Australia Sales

THE ABC BUYS DOCTOR WHO

This page is an overview of the Doctor Who serials PURCHASED by the ABC between 1964 and 1997.

But first, a general overview of the process that ALL television programmes screened in AUSTRALIA went through:

NOTE: This page displays best when you 'Hide' the Table of Contents

OFFERS, BOND STORES and CENSORSHIP

It was a legal requirement under Australian Federal Law that a film could not be exhibited at a cinema or broadcast on television until after a Certificate of Registration had been issued by the Australian Film Censorship Board (AFCB). A Certificate would only be issued once the film had been classified and, if it was a required by the censor, edited to remove any questionable material; in the case of Doctor Who this 'material' was usually depictions of horror and violence.

The exhibitor -- in the case of Doctor Who this was the ABC -- did not have the right to appeal any of the cuts made to a film print, but it did have the right of appeal should it disagree with the classification that was given, since the classification dictated how and when the film could be shown; for television the classification restricted the timeslot in which it could be screened. (The ABC wanted to screen Doctor Who in the family-friendly early evening slot – usually around 6pm or 6.30pm - for which a "G" (General) certificate was required.)

But censorship was only one step in a lengthy process that each and every television film print that was imported into the country had to undertake (not just for the ABC, but all the TV networks in Australia). The following is a BRIEF overview of this process:

• OFFER: TV programmes – both new series as well as further episodes of series the ABC had already acquired - were offered to them by BBC Enterprises' office in Sydney (see our dedicated PAGE for more on this). This offer took the form of a typed memo listing the latest batch of programmes on offer along with any publicity material – usually a Programme Info Sheet and/or publicity photos. The ABC notified the BBC by return memo of the programmes that they were interested in, along with a list of which new ones they specifically wanted to "Audition".
• AUDITION: For the new shows the ABC wanted to preview, Enterprises in London were notified, and they had the prints struck and delivered to BBC Sydney. BBC Sydney forwarded them to the ABC, and they were assessed by the Audition team who would view the sample episodes, and rate the programme on its entertainment merits. The team would "Recommend" or "Not Recommend" a programme for purchase. The Programme Buying department would then consider the audition reports and make a decision based on their recommendations. But sometimes programmes that were "Recommended" were ultimately rejected for a number of different reasons, whereas sometime programmes "Not Recommended" did get purchased!
• DECLINE: If a new programme was not approved, the Audition prints would be returned to the BBC…
• ACCEPTANCE: When a series was approved and accepted, the BBC was advised of this. The BBC in London duly struck the remaining prints and had the consignment flown to Sydney.
  • NOTE: The above AUDITION steps did not apply to the ongoing receipt of episodes for series that the ABC had already acquired. All the following steps however did still apply to all existing programmes.
• BOND STORE: As noted above, programmes had to be registered and certified before they could be broadcast. With hundreds of films coming into Australia every week (that's films for the ABC, the other three TV networks and independent stations, plus all the cinema chains), they needed to be stored somewhere while waiting to be registered. All the Australian TV networks and the major cinema distributors ran their own "Bond Store", a facility in which to place all the "unregistered" films as they arrived into the country. (The ABC's Bond Store was housed in a building on the same street as their main studio complex in Gore Hill, North Sydney. Films that arrived at Sydney airport were transported directly to the Bond Store.)

ABC film leader

• CENSORSHIP: The government's censorship department the AFCB was notified of all the films that arrived "in Bond". When they were ready to do so, the censorship board called up the films from Bond, these were delivered by a dedicated courier company to the censors' office in downtown Sydney, where they were scheduled and viewed by two members of the censorship team. An ABC liaison officer would travel into the city to sit in on these viewing sessions; while the censors were looking at the films in terms of providing a classification rating, the ABC assessor was viewing them for entertainment value and film quality. (If a liaison officer was not able to attend the same session, they would hold their own screening later at Gore Hill.)
  • By mid-1969, a closed-circuit cable system had been installed between Gore Hill and the ABC's headquarter's in Broadcast House on Elizabeth Street. This was mainly for internal screening purposes. But on occasion this system was used for censorship sessions. The censors would travel to BH and watch the material on a monitor in one of the viewing theatres while the ABC's liaison officer would view the same in a viewing room at Gore Hill.
    • By the early 1970s, with more and more programmes being supplied on videotape, and since the censors' office was not yet fully equipped to play VT, additional screening theatres were installed, with the censors now calling in at BH for all ABC classification screenings.
• CLASSIFICATION: The censors would provide the ABC assessor with their initial rating recommendations (in the 60s and 70s this was "G" or "A"; in the early 1980s, a new middle-ground rating "PGR" was introduced), and notes on any cuts that needed to be made. The assessor had the power to immediately ACCEPT or REFUSE the censors' findings. (The ABC could challenge the rating, but it could not challenge the cuts.)
  • REFUSAL: Only one Doctor Who story was wholly "rejected" at the classification stage. Mission to the Unknown was refused a Certificate of Registration due to "Horror" content; under the "Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations" clause "Reg 13 (d)", "… a film shall not be registered under this Part if in the opinion of the Board … the film … depicts any matter the exhibition of which is undesirable in the public interest…" . The ABC was not able to appeal this decision.
    • What happened to the print after that? Under the "Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations", "Reg 27 Rejected film to be exported or destroyed" states that "Where a film is not registered … the importer shall export the film … or destroy it under the supervision of an officer, within 28 days [our emphasis] … after the date on which the Board refuses to register the film". What that means is, after being rejected by the censor on 13 September 1966, the relevant "Certificate of Refusal to Register" was issued on 28 September 1966, and no more than 28 days after that Certificate was issued, the 16mm print of Mission to the Unknown was either "exported" (i.e. sent back to the BBC) or destroyed…
    • There has been some thought that the censors maintained a special film vault filled with all the rejected movie and TV film prints, however there is absolutely NO regulation under the Cinematograph Regulations (then or now) for such a requirement. In fact, the Regulations clearly stipulates the exact opposite, stating that nothing that was rejected was to be kept at all…
    • The Cinematograph Films Regulations can be READ HERE
  • APPEAL: If a film was given a rating other than "G", the ABC could challenge this. The Appeal process often took many months; sometimes the board would reconsider and approved a lower rating, but more often than not it wouldn't shift. (Many of the early William Hartnell stories were classified "A", and screened after 7pm, but the rating meant they couldn't be repeated in mid-afternoon weekday slots. Three stories were initially classified "A", but were later reclassified "G" after a successful appeal: The Chase, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion. The Caves of Androzani was initially given "PGR", which became "G" only after it underwent some severe editing. But some "A" rated stories could not be reclassified, and the ABC therefore did not purchase them: The Daleks' Master Plan, Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Daemons, The Green Death, and The Deadly Assassin.)
  • ACCEPT: Once a classification had been accepted at the assessment stage, it still had to be formally approved by the programme purchasing department. The ABC assessor would type up a report giving a full episode–by-episode synopsis with the censor's and their own recommendations, which was read by the programme purchasing team, who then made the final decision. (The purchasing department did not have the time or resources to preview programmes, so the typed synopses were very detailed and provided enough for them to make an informed decision.)
• REGISTRATION: After the classification was formally accepted by the ABC, and they agreed to purchase the programme, a "Certificate of Registration" was issued by the AFCB and the film was transferred to the ABC's Film Library.
  • CUTS: If cuts were needed, the films went to the censor's editing team first. The AFCB retained the trims, a Certificate of Registration was issued and the edited programme was then transferred to the ABC's Film Library.
• REPLACEMENTS: On the odd occasion, if during the censorship / assessment stage a film print was seen to be unacceptable, due to scratches or other physical faults. If necessary, a replacement was requested to be sent.
  • This happened a couple of times with Doctor Who – see the commentary below for known examples.

ABC's Federal Film Library label

• FILM LIBRARY: Once a Certificate of Registration had been issued, and any cuts had been made, the films were placed into the Federal Film Library. The Library affixed new labels and film leaders to each print -- see the sample here. Also filed were "Film Library Catalogue" sheets, which consisted of a detailed synopsis of each episode; these were used to aid in compiling of newspaper and TV guide summaries, as well as providing ABC staff with a quick and ready overview of what each programme / episode was about. (The ABC'S Federal Film Library was initially located within the Gore Hill studio complex, but in mid-1971, when it was deemed that the Gore Hill site was too small, the Library was relocated into the same building where the Bond Store was. The Film Library later became the Video Tape Library. By the mid-1980s the ABC became responsible for its own in-house censorship, so the Bond Store was no longer necessary. The Film and VT Library remained at that site until 1992, when what was left of the dwindling contents was transferred to a smaller facility at the ABC's new studio complex at Ultimo in downtown Sydney.)
• PURCHASE: Once a Certificate had been issued, and the ABC took possession of the films, it was at that stage that a programme was deemed to be "sold", and payment was made to the BBC, usually in increments paid out quarterly. This gave the ABC the rights to screen a programme by all regions within a (usually) three year period, with the right to extend that period if required (i.e. they wanted to repeat it if it was popular enough). (In the case of Doctor Who, a single repeat was automatically built into the "three year" agreement.)
• PRE-BROADCAST PREP: Prior to being sent out for broadcast, most film prints underwent a final check and clean by the telecine department. New leaders would also be affixed if required.
  • On the odd occasion, it was during this preparatory stage that a film was found to be not up to broadcast standards due to scratches or other physical faults. If necessary, a replacement was requested to be sent. (This happened a couple of times with Doctor Who – see the commentary below for known examples.)
  • The ABC's presentation department sometimes made its own edits to the films, usually the removal of the "Next Episode" captions, since there were times that the serials were shown out of order (this was certainly the case with the episodes screened in 1966, and particularly so when stories were repeated during school holidays, which was often out of sequence and with long gaps between serials). (This editing is why The Celestial Toymaker part 4 is missing the "Next Episode" captions, and why the print of The Moonbase part 4 that exists in private hands no longer has the "Next Week The Macra Terror" caption.)
• REGIONAL BICYCLING: Films (and later Video Tapes) were bicycled around the metropolitan regions (by air-freight; the ABC had a contract account with the airline TAA), and returned to the Library (usually by train) once the final station in line had screened them. The same process applied for any subsequent repeats.
  • DUPLICATION: Films were copied onto 2 inch Quad Video Tape if they were required to be broadcast in more than one region on the same day, or less than two days apart. This came under a clause in the ABC's purchase agreement which gave them the "right to videotape for normal syndication" purposes.
• DISPOSAL: When the agreed broadcast period lapsed, the ABC usually had an open option to purchase an extension for further repeats. But otherwise, all films that had "expired" were duly disposed of, either by being destroyed (usually incineration by a contracted third party, who issued Certificates of Destruction) or they were sent back to the UK, or to another broadcaster at the distributor's request.

The above is a VERY simplified outline of the Audition / Classification / Broadcast process. There were sometimes deviations from some of the steps, and we have noted any significant exceptions in the section below.

DOCTOR WHO OFFERED and ACCEPTED

The ABC confirms it has purchased the first 13 episodes of "Dr Who" in a memo dated 20 February 1964: NOTE the story titles!

ABC memo dated 9 March 1964, confirming purchase and intended airdates. The memo also states that a single of the "Dr Who" theme music was on sale that week

Lithgow Mercury, 11 May 1964 and Scone Advocate, 12 May 1964, announcing the start of the new series in NSW a little prematurely!

Canberra Times 16 May 1964 announces the start of the new series prematurely, and episode two the following week!

Australia was the second overseas country to broadcast Doctor Who (see Selling Doctor Who). It was, however, the first to be offered the series by the BBC's office in Sydney, which was on 24 January 1964. (It's worth noting that the third serial, Inside the Spaceship had not yet aired in the UK when this offer was made!)

To meet with the ABC's standard auditioning and assessment process (detailed above), three random episodes were selected - episodes one and two of the first 4-part serial, and episode one of the first Dalek story – and these 16mm black and white film prints were duly received from London. The Audition team viewed all three on 7 February 1964.

Based on the merits of those three sample episodes alone, and other supporting paper-based programme information material supplied by BBC Sydney, the audition team recommended a purchase, and the ABC confirmed to the BBC a few weeks later that they would indeed acquire the new series. (An inter-departmental memo confirming the purchase was issued on 20 February 1964 – see copy of this at right.)

BBC Sydney duly contacted its London office, and they had prints of the other episodes struck and dispatched.

The three auditioned prints were then checked by the telecine department in early March 1964. During this step the print for The Daleks part 1 was rejected due to what was thought to be a fault on the print (i.e. the over-exposed "negative" effect in the opening moments; the camera script for the episode describes this as a "Bas Relief Effect"), and a replacement was requested from the BBC.

An official 'contract' to acquire the new series from the BBC was confirmed in March 1964, with transmissions scheduled to commence in May to be followed by staggered regional screenings a week apart through until the end of June.

Certain that the new children's series would be given a "G" rating by the censors (a classification that enabled them to screen the series "at any time"), the ABC duly issued advance details of its May 1964 schedules to newspapers and other TV listing publications with "Dr Who" in its planned Sunday 6.30pm slot, an ideal placement which lead into the 7pm news bulletin. (See memo at left). The planned regional airdates were:

• SYDNEY – 17th May
• MELBOURNE – 24th May
• BRISBANE – 31st May
• ADELAIDE – 7th June
• PERTH – 14th June
• HOBART – 21st June
• ROCKHAMPTON – 28th June

The same memo also mentioned that a 7" single of the "Dr Who" theme was now on sale through Decca (catalogue number Y7147), and that this should be heavily promoted on radio.

With these advanced schedules set and announced, the ABC then submitted the two Audition episodes from the first serial to the Australian Film Censorship Board (AFCB) for classification. (The ABC did not submit the 'faulty' episode from the first Dalek story since they were still waiting for the replacement to come from the UK.)

Both films were viewed on 14 April 1964. However, the censors unexpectedly assigned an "A" classification to both episodes, a rating which meant the episodes could not be screened before 7.30pm, an hour later than the planned 6.30pm slot that had already been advised to the press two months earlier.

The other eleven episodes making up the first 13 (including a replacement for the 'faulty' film of The Daleks 1) soon arrived in the country, and these too were submitted for classification. All eleven were viewed by the censors on 5 May 1964, and all were also issued with "A" ratings, as it was considered to be a 13-part serial, and thus all episodes were allocated the same rating.

The telecine department then reported that the replacement first episode of The Daleks was also found to have the same printed-in "negative fault", which the BBC later explained was actually a deliberate visual effect! However, since this replacement film was also found to be badly scratched, the originally-rejected first print was kept for broadcast, and the damaged replacement was discarded.

Since the "A" ratings meant that the series could not be screened at 6.30pm, the ABC had little choice but to scrap the already announced schedule for the new series.

It was too late to inform some of the newspapers of the unexpected change to the forthcoming line-up, and as a result, several minor New South Wales publications, such as the Lithgow Mercury, the Scone Advocate and the Canberra Times announced in their TV listing pages of their editions the week of 16 May 1964 that the brand new series starring William Hartnell was starting on Channel 3 on Sunday 17 May at 6.30pm!

These early TV listings themselves identified the first episode as "The Unearthly Child" [sic], and all featured the very same promotional image of Hartnell. The following week, some of the same papers printed listings for episode two, "The Cave of Sculls" [sic]. But by the following week, the ABC must have officially notified them of the changes to the schedules, and no further premature listings for "Dr Who" appeared in print.

Having been dropped from its planned May 1964 start date, the new series couldn't be aired until a suitable 7.30pm timeslot in all regions became available.

It wouldn't be until January 1965 that the series finally went to air. New Zealand therefore took the honour of being the first foreign country outside the UK to screen the series; it aired there starting in September 1964…

STORIES BOUGHT and BROADCAST

Bar two Dalek stories, Australia has the unique position of having purchased and screened every single story of Doctor Who - albeit not in strict story order.

The sales agreement with the BBC gave the ABC the right to screen each episode twice across all regions within a period of three years of purchase. However, the handful of season one and two stories that were given "A" classifications could not be repeated because that classification prevented them from being screened in the ABC's preferred 'school holiday' mid-afternoon timeslot. (They could have screened the episodes again at 7.30pm, but this didn't fit in with the ABC's scheduling plans.)

All subsequent repeat screenings were renegotiated with the BBC, and from 1978 onwards the ABC had an open repeat agreement with the BBC, which enabled them to renew the screening rights for whichever stories they wanted without having to purchase two screenings in advance.

With the exception of around 30 stories, it was in Australia that the most number of serials had their foreign debut, usually within a year of the UK screenings. (Other countries in which stories made their foreign debut were the Netherlands, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.)

Of the 158 Doctor Who stories made from 1963 to 1989, there have been nine that did not air in Australia during first-run screenings in the 1960s and 1970s. These nine are:

• Mission to the Unknown
• The Daleks' Master Plan
• Inferno
• The Mind of Evil
• The Daemons
• The Green Death
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs
• The Brain of Morbius
• The Deadly Assassin

Mission to the Unknown was "Rejected" outright due to its "horror" content, while another seven were given "A" rating classifications, and as such they could not be broadcast in the early evening timeslot favoured by the ABC, so the broadcaster chose not to buy or screen them. The Dinosaurs serial appears to have never been offered to the ABC, most likely because the complete story could not be supplied all in colour (i.e. the first episode was in black and white); the ABC was only interested in colour material at that time.

The fact that the first seven of these nine stories did not air in Australia prevented other Asian Commonwealth countries – such as New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore - from being able to afford to purchase them. This 'restriction' was partly still in effect into the 1980s, hence New Zealand could not purchase Logopolis ahead of Australia in 1981.

The situation with The Brain of Morbius (the first episode was given a "G" rating, but the other three were "A") and The Deadly Assassin (all four were rated "A") was slightly different, in that the former did go to air (albeit in a heavily truncated format, and late at night), but the latter didn't.

All bar the first two serials in this list - all copies of which had been wiped by the BBC by the mid-1970s - did eventually screen in Australia as part of "repeats" packages broadcast in the 1980s.

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WILLIAM HARTNELL (1965-67)

Bill Strutton on set of The Web Planet, Australian Womens Weekly, 24 March 1965

27 stories, 121 episodes

A	An Unearthly Child	4
B	The Daleks	7
C	Inside the Spaceship	2
D	Marco Polo	7
E	The Keys of Marinus	6
F	The Aztecs	4
G	The Sensorites	6
H	The Reign of Terror	6
J	Planet of Giants	3
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6
L	The Rescue	2
M	The Romans	4
N	The Web Planet	6
P	The Crusade	4
Q	The Space Museum	4
R	The Chase	6
S	The Time Meddler	4
T	Galaxy 4	4
U	The Myth Makers	4
W	The Massacre	4
X	The Ark	4
Y	The Celestial Toymaker	4
Z	The Gunfighters	4
AA	The Savages	4
BB	The War Machines	4
CC	The Smugglers	4
DD	The Tenth Planet	4
	Not Purchased
T/A	Mission to the Unknown	1
V	The Daleks' Master Plan	11

Australia therefore screened all of the William Hartnell stories, with the exception of two.

The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.

The episodes were censored between April 1964 and May 1967 (the groupings above represent each 'year').

As noted above, the first three serials were treated as a 13-parter, and thus those 13 had to be given the same classification.

Two prints of the 'faulty' first episode of The Daleks were received; the replacement second one was scratched, so was presumably destroyed, the first print acquired was the one used for broadcast.

The BBC also provided the ABC with a "trailer" that ran for 2 minutes and 19 seconds. This promotional film featured an extended mix of the Doctor Who theme playing over a repeating loop of the 'howlround' title sequence, which climaxed with the series title appearing with the last chord of music. The trailer was to be used as an interlude ahead of the first airdate, and on occasion during the first run of episodes, with an appropriate narration added by the presentations department. A copy of the trailer was provided to each of the regional stations to use at their own discretion, with instructions that it could be edited to a shorter duration if required. [A slightly longer version of this same "trailer" appears as the "Theme Music Video" on the DVD for An Unearthly Child.]

In August 1964, the BBC offered the ABC a further run of "39 episodes", which was the remainder of the 52 episodes being made in the first production block (up to the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth). The ABC purchased those 39 in advance sight unseen. However, when Planet of Giants subsequently lost an episode, the 39 episode count in the contract now included part 1 of The Rescue. The second episode of that 2-parter was then sold to the ABC on its own under a separate sales contract.

All subsequent serials, from The Romans onwards, were sold in groups of two or three at a time, usually only a few months after the UK broadcast of the last story in each grouping.

Australia changed to decimal currency on 14 February 1966, replacing the old pounds/shillings/pence with dollars/cents.

When viewed by the censors on 22 March 1966, part two of The Space Museum was found to be badly scratched, so a replacement was acquired from the BBC (it arrived on 12 May 1966). The rejected print would have been disposed of.

Episodes of The Chase were viewed by the censors on 19 and 20 April 1966. Part one was also found to be badly scratched, and a replacement was subsequently obtained from the BBC a month or so later. (The rejected print was junked in late 1969/early 1970, but was saved from destruction, and is currently held by a private collector.)

The third Dalek serial was very nearly rejected: the censor deemed parts four and five of The Chase to be "Not Suitable for Television" on the grounds of "Horror"; episode five was singled out because of the appearance of the Frankenstein and Dracula robots. The chief censor at that time had banned all Frankenstein and vampire movies from being screened at the cinema and shown on Australian television. (This ban was eventually lifted in 1968.)

The ABC was given the opportunity to "reconstruct" both episodes, which it did by removing much of the footage featuring Dracula and Frankenstein's monster from the former, and the sequences with the "fungoids" attacking Vicki and the duplicate Doctor threatening Barbara from the latter. Both episodes (the fourth now running at the much shorter length of only 19 minutes) were resubmitted to the censor on 11 May, and this time granted a "G" rating.

The batch of 20 episodes covering Galaxy 4 to The Daleks' Master Plan (which was only available as an 11-parter; the Christmas-themed seventh episode, "The Feast of Steven", was not available) had been offered to the ABC on 9 March 1966.

The two Dalek stories in this batch were classified as being unsuitable for a "G" certificate; the ABC ultimately decided not to attempt to "reconstruct" them as they had done with The Chase, and so BBC Sydney withdrew the offer in March 1967.

As noted above, Mission to the Unknown was refused a Certificate of Registration by the censorship board on the grounds that it depicted "Horror", which was considered to be "matter the exhibition of which [was] undesirable in the public interest" per Regulation 13(d) of the Cinematograph Films Regulations.

The film prints were likely to have been returned to the UK soon after. (See The Mormon Master Plan Mystery.)

As a direct result of the issues surrounding the 11-parter, a senior manager at the ABC was appointed specially to assess all future Doctor Who offered by the BBC.

Also viewed on the same day as Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks' Master Plan were two Dr Who "trailers", one running for 30 seconds, the other for nearly one minute. These had been supplied by the BBC in June 1966 as part of a reel of trailers for various programmes. Both trailers were given "A" ratings. (It's not known whether they were ever broadcast, as the classification would not permit them to be aired prior to 7.30pm. It's also not known what the trailers contained; it's more likely they were the same as or similar to the 'opening howlround /music montage' that was supplied in 1964 (see above) rather than one that was specific to a particular story, such as Galaxy 4 which did have its own special teaser trailer shown by the BBC in 1965.)

The War Machines was viewed by the censors on 31 January 1967; part two was found to be badly scratched, and a replacement was subsequently obtained from the BBC. (The rejected print was junked in late 1969/early 1970 along with The Chase part 1 (see above) but it was saved from destruction by a private collector. In 1978, a copy of this film print became the very first "missing episode" of Doctor Who to be returned to the BBC's newly-established Film and Videotape Archive...)

Origin of the Prints

Australia received pristine prints from London via BBC Sydney.

Fate of the Prints?

As noted in the BOND STORE and CENSORSHIP section above, once the ABC had used up its repeat screening rights, the episodes remained in its Film Library until it received disposal instructions from the BBC. Although the actual final fate of all the prints is unknown or unverified, the following is known to have happened to certain prints:

• The ABC's prints of all 17 episodes from The Reign of Terror to The Rescue (the affected episodes still exhibiting the cuts that had been made by the censors) were sent to New Zealand in July 1967. The Reign of Terror and Planet of Giants were subsequently destroyed by the NZBC in 1971. (The exact fates of the other eight episodes held by the NZBC is unknown, but it is likely that they were junked in 1974.)
• The Keys of Marinus was junked by the ABC in the early 1970s, but two episodes survived the purge, and are currently held by a private collector. (In all likelihood, the prints of An Unearthly Child to The Sensorites, and The Romans to The Crusade were also disposed of at this time, since the ABC's screening rights to all these serials had lapsed by the end of 1969.)
• All the episodes of The Space Museum, The Chase, The Time Meddler, Galaxy 4, The Myth Makers, The Ark, The Smugglers and The Tenth Planet were allocated to be returned to the BBC in London in mid-1975. (Also allocated for return at that time were the majority of the Troughton serials, and some Pertwees.) Most, if not all of these, were received by the BBC in London later that year.
• The majority were likely to have been junked by the BBC soon after arrival in London. From this batch, part three of Galaxy 4 was salvaged, and later returned to the BBC in 2011. Some of the other orphan prints that exist today (at the BBC or in private hands) may have come from this consignment.
• The ABC had two copies of The Chase part one: as noted above, the scratched copy was saved from destruction in 1969/1970, and is currently held by a private collector. The broadcast copy was allocated for return in 1975.
• In 1984, part 4 of The Celestial Toymaker was found at the ABC's Film Library at the now-demolished Gore Hill TV centre (see below). The other three episodes had presumably been junked prior to 1975, which is why they were not included in the 1975 bulk return.
• The ABC also had two copies of The War Machines part two: as noted above, the never-aired unused scratched copy was saved from destruction in 1969/1970, and is currently held by a private collector. The collector supplied the BBC with a copy of his print in 1978 (via Ian Levine),thus becoming the first "missing episode" to be returned to the BBC.
• The precise final fates of The Massacre, the rest of The Celestial Toymaker, The Gunfighters, The Savages and The War Machines are unknown, but since they were not part of the bulk return in 1975, in all likelihood they were disposed of long before then: The Gunfighters may have been sent to Singapore in late 1972 (since New Zealand did not have a copy to send with the rest of the season three serials that were dispatched to Singapore), while the other serials were probably destroyed by the ABC in 1973 or 1974, when the sales rights periods had expired and not been renewed by the BBC. (See note in the next Fate of the Prints section below regarding the expiry of sales rights.)
  • See Fate of the Prints in the Jon Pertwee section below for more comments about the disposal of film prints...

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PATRICK TROUGHTON (1967-71)

21 stories, 119 episodes

Tomb of the Cybermen previewed in Australian press; 22 July 1968

EE	The Power of the Daleks	6
FF	The Highlanders	4
GG	The Underwater Menace	4
HH	The Moonbase	4
JJ	The Macra Terror	4
KK	The Faceless Ones	6
MM	The Tomb of the Cybermen	4
NN	The Abominable Snowmen	6
OO	The Ice Warriors	6
PP	The Enemy of the World	6
QQ	The Web of Fear	6
LL	The Evil of the Daleks	7
RR	Fury from the Deep	6
SS	The Wheel in Space	6
TT	The Dominators	5
UU	The Mind Robber	5
VV	The Invasion	8
WW	The Krotons	4
XX	The Seeds of Death	6
YY	The Space Pirates	6
ZZ	The War Games	10

Australia therefore bought all of the Patrick Troughton stories.

The programme was supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks.

The episodes were acquired one story at a time over a period of three years, and censored between June 1967 and September 1970 (the groupings above represent each censorship 'year').

The print of part 4 of The Macra Terror that was supplied to the ABC retained the BBC's trailer for The Faceless Ones, but it's likely that this was removed before transmission, as the trailer would have given the date and time of the UK broadcast.

Something happened with the print of part 1 of The Faceless Ones after it had been sent for cutting by censor on 16 October. The film wasn't released to the ABC until a week later; it's possible that the film was damaged or lost, and a replacement was acquired from the UK (hence the week's delay), and this this would certainly explain how a second cut copy ended up being salvaged from destruction in late 1969/early 1970 (see Fate of the Prints below).

Both The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Invasion were initially given "A" ratings by the censors. After lengthy periods of deliberation (in the case of The Invasion this took several months) both serials were granted "G" classifications (with some cuts made to The Invasion) and cleared for screening.

Due to the episodes featuring copyrighted music tracks (The Beatles and The Seekers) it took the BBC longer than was usual to get the necessary overseas rights clearances; as a result, The Evil of the Daleks wasn't available until late 1968, which is why it was received and aired out of sequence. (That the BBC offered this Dalek serial to the ABC on 29 August 1968, only a few weeks after it had been repeated in the UK -- from 8 June to 3 August 1968 – is a coincidence.)

Origin of the Prints

Australia received pristine prints provided by BBC Sydney.

Fate of the Prints?

• The ABC retained its prints of The Power of the Daleks for some time. Extracts from two episodes of that serial were used for a documentary about computers that was screened by the ABC on 29 May 1974.
• A consignment of Troughton episodes consisting of all but six serials – the ones omitted were The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, The Evil of the Daleks, Fury from the Deep, The Wheel in Space and The Krotons -- was allocated to be returned to the BBC in mid-1975 (along with a consignment of Hartnells, as noted above, and Pertwees, below). Most, if not all of these, were received by the BBC in London later that year.
• The Australian prints of The Dominators were donated to the BFI by the BBC. The other ex-ABC film prints were mostly all junked soon after they arrived in London. But from this batch, part two of The Underwater Menace was salvaged, and returned to the BBC by a film collector in 2011. In 1978, the edited prints of The Dominators that the BBC had donated to the BFI were returned to them. Some of the other "orphan" prints that exist today (at the BBC or in private hands) may also be from this consignment.
• Although it is listed as being one of the episodes returned to the BBC in 1975, The Faceless Ones part one (with censor edits) was found in the hands of an Australian film collector (who also had the unused damaged prints of The Chase part 1 and The War Machines part 2 -- see above). Unlike the other two, this is clearly a ready for broadcast print (since it exhibits the censorship cuts made to it prior to broadcast).
• The Krotons was supposed to have been returned with the others in 1975, but for some reason it got missed during the clear-out. It was subsequently sent back to the BBC in mid-1976.

Some of the recovered missing episodes that originated from Australia

• The final fates of The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, The Evil of the Daleks, Fury from the Deep and The Wheel in Space are unverified, but since they were not part of the bulk return in 1975, in all likelihood they were destroyed by the ABC in 1973 or 1974, when the seven year sales rights periods for the stories had expired and not been renewed by the BBC.
  • It may be a coincidence, but three of the stories that were not returned to the BBC in 1975 were authored by Ian Stuart Black (that's The War Machines, The Savages and The Macra Terror). It is very possible that when the BBC's sales rights period for those three serials expired after seven years (i.e. 1966/67 to 1973/74), Black did not grant an extension of those rights, so all three serials were withdrawn from sale, and the ABC was instructed to destroy the prints they still held. (Of note, the NZBC destroyed its own prints of The Macra Terror in mid-1974; if the BBC had instructed the NZBC to destroy those particular episodes at that time, chances are the same instructions were also issued to the ABC and for the same reason: the rights had expired. Did the ABC also destroy their prints in 1974?)
  • Similarly, two of the Hartnell stories also not returned in 1975 -- The Massacre and The Celestial Toymaker -- had been co-authored (although not credited on screen) by Donald Tosh. Did the former-script editor also deny an extension of the seven years sales period, causing these two serials to also be withdrawn from sale and the prints destroyed in 1973/74?
  • If the sales rights periods expiring and not being extended is the sole reason why those particular stories were not returned to the BBC by the ABC in 1975 (the prints having already been destroyed before 1975), then the writer/s of The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, The Gunfighters, The Savages, The War Machines, The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, Fury from the Deep and The Wheel in Space are themselves all directly responsible for the majority of these episodes being currently missing!
  • See Fate of the Prints in the Jon Pertwee section below for more comments about the disposal of film prints...

---

JON PERTWEE (Block One 1971-76)

19 stories, 98 episodes, but not always screened in story order

BBC sales information for The Time Warrior records that it was available as 16mm monochrome and colour videtape

AAA	Spearhead from Space	4
BBB	Doctor Who and the Silurians	7
CCC	The Ambassadors of Death	7
EEE	Terror of the Autons	4
GGG	The Claws of Axos	4
HHH	Colony in Space	6
KKK	Day of the Daleks	4
LLL	The Sea Devils	6
MMM	The Curse of Peladon	4
NNN	The Mutants	6
OOO	The Time Monster	6
PPP	Carnival of Monsters	4
QQQ	Frontier in Space	6
RRR	The Three Doctors	4
SSS	Planet of the Daleks	6
UUU	The Time Warrior	4
XXX	Death to the Daleks	4
YYY	The Monster of Peladon	6
ZZZ	Planet of the Spiders	6
	Not Purchased
DDD	Inferno	7
FFF	The Mind of Evil	6
JJJ	The Daemons	5
TTT	The Green Death	6
WWW	Invasion of the Dinosaurs	6

All the Pertwee episodes up to and including The Time Warrior were supplied as 16mm black and white film prints with English soundtracks. Other serials were supplied in PAL colour on 2 inch Quad video tapes.

The stories were acquired and censored over a period of five years between January 1971 and May 1975 (the groupings above represent each 'year').

Australia therefore bought most of the Jon Pertwee stories, with the exception of five stories not purchased or screened due to various issues. (Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Daemons and The Green Death were all given "A" classifications, while all of Invasion of the Dinosaurs could not be supplied in colour.)

In October 1971, some three months after it had submitted the first copy to the censors, the ABC acquired a second print of Terror of the Autons episode 2. (This was the BBC's error – they sent another copy of this instead of part 2 of The Mind of Evil!) The ABC duly submitted the new film to the censor's office so the film could be cut to match the censor edits made to the first print. (Indeed, two matching sets of censor edits for this episode were found in 1996.)

The b/w film-recording of Colony in Space part 2 that Enterprises made was not taken from the episode as transmitted but from an earlier edit in error; this had no music or sound effects and also contained a few seconds of additional material that had been removed from the broadcast episode. The ABC and those other countries screening the serial in b/w saw this 'extended' version.

All stories were purchased with two screenings. The ABC had planned to screen the Season 10 Pertwees firstly in black and white, then repeat them in colour a year or so later. For this purpose, the BBC also supplied the ABC with 2 inch video PAL copies of the first two stories so far produced – Carnival of Monsters (including an extended edit of part 2 with different music) and Frontier in Space (part five also had alternative music) - with the rest to follow later. However, when The Green Death films were given an "A" rating by the censor and it became apparent that the colour tape of Planet of the Daleks part 3 had already been wiped, the ABC put a hold on acquiring any more PAL tapes; the cassettes of "Carnival" and "Frontier" went into storage, and the Season 10 stories were subsequently repeated in black and white…

The Time Warrior was initially supplied on 16mm; these were viewed by the censors on 30 July 1974. With the ABC gearing up for colour broadcasts in early 1975, it requested that all future Doctor Who be supplied in that format. They were duly supplied with PAL tapes of The Time Warrior. Since part 1 of Invasion of the Dinosaurs had been wiped, the ABC skipped that serial. The remaining Season 11 stories were all supplied on colour video tape.

Origin of the Films / Tapes

The 16mm films would have been supplied by BBC Sydney via London.

The 2 inch colour video tapes were also supplied via BBC Sydney.

Fate of the Films?

• The 16mm film prints of the four unaired serials – Inferno, The Mind of Evil, The Daemons and The Green Death – would have been sent back to the BBC (via BBC Sydney?) shortly after they had been declined.
• The black and white film prints of Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians were sent to the NZBC after 28 May 1974.
• The films prints of The Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons and The Claws of Axos were allocated to be returned to the BBC in mid-1975, as part of a large shipment that included a large consignment of Hartnell and Troughton episodes.
  • The BBC must have retained the returned ABC prints of Terror of the Autons; when the serial was shown in the United States in the mid-1980s, it was missing sections from the UNIT / Auton battle in Part 4 plus the shot of the Master pushing the technician from the radio-telescope, which had been cut by the AFCB. The same edited episode was later shown in New Zealand in February 1992, and also in Australia in the 2000s!
• The Sea Devils and Carnival of Monsters were returned to the BBC in late December 1976 (with possibly also the rest of season 10: The Three Doctors, Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks).
  • Interestingly, these same five serials screened in Gibraltar only a few months later (March and April 1977); did the BBC send this batch of ABC films to Gibraltar? (And did they subsequently get bicycled to Saudi Arabia, where the same run of Pertwee episodes aired only a few months later?)
• The final batch of Pertwee films, Colony in Space, Day of the Daleks, The Curse of Peladon, The Mutants and The Time Monster (all of which had their final screenings in Darwin in late 1974) were returned to the BBC in late June 1977.
  • It's possible that these films were subsequently sent from London to Saudi Arabia, where a run of Pertwees commenced only a few months later.
• Any of the films returned to the BBC in 1975 they did not want to keep, such as ones they had on colour video tape, would have been disposed of. Some of these Australian films are known to have survived from being junked -- such as three episodes of Carnival of Monsters, which are held in a private collection.

It's worth noting at this juncture that the BBC held 16mm copies of all the season seven, eight, nine and ten stories by late 1976, when the documentary Whose Doctor Who was being prepared. It's clear from the dates of the various ABC returns that only some of the Pertwee prints held by the BBC in late 1976 could have been old ABC prints.

HOWEVER…

While there is documentary evidence that the ABC disposed of all its films prints by the end of 1977, with 17 episodes being sent to New Zealand, a number being destroyed in 1973 and 1974, and the rest being returned to the BBC in 1975, 1976 and 1977, there is still a matter of this "confession" to take into account:

On 1 September 2003 this posting was made to an Australian AUDIO/VISUAL FORUM:

"Fess up time! And just who do you think put the axe through the Australian copies of the first 300 approx b/w 16mm telerecordings of the early Dr Who episodes - only to find out years later that the BBC had junked most of their originals.

It was a long, long time ago, in another life … but I will carry this shame with me to my grave, along with the destruction of another early BBC classic "Sci Fi" series called "Out Of The Unknown", my excuse, much like the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, is/was "Just following orders" – God what a waste!

The only bright side was that some years later whilst doing a bin search of the main program vault, looking for another missing program, I found one Dr Who episode that had been miss-binned and not junked with all the others, and it turned out to be, after consulting with BBC Archives, the only print of this particular episode left in the world... "The Celestial Toymaker", alas it was only 1 episode out of a 4 or 5 part story IIRC, still it was returned to the Beeb with much thanks from them and I believe [it later] went through a print restoration process by BBC Archives.

Shame, Shame, Shame..."

Jet:ph34r"

If this is indeed a true and accurate account of events, how has the figure of "300 approx" been arrived at? The ABC had 322 black and white film prints: 121 Hartnell, 119 Troughtons, and 82 Pertwees. We've detailed above which were the ones that were sent to other countries or went back to the BBC in several bulk consignments during the late 1970s. That leaves less than 100 unaccounted for. Out of those 100, only some would have been included in the batches "Jet" says he destroyed. We also know for sure that there were no broadcast duplicates of these films.

Could 300 be a generalised reference to the 322 total cited above, with Jet merely stating that there had been that number of Doctor Who prints held?

And while it's likely that "Jet" did indeed destroy some 300 films as he says, we can be pretty certain that not all of them were Doctor Who.

Fate of the Tapes

The ABC retained most of the colour tapes they had of the season ten and eleven stories, although they apparently lost track of the fact that there was still one of the serials held in storage…

During the 1970s and early 1980s, BBC Enterprises in London had Frontier in Space in its catalogue as a black and white story only, since it had wiped four of the six episodes by the end of 1974. In 1983, when the ABC bought the rights to repeat a batch of colour Pertwee stories, they accessed the complete set of PAL video tapes of that 6-parter was still held by their video library, where they had been since 1973! All the more surprising is that the BBC's Sydney office had never advised its London office that it had access to these colour tapes either, despite having provided copies recently to Brunei, where it had aired in October 1976!

When BBC Enterprises discovered that the video tapes existed, it arranged to have copies sent to London. Shortly after the tapes had arrived at the BBC, the BBC's archive selector found about the tapes, and arranged for a set of tapes to also be sent to them by the ABC.

---

TOM BAKER (Block One 1976-78)

Listing for The Sontaran Experiment, 1986

16 stories, 64 episodes plus one omnibus edition

4A	Robot	4
4B	The Sontaran Experiment	2
4C	The Ark in Space	4
4E	Genesis of the Daleks	6
4D	Revenge of the Cybermen	4
4F	Terror of the Zygons	4
4H	Planet of Evil	4
4G	Pyramids of Mars	4
4J	The Android Invasion	4
4L	The Seeds of Doom	6
4M	The Masque of Mandragora	4
4N	The Hand of Fear	4
4Q	The Face of Evil	4
4R	The Robots of Death	4
4S	The Talons of Weng-Chiang	6
	Not Purchased
4K	The Brain of Morbius	1 #
4P	The Deadly Assassin	4

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

The ABC was usually the first overseas broadcaster to be offered and sold Doctor Who, but Tom Baker's first series was sold to and broadcast by the Dutch station TROS ahead of the ABC. (Hong Kong had also started screening the series prior to Australia; the ABC was therefore the third station to show the new Doctor.)

The ABC had actually decided to drop the series mid-way through Tom Baker's first season in 1976, but ultimately reversed that decision after Australian Doctor Who fans staged a demonstration outside the ABC's head office in Sydney. The broadcaster then screened the already acquired remaining season 12 episodes in 1977, and purchased brand new episodes in 1978.

These episodes were censored between September 1975 and March 1978 (with the above groupings representing each 'year'), usually no more than six months after the completion of each season in the UK.

The Deadly Assassin was given an "A" classification, and therefore could not screen in the ABC's early evening timeslot. Of note, the ending to part three - a freeze-frame of the Doctor drowning - was not on the tapes viewed by the ABC assessors. The controversial cliffhanger had already been edited for the August 1977 repeat on BBC, and it was this modified version that was supplied to the ABC.

[#] The Brain of Morbius was also given an "A" rating, and therefore was not screened. The ABC later acquired a copy of the 60 minute 31 second omnibus that had screened in the UK on 4 December 1976, and this was submitted to the censors on 6 September 1978, but even the heavily truncated story was allocated an "A" rating. This shortened version however did go to air but in a very late night timeslot as dictated by the "A": it was first shown in Adelaide in 1978, and the other regions in 1980.

(In late 1978, the ABC investigated the possibility of screening some of the other "omnibus" repeats that had aired on the BBC in 1975 and 1976 -- The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, and Pyramids of Mars. The latter (which had aired in the UK on 27 November 1976, with a reduced running time of 62 minutes and 26 seconds) was submitted to the Australian censors in June 1979, but since it never went to air, the ABC must have ultimately decided against purchasing this or any of the other edited-down editions.)

---

JON PERTWEE (Block Two 1978)

One story, 6 episodes

TTT

The Green Death

6

In early 1978, the ABC planned a repeat run of Pertwee stories, to be screened in colour for the first time. But with many of the original PAL tapes having been wiped by the BBC, the ABC could only acquire those serials that existed entirely in colour. It was supplied with colour 16mm prints of Spearhead from Space and colour video tapes of Day of the Daleks, which were reportedly sourced from the Middle East – from the United Arab Emirates perhaps? -- or possibly closer to home, from Brunei, where the colour serials had concluded by 1975/76.

The ABC already held (since 1973) the colour tapes of Carnival of Monsters (with an extended version of part 2), and the four Pertwee stories from season 11 (since 1974).

The ABC also wanted to screen The Green Death, and in March 1978 approached the AFCB to see if they were willing to reassess the serial. The board agreed but wanted to view the serial in colour. Two months later, the ABC duly supplied the censorship board with tapes (presumably supplied to them via BBC Sydney), and in May 1978, the story was re-classified from "A" to "G" (with a small cut to part 3) by the AFCB, and it was able to be screened in the correct sequence with the other Season Ten repeats. This re-classification also paved the way for the 6-parter to air for the first time in New Zealand in 1979.

The ABC did not purchase the rights to repeat Frontier in Space since according to the BBC the 6-parter was not available in colour. However, neither BBC Sydney nor the ABC was aware that the ABC still held all the PAL colour tapes for that serial in its film and video tape library!

---

TOM BAKER (Block Two 1979-80)

When Baker visited Australia in February 1979, he was interviewed by TV Times; it was the cover story of their 24-30 March 1979 issue

17 stories, 72 episodes

4V	Horror of Fang Rock	4
4T	The Invisible Enemy	4
4X	Image of the Fendahl	4
4W	The Sun Makers	4
4Y	Underworld	4
4Z	The Invasion of Time	6
5A	The Ribos Operation	4
5B	The Pirate Planet	4
5C	The Stones of Blood	4
5D	The Androids of Tara	4
5E	The Power of Kroll	4
5F	The Armageddon Factor	6
5J	Destiny of the Daleks	4
5H	City of Death	4
5G	The Creature from the Pit	4
5K	Nightmare of Eden	4
5L	The Horns of Nimon	4

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

The episodes were censored in three separate blocks, between May 1978 and March 1980 (per the above groupings by 'year'), usually no more than six months after completion of each of the three seasons in the UK.

---

TOM BAKER (Block Three 1982)

Seven stories, 28 episodes

5N	The Leisure Hive	4
5Q	Meglos	4
5R	Full Circle	4
5P	State of Decay	4
5S	Warriors' Gate	4
5T	The Keeper of Traken	4
5V	Logopolis	4

Australia therefore bought all of GROUP F and G of the Tom Baker stories. The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

The transmission of season 18 was held over for a year, so the ABC could screen it back to back with season 19 to ease the transition between Doctors.

The first 24 episodes were censored between January and April 1981, shortly after completion of the series in the UK. Logopolis however, was not assessed until March 1982.

It is thought that the ABC might not have been able to purchase this last serial at the time, because their budget allocation for 1981/82 did not take into account the season being two episodes longer than usual. Logopolis was therefore held over to the next financial year, hence the delay in having it censored, some eleven months after the rest of season 18 had been assessed. As a direct result of this, despite TVNZ having also acquired the tapes in 1981, Logopolis could not be screened in New Zealand until after it had been purchased by the ABC.

---

PETER DAVISON (1982-84)

20 stories, equivalent of 70 half-hour episodes and one 90 minute special

Australian Womens' Weekly, 13 January 1982

5Z	Castrovalva	4
5W	Four to Doomsday	4
5Y	Kinda	4
5X	The Visitation	4
6A	Black Orchid	2
6B	Earthshock	4
6C	Time-Flight	4
6E	Arc of Infinity	4
6D	Snakedance	4
6F	Mawdryn Undead	4
6G	Terminus	4
6H	Enlightenment	4
6J	The King's Demons	2
6K	The Five Doctors	1
6L	Warriors of the Deep	4
6M	The Awakening	2
6N	Frontios	4
6P	Resurrection of the Daleks	(2/4)
6Q	Planet of Fire	4
6R	The Caves of Androzani	4

Australia therefore bought all of the Peter Davison stories.

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Between The King's Demons and The Five Doctors, the ABC aired a further run of colour Jon Pertwee repeats in 1983. It was during the preliminary planning stages for this run that the PAL colour video tapes for Frontier in Space were located in the ABC's video library where they had been held since 1973. This serial therefore aired in colour for the first time.

Also acquired and aired for the first time in colour were the Jon Pertwee serials The Claws of Axos, Colony in Space, The Sea Devils, The Mutants, and The Time Monster; the ABC acquired these from Lionheart in the US rather than the BBC; these were NTSC tapes copied from ones recently found at the Canadian stations CKVU and TVOntario. (These did not need to be converted into PAL, as the ABC was able to broadcast from NTSC. Indeed, eye-witness accounts report that some episodes of The Sea Devils went out with the post-credits US Lionheart ident still in place.)

The Five Doctors was supplied in its 90 minute version.

The ABC edited the original 46 minute episodes they had received of Resurrection of the Daleks by cutting them in half at a convenient moment mid-point, creating 'new' cliffhangers, and very brief recaps. The Episode number captions were also removed: Parts Two, Three and Four did not have 'number' captions.

All the episodes were censored between March 1982 and April 1984, usually only a few months after completion of each season in the UK.

There were considerable content issues with The Caves of Androzani: the censors had deemed parts two, three and four of the serial to be "PGR" (a new rating that had been introduced by the censorship board during the 1980s), which meant it could not be aired in the desired timeslot in its current form. The ABC was given the option to "reconstruct" the story and submit it again. Edits were made to the problem episodes, and the tapes resubmitted on 8 May 1984. However, even in its modified form, part 4 was still given a "PGR" rating. The ABC made further edits, and on its third application on 14 May 1984, all four episodes were finally given "G" classifications.

---

COLIN BAKER (Block One 1984)

One story, 4 episodes

6S

The Twin Dilemma

4

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

It was submitted to the censors (along with the rest of season 21, see above) in April 1984.

---

JON PERTWEE (Block Three 1984)

A further repeat run of more colour Pertwees was scheduled to begin in late 1984. The package supplied included a "new" Pertwee story that had not been acquired back in 1974 because parts of it were available only in black and white.

One story, 5 episodes

WWW

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

5

The serial had recently been cleared for sale to the United States as a five-parter; Part One was not included in that deal, since it existed only as a 16mm black and white film print. This same contractual arrangement therefore extended to the sale to Australia.

The BBC had made some minor modifications to the tapes: Part Two was re-captioned to become PART ONE, Part Three became PART TWO, Part Four was now PART THREE, and so on, while some brief scene with dialogue that referred to events that happened in Part One were replaced by dropping in 'clips' lifted from elsewhere. For example, the Doctor and Sarah's discussion about the pterodactyl near the start of what had been Part Two was substituted by a cutaway shot of UNIT soldiers shooting at the Tyrannosaurus Rex that had been copied and 'pasted in' from earlier on in the same episode.

It is clear from the censors' records that they had not previously classified the serial in 1974; this was the first time the story had ever been submitted to the AFCB for a rating.

Also included in this package was The Curse of Peladon, which had not previously been screened in colour; a NTSC to PAL conversion had been reshown in the UK as part of the "Doctor Who and the Monsters" repeat season in 1982. Although it was now in colour, and in effect was deemed to be a "new" programme, the 4-parter did not need to be resubmitted to the censor, since the existing "G" classification from 1972 still applied.

---

K9 AND COMPANY (1984)

50 minute special

K9 and Company

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

---

COLIN BAKER (Block Two 1985-86)

Squared four-part variant of titles

Squared four-part variant of episode numbers

Six stories, equivalent of 26 half-hour episodes

6T	Attack of the Cybermen	2/4
6V	Vengeance on Varos	2/4
6W	The Two Doctors	3/6
6X	The Mark of the Rani	4
6Y	Timelash	4
6Z	Revelation of the Daleks	4

Australia therefore bought all of GROUP A of the Colin Baker stories.

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Although by this time, the ABC was responsible for its own in-house censorship classification, they still had to report their classifications to the AFCB, which they did in June and September 1985.

The tapes supplied to the ABC in early 1985 were the 45 minute versions of Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos and The Two Doctors. The ABC was later supplied with the re-edited and re-captioned 25 minute versions of those three, along with re-edited versions of The Mark of the Rani, Timelash and Revelation of the Daleks.

The BBC re-edited the original 45 minute episodes into 25 minute segments, by cutting them 'in half' at a convenient moment (always at a scene or shot change, never mid-scene / shot) and creating 'new' cliffhangers. The opening title captions were modified to reflect the new episode numbering; a new "squared" font was used for the remade titles, writer credits and episode numbers.

Only Revelation of the Daleks was further cut by the in-house ABC censors. (An uncut version of this story has never screened in Australia.)

---

JON PERTWEE (Block Four 1986)

Three stories, 18 episodes

DDD	Inferno	7
FFF	The Mind of Evil	6
JJJ	The Daemons	5

In 1985, the BBC reissued all 24 of the Pertwee stories - in a mix of colour and black and white episodes (but still not including the b/w part one of Invasion of the Dinosaurs). The complete package was sold to the United States, New Zealand and Australia; the package purchased by Australia included the above three stories that did not screen in the 1970s due to censorship issues, but which were now cleared for screening by the ABC's in-house censors.

These programmes were supplied as PAL colour video tapes, NTSC to PAL conversions, or tape transfers from 16mm black and white film, with English soundtracks.

(Although the ABC had previously repeated several Pertwees in 1983 from NTSC tapes, it appears that for this repeat run they were supplied with new NTSC to PAL conversions of those same episodes.)

The ABC assessors passed all the episodes that had previously been cut by the government censors, with the sole exception of The Ambassadors of Death part 1, which required much of the shooting and fighting between UNIT and Carrington's men in the warehouse removed, just as it had been back in 1971. The ABC censors probably felt the physical violence was far too 'real' having only 12 months previously been forced to severely cut down much of the gun violence from The Caves of Androzani…

---

COLIN BAKER (Block Three 1987)

One story, 14 episodes

7A-7C

The Trial of a Time Lord|14

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

When the ABC aired this serial, they joined two episodes together (removing closing and opening titles and recaps from each pair) and screened them back to back in a 50 minute slot.

---

TOM BAKER (Block Four 1987)

For a subsequent repeat run of all the Tom Baker stories, the ABC acquired one further fourth Doctor serial that they had previously been unable to screen due to censorship issues:

One story, 4 episodes

4P

The Deadly Assassin

4

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks. As this was now the BBC's 'default' master copy, the ABC was supplied with the edited part 3 which was still missing the freeze-frame cliffhanger.

At the same time, The Brain of Morbius, which had previously aired in 1978 and 1980 as a 60 minute edited edition, was reclassified as "G" and all four uncut episodes screened for the first time during this run.

---

SYLVESTER McCOY (1988-1990)

Twelve stories, 42 episodes, not screened in correct order

"Slapstick McCoy", Sydney Morning Herald; 31 October 1988

7D	Time and the Rani	4
7E	Paradise Towers	4
7F	Delta and the Bannermen	3
7G	Dragonfire	3
7H	Remembrance of the Daleks	4
7L	The Happiness Patrol	3
7K	Silver Nemesis	3
7J	The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	4
7N	Battlefield	4
7Q	Ghost Light	3
7M	The Curse of Fenric	4
7P	Survival	3

Australia therefore bought all of the Sylvester McCoy stories.

The programme was supplied as PAL colour video tapes with English soundtracks.

Remembrance of the Daleks was purchased in 1988 along with season 24 as the ABC wanted to air the story to mark the series' 25th anniversary in November.

The supplied video tapes of The Curse of Fenric did not have the Russian to English subtitles over the opening moments of Part One.

---

PAUL McGANN (1996)

TV Movie, 84 minutes

TVM	The TV Movie

Australia was the third country to screen the movie.

---

JON PERTWEE (Block Five 1997)

One 'new' episode

WWW

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

1

The b/w first episode of this serial aired for the first time in Australia on 28 March 1997, via the subscription-only satellite channel, BBC UKTV.

The broadcast of this episode marked the equivalent of the 683rd and final 'new' instalment of Doctor Who to screen on Australian TV (albeit some were in an edited form). It had taken 32 years to reach this milestone...

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