TELEVISION
KONG RITHDEE
The hasty deletion of audio-visual material by the BBC has resulted in a global hunt for lost cultural treasures that involve Thailand. Researcher Damian Finucane arrived in Bangkok earlier this month to track down nine episodes of the legendary British TV series Dr Who that were sent to be broadcast on Thailand's now-defunct Channel 4 in 1967.
''Records show that nine episodes from the Dr Who and The Journey to Cathay series were shipped to Bangkok, and now we're looking for anybody who has any information about it,'' said Mr Finucane.
Dr Who, a programme which features a time traveller and his adventures, is the world's longest-running TV science fiction series, having started in 1963.
In the late 1960s, the BBC destroyed the original 16mm film of many episodes to clear space in its archives.
''There are at least a few thousand episodes of Dr Who, but we are still missing 108 of them and nine may still survive in Thailand,'' said Mr Finucane.
''We're looking all over the place to recover what we can.
''We don't mind if you have them on VHS or on film, and we don't care if it has been dubbed into Thai,
''We just need to find them. We are even offering a cash reward,'' he added.
Mr Finucane has contacted several Thai TV stations, without luck.
Ironically, Mr Finucane also went to the National Film Archive of Thailand, an agency suffering a severe lack of funding and space to keep Thai audio-visual material. He found nothing there either.
''Dr Who has a great historical cultural value _ the missing episodes are a lost heritage,'' said Mr Finucane.
''If we ignore the archiving and conserving of important films and TV programmes, it will be difficult to keep them as historical references,'' said Dome Sukhavong, an historian at the Thai Film Archive.
''We're in a much worse situation than the BBC.''
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