Phil Morris did indeed uncover a wealth of information and material while in Africa. Originally going to the continent to find missing episodes of Doctor Who (his original plan as devised with Ian Levine and the Restoration Team) he uncovered such riches in information that he was given letters of authority from the BBC, ITV and BFI to bring as much material home as possible. The name TIEA was not merely a “nod” to TIE, it assisted in recovery and access to TIE material.
Phil Morris checked the archive at ZNBC in Zambia in 2008, funded to do so by the Zambians. This is the location of the famous “8000” cans often speculated about in missing episode circles prior to recent events and also the location of the vinegar smelling vault that was searched. The pertinent question then becomes.. If ZNBC was catalogued and checked in 2008.. What exactly was shipped to Liverpool in 2011? It is unlikely this was the same material given the timespan.
The shipment into Liverpool was not the first shipment, not everything was shipped the same way in bulk in containers and the number of cans said to have been in Zambia shouldn’t be confused with the amount shipped which likely contained material from a variety of countries.
Information gathered by Morris in Africa opened the doors to previously unknown avenues, to warehouses and facility houses that were never ever known about before the endeavour as well as to new copies of prints. Phil is currently looking for audition prints, it is unlikely that this merely consists of the few we know publically about.
There is now almost universal consensus that Phil Morris holds a considerable amount of material from Africa, the difference of views coming what the BBC know of them and whether any have been handed back yet or not.
The sheer volume of material is overwhelming and given the secret nature of the project, not all and sundry can be invited in to check the material. The “loop” is very small on the matter and limited to an absolute need to know basis. As well as checking the contents of each individual can, everything must be checked to ensure its viability, not to mention legal issues as to who the can belongs to. There is material here from a variety of broadcasters and production companies. It is standard practice not to announce anything that could be unrecoverable until it is sure to be in acceptable condition, some of these prints are likely to be unrecoverable but given their value every endeavour will be undertaken to rescue them, this takes further time. Given the sheer volume of material, it’s likely that negotiations will be done not on an “entire haul” basis but in batches, Morris restoring the material before handing it back when complete over a period of time. The likelihood that some Doctor Who will be unrecoverable is high, but hopefully they won’t be singular prints, the recoveries contain many duplicates and copies of existing material.
Phil Morris has employed several people to work on the restoration of material including an ex-Granada film engineer.
The BBC are aware of some of the finds that have not yet been announced but Phil has not yet given a full list to the Corporation likely for a variety of reasons including the simple fact that everything has not yet been verified as recovered/survived, ongoing negotiations as to the nature of finances and delivery such as staggered announcements, iTunes/DVD and general financial considerations on the part of both parties, not to mention any other ongoing negotiations with private collectors that may be happening. There is far more than Doctor Who found and, as Morris is restoring the material, it will take time to restore and hand it back, it won’t be a case of merely handing over the can when it’s identified. Some reports indicate that low level material has already been returned to the BBC and possibly ITV and the BBC may hold no interest in some material.
Obviously this brings us to the possibility that Phil Morris may have recovered The Moonbase and The Underwater Menace. This was cause of some alarm in certain quarters given that these stories were scheduled for release on DVD in the latter half of 2012 and early 2013 respectively. The Moonbase was bumped from the schedule to make way for The Enemy of the World and it being out on schedule in January indicates either that Phil definitely didn’t recover Moonbase, that the prints were found to be unviable or he won’t say whether he has it or not and the decision to go ahead was made anyway. The BBC will not have allowed the release of the serial while being fully in the knowledge that the episodes had been recovered, such a move would be a huge PR disaster.
Besides the endeavours of Phil Morris and TIEA other episode hunters are working on their own leads such as Ian Levine’s investigations in Taiwan which recovered several episodes of existing material, he remains hopeful that The Space Pirates and other missing season 6 episodes may be out there. This stands alongside other endeavours in the United Kingdom that is said to have recovered several episodes of The Daleks Masterplan at the very least in negotiations with a private collector or estate.
As ever all rumours come from a variety of sources and may be true, true in part or completely false, they should not be repeated as fact nor taken as anything other than the rumours they are until there is confirmation from official sources.
