Colour Cave Monsters

Whenever the Jon Pertwee story Doctor Who and the Silurians has screened on New Zealand television, the episodes have always been in black and white. March 2017's screenings on The Zone channel is the very first time that this story has been broadcast in New Zealand in colour.

Colour television began in New Zealand way back in October 1973, but many programmes were still broadcast in black and white for a while afterwards.

Doctor Who and the Silurians was first broadcast here in April - May 1975, a full five years after the UK. It was the last Doctor Who story screened in black and white before colour episodes (beginning with Day of the Daleks) were seen later the same year.

Doctor Who and the Silurians story was originally made in colour but the BBC junked the colour recordings of this story in the early 1970s. Australia had previous screened the story in black and white, and it seems likely that New Zealand's copies were sourced from that country.

Doctor Who and the Silurians was next seen here a decade later, in May - June 1985, at which time only black and white copies were available. The story was repeated in this form in August - October 1991.

The fourth screening, and the first time the story was seen on Prime, was in September - October 2000. By this time the BBC had produced colour-restored copies of this and other Jon Pertwee stories but the episodes supplied to Prime were in black and white.

I alerted Prime to the existence of colour-restored copies of this and later Pertwee stories, and as consequence colour episodes were sourced and screened, but it was too late to do anything about the Silurians story which had already screened.

Consequently, March 2017's screening of Doctor Who and the Silurians is the first time it has been seen in colour on New Zealand television.