Today in telling the BBC how to BBC:

Oh dang, did I just figure out why
 the internet is the way it is? 

I don't want to tell the BBC how to--you know? I feel like I've been starting off a lot of these with I don't want to tell blank how to blank but...and now I'm beginning to think that I do want to tell blank how to blank. It's almost like the anonymity of the internet and our culture's recent deemphasis on the value of an informed opinion has emboldened me to sit here typing like I know what opining about when really, I have no basis to be offering any sort of insight on what is clearly a matter for people who know at least--sorry, I was talking about the BBC and Doctor Who. Huh? Well, I was getting to it.

Two shillings to a florin? How did 
these people conquer the world?

Doctor Who is famously incomplete. Back in the 1970's the BBC, the British television studio that produced the series, decided to economize, or cheap out as we say in America. Sorry, that was harsh. In their defense, pre-decimalization money was ludicrous. Anyway, they decided to tape over the masters of TV shows that had already aired. I think this disregard for the ancient American tradition of the rerun was one of the causes of the War of 1812. At least that was the story, according to The Guardian, some of these tapes were simply chucked in the bin. 

Either way, dozens of early Doctor Who episodes were lost or destroyed. Some have been recovered over the subsequent decades both from BBC affiliates in other countries, and from people who taped them off teller. Which is a cute, British way of saying television. But ninety-seven episodes from the first two Doctors Who are lost to the ages never to be found. Except get this: they have been found. I know! It's an emotional roller coaster.

This, but with emotions.

I mean outside of the pledge drive.

Ok, they haven't been found, but according to a film and TV collector called John Franklin, they're just sitting in the personal stashes of fellow collectors who are terrified of reprisal from the BBC. Which, yeah, the BBC? I'm not British, but is the BBC particularly threatening? The people who brought us East Enders and Graham Norton and all those weird puppets who solve crime TV shows from the 1960? That BBC? I suppose the US equivalent would be like living in dread of PBS.

Fine, it's Channel 4 and not BBC, but they
could buy them passes. Look, it's Doctor Who. 

With the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who approaching, Franklin suggests that the BBC should offer the people sitting on these tapes amnesty which, duh? I think is the word? I mean, who even cares at this point? Give them amnesty and life time passes to be in the live studio audience of the Great British Bake Off. Buy them houses. Whatever they want. These folks--assuming Franklin is correct--have to be in their seventies or eighties now if they were rooting through TV studio trash bins back in the early 70's. What's the BBC going to do to them?

Again, I don't know anything about anything, but if this guy's correct and all that stands between nerds and complete Doctor Who Blu-ray boxed sets, why would the BBC--whose short-sightedness caused the problem in the first place--not shower these heroes with riches for saving these episodes from the trash or the degausser or whatever?

Oh, right, because lawyers exists and they spent
quite a lot of money on those ridiculous wigs.