Post by theretsam on Aug 29, 2014 15:31:29 GMT
Prologue
The world isn't fair.
You find a ridiculously awesome science-fiction show that has run for over fifty years, and then you find some of its best episodes were unceremoniously wiped in the 1970s. Along with tons of other classic TV and radio.
But all that was part of a bigger problem: thousands of classic books of knowledge and literature had been lost to time, as had thousands of paintings (including several copies of the Mona Lisa), and countless of historical artifacts.
To Jonathan, this was entirely unacceptable.
Some might have tried searching the world (probably in vain) for the remnants of these treasures like Indiana Jones. Others spent their time doing lots of archaeological guesswork, thereby hoping to achieve something.
To Jonathan, this was simply an unwieldy way of dealing with it. Better to get to the heart of the matter.
And that's why Jonathan built a time machine.
Now in truth, Jonathan didn't care for ancient manuscripts as much as he did for episodes of Doctor Who. At any rate, he didn't speak Greek of any kind (let alone the Ancient variant), so it would have been rather difficult for him to copy them.
No, he was going back in time to rent large storehouses where he could then store everything the British television services had to offer, and prevent the wipings from happening in the first place.
He had considered other courses of action.
He could have offered them color film cameras, like the Americans used, but for a lot of programs this would come too early. The BBC didn't introduce color until 1967, simply because it wasn't commercially viable until then. In addition, he didn't want to disrupt the flow of stories they were making, since film brought all kinds of technical difficulties with it and there was no way they'd make the 40 episodes a year they did, if they used film.
He could simply have taped them from the telly, but that meant he wouldn't get the best quality. He also didn't exactly know how to record digitally from an old tube set, so he'd be stuck with VHS copies of 405-line transmissions at best. And he'd seen those, n generations down the line. And he didn't want to see them again. Especially not for stories like The Massacre (of St. Bartholomew's Eve).
Oh, and, while he was there, he shouldn't forget to get some proper color footage of Hartnell at that hospital opening.
Excellent. What could go wrong?
The world isn't fair.
You find a ridiculously awesome science-fiction show that has run for over fifty years, and then you find some of its best episodes were unceremoniously wiped in the 1970s. Along with tons of other classic TV and radio.
But all that was part of a bigger problem: thousands of classic books of knowledge and literature had been lost to time, as had thousands of paintings (including several copies of the Mona Lisa), and countless of historical artifacts.
To Jonathan, this was entirely unacceptable.
Some might have tried searching the world (probably in vain) for the remnants of these treasures like Indiana Jones. Others spent their time doing lots of archaeological guesswork, thereby hoping to achieve something.
To Jonathan, this was simply an unwieldy way of dealing with it. Better to get to the heart of the matter.
And that's why Jonathan built a time machine.
Now in truth, Jonathan didn't care for ancient manuscripts as much as he did for episodes of Doctor Who. At any rate, he didn't speak Greek of any kind (let alone the Ancient variant), so it would have been rather difficult for him to copy them.
No, he was going back in time to rent large storehouses where he could then store everything the British television services had to offer, and prevent the wipings from happening in the first place.
He had considered other courses of action.
He could have offered them color film cameras, like the Americans used, but for a lot of programs this would come too early. The BBC didn't introduce color until 1967, simply because it wasn't commercially viable until then. In addition, he didn't want to disrupt the flow of stories they were making, since film brought all kinds of technical difficulties with it and there was no way they'd make the 40 episodes a year they did, if they used film.
He could simply have taped them from the telly, but that meant he wouldn't get the best quality. He also didn't exactly know how to record digitally from an old tube set, so he'd be stuck with VHS copies of 405-line transmissions at best. And he'd seen those, n generations down the line. And he didn't want to see them again. Especially not for stories like The Massacre (of St. Bartholomew's Eve).
Oh, and, while he was there, he shouldn't forget to get some proper color footage of Hartnell at that hospital opening.
Excellent. What could go wrong?