"Set the VCR - Doctor Who's On In A Minute!"

[Rob McCow]

These days, our Doctor Who gets recorded automatically. Sometimes before we've even watched it!

But back in the 80's (and late 70's?), recording Doctor Who was much more of a Trial. The kind of Trial that ends with the Master failing to turn up because you hadn't set it to record for long enough.

Did you manage to record Doctor Who regularly?
What was the first story you taped?
Did you re-watch them much?
How did you decide what to over-record if you had to?
Did you ever miss a Doctor Who episode?
Did you ever illegally show an episode in a school or oil rig?

Tell us about home taping!

[SiHart]

Did you manage to record Doctor Who regularly?

Oh yes. From 1982 through to 1989 I recorded Doctor Who. Of course, since we only had a few tapes I wasn't allowed to keep them for long, so I record one week's episodes over the previous week's ones.

What was the first story you taped?

Castrovalva I believe, though I may be misremembering perhaps and it might have been Arc of Infinity.

Did you re-watch them much?

Oh god yes!

How did you decide what to over-record if you had to?

Process of elimination. Some would be kept forever. Some not. After the Five Doctors, which I was allowed to keep ebcause it was a special, Mum and Dad got me a tape each year- so I'd sit and choose which stories I wanted to keep from the previews in DWM> From S21 it was Resurrection because of the Daleks and Androzani because of the regeneration. The tape has the start of The Awakening on it too, because I obviously didn't rewind it properly before the first episode of Resurrection. S22 I did Attack and The Two Docs, but the video broke down as pt 3 began, so I didn't get it. So I taped Revelation instead.
By Trial I'd got enough tape for the whole season, and so I kept them all from then onwards.

Did you ever miss a Doctor Who episode?

Planet of Fire pt 3 I think. And The Two Docs 3, as I mentioned above.

Did you ever illegally show an episode in a school or oil rig?

Yes. At school!

[Si Hunt]

What a brilliant idea for a thread. It amazes me after all these years that we still find new things to talk about, but it's largely thanks to people thinking up great ideas for threads like this one!

Did you manage to record Doctor Who regularly?

From about 1987, yes. What would happen was, Mum would watch "Coronation Street" in the lounge downstairs, while me, my Dad and my sister would sit on the bed in Mum and Dads room and watch Doctor Who on the portable. When it started, I'd shout downstairs for Mum to hit record. Why she didn't just go upstairs is anyone's guess, but Mum was boss!

What was the first story you taped?

Well, that would be "The Five Doctors" on Beta Max. I believe I still have the tape somewhere. I must have also taped "The Two Doctors" as we recorded a scene of it to audio (directly, by plugging a tape recorder into the video or telly) along with some clips from "Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD". Consequently I can now recite exactly the random scene where Shockeye tells Staal to take the Donia Arana's body away.

Did you re-watch them much?

I watched "The Five Doctors" to death and now know every line. More than that, every footstep and every crunch. I can remember watching "The Caves of Androzani" back and me and my friend daring each other to watch the scary bit with his face. A few years later, we enjoyed watching Kane's melting face back again.

How did you decide what to over-record if you had to?


I can't remember. Based on the story, I suppose. "Dragonfire" was never kept. "Remembrance" and "Silver Nemesis" were, but I was only bothered enough about "Battlefield" to put one episode on the end. Everything else was taped over, I think. I'm not even sure now why I recorded Who so religiously, as bar a couple of examples I've no memory of keeping any of them permenantly.

Did you ever miss a Doctor Who episode?


Miss taping? All the time I suspect. It felt like it would go on forever, so there was no point trying to keep every episode. The concept of buying new tapes indefinately didn't seem to exist back then. I think I only had a few.

Did you ever illegally show an episode in a school or oil rig?

No, but I remember a load of us watching "Ressurection of the Daleks" at Christopher Harding's birthday party. I wonder what became of him? I'm sure he loaned me "Trial of a Timelord" on video many years later, but then later still I remember sending him a Christmas card and writing on it that we should get together and swap some Doctor Who. He wrote back "Si, Happy Christmas from Chris" so that was that.

Si.

[Larry]

first story I taped was almost certainly The five Doctors after that I can't remember the next full story I taped I know i had The Daemons and Keys of Marinos on tape Marinos, was taped off UK Gold's regular run during the late 1990's and The Daemons was taped off the BBC, though I'm not altogether certain if that was from the 1993, run of repeats or later. There may have been a few other recordings but it's so long ago now and the tapes have long since been binned I can't now remember.

Did I watch them much - not really The Five Doctors came out on general release not long after and Marinos was a very ropey recording and at that point in time I wasn't a big fan of the Daemons but I guess the main reason was because we were at that point getting 2 video releases every month I wasn't that bothered about things i'd taped off the telly.


How did you decide what to over-record if you had to? - never really had that problem because in my house we always had a big supply of tapes to record on.

[Si Hunt]

I forgot, my Grandad diligently recorded the whole of Doctor Who for me on UK Gold from "The Edge of Destruction" right through to the end. Bless him!

Si.

[Nyder]

My Betamax recorder went onto overtime recording Doctor Who. The first story I ever recorded was Four To Doomsday. I must have worn the tape out watching that one. Can't wait to watch it on DVD and re-live the memories!

[J.R. Southall]

Nice thread! No time for a full reply right at this minute (school run soon, and - and you won't believe this! - I've just come off the 'phone from his PA arranging for me and the Bishop of Exeter to possibly do a book together!!!!!), but here's a question to which my answer is Yes that wasn't at the top of the thread:

Do you have anything on videotape that the BBC no longer have a copy of?

Back in 1989, the BBC showed a trailer for Battlefield three nights running at 7pm, and so on the third night I was in place to record it at the start of my Battlefield tape. It was only after the Battlefield DVD came out that I became aware of the fact that nobody else seems to have recorded this trailer, so there it is! I've put a very rough version of it up on YouTube now (no means of making a file so the quality isn't too good), but should the RT/2|e ever want it for a re-release, they've got my email address and can have it whenever they want. It's here if you want to look: http://www.youtube.com/user/jesusrises?feature=mhee

[J.R. Southall]

So, we got our first video recorder around the time of Season 21, and for a while I had the entire series on tape, bitterly regretting we hadn't bought the machine a few months earlier, in time for The Five Doctors.

On Betamax.

So those tapes went the way of the wind when we downgraded to a VHS machine the following year. Having already lost one series to the vagaries of technical progress, I didn't record Season 22, figuring that would end up as worm-feed one day too.

Season 23 almost entirely passed by unnoticed, I'm afraid, and Season 24 didn't arrive with a lot of promise, so I didn't start recording again until Season 25 (and yes, I edited the episodes together just like the BBC releases did).

I still have those four tapes of the episodes running Remembrance to Survival, to this day. Somewhere.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm assuming from the thread title that we're talking about VCR only - maybe we should do another thread for ye olde audio recordings!! But anyway...

Did you manage to record Doctor Who regularly?
Yes. I'm actually surprised to find that, based on this thread, I'm in a minority here - but having started taping them in 1986 (see below) I don't think either I or bruv would have thought about taping over them.

What was the first story you taped?
I'm sure I've regaled you all with this fascinating fact before, but it was The Ultimate Foe. We got our first VCR the Thursday before part 13 (the day Den took Angie to Venice, I believe, in EastEnders) and taped 13 & 14. Other than possibly Revenge of the Cybermen, I don't recall us buying many BBC vids between the end of S23 and the start of S24, so you can well imagine that those two episodes from TOATL got played one heck of a lot during that nine month gap. So, the dialogue from those two episodes is very much stuck in the brain. And nothing can stop the catharsis of spurious morality.

Did you re-watch them much?
All the time I think. Nowadays, even when I really enjoy an episode, I don't feel the burning urge to rewatch it. But during the McCoy years, more often than not we'd watch it 'live' - then record whatever was on next for Dad (memory tells me it was always Rockliffe's Folly, but it can't ALWAYS have been) and then watch that night's episode again for a second time. Then, when Dad got home, we'd often watch it a third time that evening. I certainly remember watching part 3 of The Happiness Patrol three times the first night. And then again the next day after school, etc, etc...

How did you decide what to over-record if you had to?
Back to answer one, and unlike the BBC of the 1960s, we didn't need to.

Did you ever miss a Doctor Who episode?
Not quite. For some reason our VCR had an off day when Silver Nemesis part 1 was on, so although it's recorded the picture OK, the sound is incredibly hissy. You have to turn the volume RIGHT UP to hear the dialogue, but at that level the static hiss is headache-inducing.

Did you ever illegally show an episode in a school or oil rig?
No... by the time we had a VCR Doctor Who probably wasn't that big at school - and I forgot to take my tapes with me when I worked on that oil rig, so that was an opportunity missed!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I only stopped doing it in 2007 (or was it 2008?) and that was only because I stopped being interested in keeping the "new" series. Ironically, this was around exactly the same time as I finally finished collecting all the old stories, so I only ever had a complete collection for a very brief time.

[Andrew Curnow]

I kept doing it right through to the end of series 4, but with only a couple of exceptions, I never watched them - it was just, after all those years, habit!!

[Mike Saville]

VCR? VCR? Whippersnappers!

I remember sitting with an old school cassete recorder and a microphone to record the audio of the late Pertwee era and later some of Tom's. If I was at my grandad's he'd tape it for me on his old open reel tape recorder.

I didn't get a VCR until '87, by which time I was no longer following Doctor Who.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Nice thread! No time for a full reply right at this minute (school run soon, and - and you won't believe this! - I've just come off the 'phone from his PA arranging for me and the Bishop of Exeter to possibly do a book together!!!!!), but here's a question to which my answer is Yes that wasn't at the top of the thread:

Do you have anything on videotape that the BBC no longer have a copy of?

Back in 1989, the BBC showed a trailer for Battlefield three nights running at 7pm, and so on the third night I was in place to record it at the start of my Battlefield tape. It was only after the Battlefield DVD came out that I became aware of the fact that nobody else seems to have recorded this trailer, so there it is! I've put a very rough version of it up on YouTube now (no means of making a file so the quality isn't too good), but should the RT/2|e ever want it for a re-release, they've got my email address and can have it whenever they want. It's here if you want to look: http://www.youtube.com/user/jesusrises?feature=mhee

I remember that trailor - I think I might even have a copy of it somewhere. I've not yet got the DVD of Battlefield (mainly because I can't stand the story) and so I didn't realise that this trailor is rare!

[J.R. Southall]

I remember that trailor - I think I might even have a copy of it somewhere. I've not yet got the DVD of Battlefield (mainly because I can't stand the story) and so I didn't realise that this trailor is rare!

Quite - you'd never imagine something as simple as a trailer and as late in the day as 1989 would be missing from the archives, would you?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Does it definitely say they don't have it on the DVD? Or is it just that it's not on the DVD?

[Dirk Gently]

We never got a VCR until season 25 was on. I didn't have a tape to use so never got any Silver Nemesis/Greatest Show episodes. But I did tape season 26 & still have the tapes somewhere.

[J.R. Southall]

Does it definitely say they don't have it on the DVD? Or is it just that it's not on the DVD?

Oh no, I was expecting it to be on the DVD and when it wasn't there, I emailed the RT and they admitted they didn't have it. In fact, they intimated they hadn't even known it had been made.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Hmm it might exist somewhere then if they look, or at least a B&W film print of it might. Then they can combine that with the colour signal from your off-air tape, vidfire it, and then put it on the Battlefield Special Edition next year.

[wombatskidude]

Did you manage to record Doctor Who regularly?

Once I had a job, I managed to tape every story. Unfortunately, by this time, we were into the McCoy era, and half of the stories weren't things I'd ever want to watch again.

Prior to this, I was hindered by the price of Betamax tapes, at around £7.50 for 3hrs 15 mins. When I started taping, this would have been the best part of a month's pocket money.

I could squeeze 2 stories onto a tape, if I cut out the credits and compiled the episodes. The BBC did this, so there couldn't be anything wrong with it.

What was the first story you taped?

The Visitation, I think. After a few years I realised that my cousin had managed to record whole seasons, so I managed to get copies of all of his, once I could afford the tapes.

Did you re-watch them much?

Yes, as for years, I only had about half a dozen tapes, so these were rewatched endlessly.

How did you decide what to over-record if you had to?

I recorded everything, but knew that I could only afford to keep a couple, so if something failed to make an immediate impression, it got wiped the next week. Obviously, this wasn't a great system, because if a season ended with something fairly inept like Time Flight, I'd be stuck with it for a year, having wiped something better to make room for it.

Did you ever miss a Doctor Who episode?

I didn't see Resurrection of the Daleks until years after it was broadcast. For a long time, I was convinced that this was why the latter episodes didn't make any sense. After watching the whole story, some time later, I realised that I hadn't missed much, and that it actually didn't make a lot of sense anyway.

Did you ever illegally show an episode in a school or oil rig?

No, they always had VHS players.