Discuss - Ep #1219

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1219

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #1219

[alwaysdavid]

This episode was lost.  Lara Parker introduces it and then reads from the script. Then oddly an audio of the missing show is played with pictures. This scenario is repeated throughout. It seems, as if, they found the audio after she filmed the scenes and just decided to use it even though it repeats everything. Maybe they just thought the audience would be too stupid to follow and Audio show with still pictures. I dislike it intensely.
Carrie admits it's Daphne's grave, but believes the vision is wrong. The police search for Gabe as Kendrick went to them.  Carrie finds a James Forsythe letter and it burst into flames. Daphne and Bramwell will,go,through with marriage and Catherine collapses in the foyer. Doctor tells Morgan nothing is wrong. Just a dizzy spell. Anyone who watched Serials in 1960-70 knows that a collapse while dizzy mean expecting a child by someone else.  And there it is, the reveal to Bramwell that it's  his child.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I could be wrong because we're talking almost 25 years ago that MPI released Volume 195 on VHS, but I'm thinking they had the audio tape of Ep #1219 before they had Lara do her part. Though why they used both, I don't remember. Perhaps ShadowGram provided details back in '93. And considering I'm already using SG issues from back in '92 for the '91 comic books' slideshow, it should be easy for me to find what SG might have said about the VHS in '93...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Believe it or not, the only thing SG seems to have ever said about Ep #1219 on the VHS appeared in SG #66 (October 1993) and it says:

"Episode #1219 (aired 2-25-71) on Vol. #195 is different. Unfortunately, the episode master tape is missing, but Lara Parker narrates a replacement program which also uses an audio recording of the show. This volume is out 12-93."

Not very helpful. But perhaps the MPI catalogues had more info (probably not likely, but possible) and I know exactly where I've stored them. I'll dig them out later on today...

[Uncle Roger]

I don't know if this helps any but the original audio recording came from a fan. The audio quality is perhaps not pristine by contemporary standards but not bad considering the quality of tape recorders available to teenagers in 1971. The fan's name was Wendy Kernaghan, who was from Canada. She was known as Josette in fandom. I used to see her at Shadowcon and some of the earlier festivals but not in some time.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The audio quality is perhaps not pristine by contemporary standards but not bad considering the quality of tape recorders available to teenagers in 1971.

Not to mention the quality of TV speakers back then. I still have several tapes I made of DS eps (not #1219 because my recorder was broken when the last few months of DS aired) and to say some of the background music is shrill would be an understatement!

[Uncle Roger]

I still have a bunch of audiotapes myself. Of course, none of them are labeled, so I have no idea what's on any of them. And, of course, I have nothing to play them on anyway. Mine are extremely retro. They are all on reel to reel tapes.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, you're not alone there because I have many reel to reel tapes too. Most of my tapes are from Leviathans, 1970PT, Summer of '70, and the first few months of 1840 (until my recorder died in November of '70). I'd taped a lot of 1968, but I foolishly taped over them. Oddly, as much as I loved (and still do love) 1897, I didn't tape much of it...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Oddly, there's no mention whatsoever in the MPI catalogues of Lara doing the segment for Ep #1219 or of the audio tape.    I didn't expect a lot of info about what they did for that ep, but I did expect that at the very least it would have been mentioned.

On another front I'd forgotten how really nice MPI's DS catalogues were back in the '90s. They used some great rare photos from both the original and the '91 series...

[alwaysdavid]

Thank you for looking into it. I knew there was a lost episode and Lara had hosted it, but had no idea until it came up listed on the disc which one it was or what it was about as I am not reading the episode descriptions hoping  to be as surprised as possible for something I saw 47 years ago.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Thank you for looking into it.

I wish I could have found more info. There have to be more details somewhere - possibly in a PomPress book. But I don't have the time to look through those today. Perhaps next week...