The Tomb of the Cybermen
| Story Code: MM / Season 5 | UK Airdate: 9/2/1967 | Doctor: Patrick Troughton |
| First airings by location | UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite | Previous Story / Next Story |
This story aired in the following known countries. They are listed in chronological order according to known airdate. If no month is noted, the actual airdate is not confirmed, and is a close approximate. (Refer also to Selling Doctor Who for expanded airdates.)
| Australia | Jul 68 | b/w |
| Singapore | Feb 70 | b/w |
| Hong Kong | Jun 70 | b/w |
| New Zealand | Aug 70 | b/w |
The serial was recovered in full from Hong Kong in late 1991. It was subsequently released for inclusion in syndication packages for North America, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Movement of the Films=
Being one of the only complete missing stories from the 1960s to have been recovered in its entirety, and for which there were only a few countries to air it, The Tomb of the Cybermen is a perfect case study for investigating the possible movement of the prints.
Let's bullet-point the key dates:
- Australia:
- Censored: 10 January 1968
- Airdate: from July 1968
- Repeat: August 1969
- New Zealand
- Censored: 24-30 Oct 1969
- Airdates (regional): August to November 1970
- |Singapore
- Airdate: February 1970
- Hong Kong
- Originally scheduled for October 1969
- Airdate: June to July 1970
What we can see here is that Australia had prints from January 1968 to August 1969. New Zealand held prints for over a year, from October 1969 to November 1970. New Zealand was the last of the four countries to screen the serial - so it's clear that New Zealand did not sent its prints to Singapore or Hong Kong. Presumably they were destroyed.
Hong Kong originally had the serial scheduled for October 1968, but was replaced by The Abominable Snowmen. The serial did eventually air in June 1970. Why the delay? Maybe there was an issue with censorship? (Both Australia and New Zealand experienced censorship issues with this serial.) Maybe the expected film prints did not arrive on time? (Australia had finished a repeat run in August 1969 - only six weeks earlier... Was Hong kong waiting for Australia to send these prints, and for whatever reason, they didn't arrive in time?)
It is also possible that Hong Kong's prints came from Singapore; there is a four month window between the two screenings. And did Singapore in turn receive its prints from Australia?
We don't know how many prints there were in circulation. The maximum would be four (one for each country), and the minimum would be two.
These are the only movement scenarios:
1 - Australia to Singapore to Hong Kong (found in 1991) 2 - New Zealand - destroyed?
1a - Australia - destroyed?
2a - Singapore to Hong Kong (found in 1991)
3a - New Zealand - destroyed?
or
1b - Australia to Hong Kong (found in 1991) 2b - Singapore - destroyed? 3b - New Zealand - destroyed?
For what it's worth, we favour scenario 1b.
