In 2008 a computer technique was developed to recover the information from telerecordings to create a usable colour signal. One of the first telerecordings to undergo the process was the Dad's Army episode "Room at the Bottom". It was transmitted in colour for the first time in almost forty years on 13 December 2008. This technique has since been used on other programmes that were produced in colour but only have black-and-white copies surviving, such as the 1972 pilot episode of Are You Being Served?^[5][6] which has now been restored and broadcast in colour for the first time since 1973.

Episodes still missing

The following three episodes from the second series are still missing in their entirety:

Series No'	Ep No'	Title	Broadcast	Notes
Series 2	Episode 3	The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker	15/3/69	both picture and soundtrack still missing.
Series 2	Episode 5	A Stripe for Frazer	29/3/69	soundtrack found in 2008, picture still missing.
Series 2	Episode 6	Under Fire	5/4/69	both picture and soundtrack still missing.

Two of the four Christmas sketches of Dad's Army (broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars) survive only as off-air soundtrack recordings:

• "Untitled Sketch" (1968) - soundtrack found in 2008, picture still missing

• "The Cornish Floral Dance" - soundtrack found (can be heard on the DVD boxset), picture still missing

References

1. ^ Documentary: Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, BBC, 2001
2. ^ "Lost Dad's Army shows found". BBC News (BBC). 2001-06-01. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1364418.stm. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
3. ^ The missing episodes at the BBC Treasure Hunt site, URL accessed 4 June 2006
4. ^ Treasure Hunt Website
5. ^ http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=105&programmeId=89467032&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_fullpage.jsp
6. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/12_december/09/dadsarmy.shtml