The Missing Episode & Kinescopes

[retzev]

Is it possible that anything might be languishing in the vaults of my local affiliate? How would one go about gaining acces for a search?

[Nelson Collins]

As we are fond of saying over on the Doctor Who forum on Outpost Gallifrey -

Watch it be discovered after the dvd release!! 

Seriously, is there a thread here, or can a kind cousin offer any details on what was done to locate the lost episode.  I am genuinely curious and certainly would love to help any way I can.

[PennyDreadful]

I am also curious.  I imagine they must have looked pretty hard for it, but I just bet it's still out there somewhere...

[BuzzH]

I am also curious.  I imagine they must have looked pretty hard for it, but I just bet it's still out there somewhere...

Hell, they found the color master for that ep in 1970 PT that was shown in syndication as a kinoscope.  I was shocked to discover it was in color when I got to it on the DVD's. 

[Gothick]

During the period of the "missing episode," the series was being repeated on one of the Washington D. C. stations (I believe) in the evenings (I think this would have been Channel 7? Channel 13 was ABC's Baltimore based station which was where I watched DS from 1968 through the end in '71).  IIRC, they ran it at 11:30 at night.  I seem to recall some of the shows being repeated on Sunday nights as well.  It stands out in my memory because until the 1990s, this was my only opportunity to see any of the episodes more than once (I did videotape one on a visit at my parents' home in the 1980s, I think).  The shows I saw in the first 1976 syndication were brand new to me--from 1967.

Anyhow, since those shows were being re-shown in other markets, it's possible that extra copies were made of those final weeks of the PT 1841 storyline. So, yeah, one could show up one day.  It seems unlikely at this stage of the game, but who knows.

The one I want the original color master of is the debut episode of Countess du Pres and Angelique from 1795.  I hadn't heard about the recovery of a color master from the 1970 sequence.

G.

[BuzzH]

I hadn't heard about the recovery of a color master from the 1970 sequence.

It's the ep where [spoiler]Angelexis is putting the whammy on Maggie by the fire in the Collinwood drawing room and Barnabas comes in and interupts her.  He asks her why she's sitting in the dark and she gives him a flim-flam story about loving fire.[/spoiler]

The first time I saw this was on a tape that someone gave me that, I guess, they'd taped off their local syndicated run wherever it is they lived (my copy was like a 4th or 5th generation and I got it from someone in Jersey, but it could have originated anywhere in the country), and it was definately a kinoscope. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The first time I saw this was on a tape that someone gave me that, I guess, they'd taped off their local syndicated run wherever it is they lived (my copy was like a 4th or 5th generation and I got it from someone in Jersey, but it could have originated anywhere in the country), and it was definately a kinoscope.

That's extremely interesting because according to everything I've ever read as well as experienced firsthand, that episode was never released into local syndication. The third year of locally syndicated episodes ended quite frustratingly with Ep #1007 [spoiler](with Quentin having witnessed Real Time's Liz and Julia discussing Barnabas' disappearance only to then be confronted with Hoffman standing behind him)[/spoiler]and Eps #1008-1245 were never released because the cost to stations was too prohibitive. I'm strongly suspecting that somehow you'd gotten your hands on a bootleg copy of Ep #1024. 

It's probably also interesting to note that Ep #1024 was shown in color during the various Sci-Fi runs. But then, that happened with several episodes that had originally been locally syndicated in kinescope. And what's also frustrating to note is that in several of those cases Worldvision was in possession of the color master tape, but they chose to locally syndicate the kinescope copy anyway. 

[Charles_Ellis]

Hmm- I think I can solve this mystery.  Episode #1024 is the 1970PT masquerade party episode, and was released in color in the MPI VHS tapes.  The first time I saw this episode was in kinescope form at a DS Festival a few years earlier.   As I remember it, the kinescope was from the personal collection of DS hairstylist Edith Tilles.  (It's not unusual for soap production personnel from the 50s-70s to own tapes/kinescopes of their work- the network or producers would routinely give a copy of a particular show if the actor/crew member wanted one.  For instance, Jerry Lacy and KLS owned 16mm kinies from DS for years, and during her days on Somerset Marie Wallace got a color kinescope of an episode she did).  Perhaps BuzzH actually remembered seeing the 1970PT kinescope at the Festival that year and confused it with another episode that was actually syndicated.

[BuzzH]

That's extremely interesting because according to everything I've ever read as well as experienced firsthand, that episode was never released into local syndication. The third year of locally syndicated episodes ended quite frustratingly with Ep #1007 [spoiler](with Quentin having witnessed Real Time's Liz and Julia discussing Barnabas' disappearance only to then be confronted with Hoffman standing behind him)[/spoiler]and Eps #1008-1245 were never released because the cost to stations was too prohibitive. I'm strongly suspecting that somehow you'd gotten your hands on a bootleg copy of Ep #1024. 

Hmmm....maybe I shouldn't then tell you that I also got from this person episode 1202, the ep where [spoiler]Bramwell and Catherine sleep together!  [/spoiler]

I honestly don't know how these eps were obtained, but I suspect perhaps money changed hands at some point, LOL!  The ep I mention in the spoiler above was REALLY bad quality btw...but watchable.  My friend told me about it and was like "You've GOT to see this ep!" and the rest is history!  I was so glad when it was released to VHS by MPI because, naturally, it's one of my favorite eps and it was nice to see a clean, color copy of it.    Oh, this person also gave me some eps in Spanish (I'd love to know who the CONNECTION is, LOL!) and boy were they hilarious!  Hearing Barnabas address Julia as Hoolia was too much!    And Jonathan's right, Barnabas sounds better when pronounced w/a Latin accent!   

[Nelson Collins]

Not just who is the connection but more importantly can this connection get a hold of ep 1219!!!!

[BuzzH]

Perhaps BuzzH actually remembered seeing the 1970PT kinescope at the Festival that year and confused it with another episode that was actually syndicated.

No, not confused Charles, I own a VHS copy of that kinoscope.  I guess what COULD be the case is they auctioned off a copy of the kinoscope at a Fest one year, perhaps the one in question above, and whoever bought it made a tape of it that got copied over and over again as it passed through fandom.

[Darren Gross]

Hi guys. Been following the thread but wanted to do a little more research into the facts before posting.

Unfortunately the tape and case for the missing episode were in the archives, the tape itself was completely blank. Someone must had degaussed it accidentally thinking it was going to be recycled or junked.

Also unfortunately, ABC stopped making kinescopes of the show after September 1970 so there wouldn't be one of the missing episode.

Tape copies also weren't made for local affiliates- they were fed via phone wires from the main network. In rare instances a remote affiliate would be provided with a kinescope, if they weren't properly equipped, but since this episode comes after the end of kine replication, there wouldn't be one there either.

-----------------

On the Spanish language episodes, dozens and dozens of Spanish language kinescopes have been given out at past festivals as free gifts for the banquet, auctions etc. and have shown up on grey market videotapes, the 16mm prints themselves on ebay etc. so there's a lot of that stuff out there. As an FYI, the ones given away for only duplicates of existing vault materials and all the spanish dubbed episodes are still retained.

[Nelson Collins]

Thanks very much for the update!  Much appreciated, even if the news is not the best.  Well, at least a fan recorded it so we have some kind of record of it.

One question:  Did ABC only have or keep one copy of every episode (of course I don't mean the kines)? I just mean was it standard practice to only have one copy that if damaged would be gone forever.  It seems that at the least there would be a master tape and at least one safety copy, but I may be talking completely through my hat.

Regards,
Nelson

[Darren Gross]

The 2-inch tapes used for the show were the sole videotape copies. The tapes were extremely expensive in those days and were essentially the only other videotape format until 1-inch came in in 1976 and then 3/4 inch came in in the 80's which were a bit cheaper.
They wouldn't make backup copies on videotape, just the kinescopes. Other than international distribution which were all kines, there was no foresight into syndication, as it wasn't typical for a daytime show.

It's one of the reasons that syndication was done in bunches- everytime they released another bunch of episodes, the residual contracts had to be worked out with the unions, and a hundred plus episodes had to be converted from the 2-inch to more typical 1-inch or 3/4 inches which became more and more costly in the 80's as they equipment was antiquated and long out of use by then. Not a huge cost but the difference between relooping episodes which are already transferred or paying the thousands of dollars to transfer them...

[Devlin66]

There are two main points that shoot out at me after looking at this thread.

First of all, all DS fans are darn lucky we have the intact episodes available that we do....very fortunate indeed, and second....MPI is out to make as much money as they can!