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ALGERIA

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Algeria is located in North Africa, and is the second largest country in the African Continent. It had been a French colony, before gaining its independence in 1962. It is non British Commonwealth.

POPULATION

When Doctor Who screened there, the population was 14,770,000 and licensed TV sets numbered 155,000

TV & SYSTEM

Algeria began its television service in 1956. Colour transmissions began in 1979 with the SECAM colour system. There is just one television station: Television Algerie.

LANGUAGE

The main languages of Algeria are Arabic and French; the series would most certainly have been broadcast with the Arabic soundtrack that was provided by the BBC. Given that the French newspapers had TV listings in French, it is likely that the broadcasts also had French subtitles.

Since the BBC only had serials A, B, C, E, F, G, J, K, L dubbed into Arabic they were the only stories that would have been available.

BBC RECORDS

BBC records list sales of only nine stories; only the first episode of the first serial was sold, so only 37 episodes aired:

code	title	eps
A	100,00BC (ep 1 only)	1
B	The Daleks	7
C	Inside the Spaceship	2
E	The Keys of Marinus	6
F	The Aztecs	4
G	The Sensorites	6
J	Planet of Giants	3
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6
L	The Rescue	2

The February 1977 sales list records a sale of only four stories: C, E, K and L. Obviously the BBC’s records pertaining to the other five serials were incomplete

Libya was the Arabic nation that had screened Doctor Who prior to Algeria – the same 37 episodes were purchased by Libya in late 1969. Therefore it is likely that Algeria’s prints came from Libya.

Algeria is recorded as being the final country to purchase any William Hartnell stories during the initial sales period. 12 years later the United States purchased a package of the available 17 complete Hartnell stories in 1986.

TV LISTINGS

TV listings have been obtained from the French language newspaper El Moujahid.

In the paper the series was called LE DOCTEUR WHO.

The paper called the first episode “un feuilleton d’aventure des science-fiction”, which translates as “a science fiction adventure series”.

A majority of the listings give the episode number with the title: e.g 1ere partie, 12eme, 23eme, 34 partie.

In the listing for the first episode, the main cast is named as Carrol Ann, William Russel, William Martnell et Jacqueline Hill.

A number of the listings also give the name of the director, although in some cases this is wrong, with Frank Cox or Mervyn Pinfield sometimes being credited for episodes they didn’t direct.

TRANSMISSION

TV STATION: TELEVISION ALGERIE

right

The series started on Monday, 31 December 1973, screening seven days a week (The timeslot was variable, ranging between 7.15 and x.xx). The 12 and 13 January scheduled episodes must have been pre-empted, as the same two episodes are also listed as screening on 14 and 15 January. The final episode aired after a 39 day run, on Thursday, 7 February 1974. The episodes had French titles, although some days no title was listed. Translations are given only where the French title differs significantly from the original.

See TV LISTINGS sub-page.

PRINTS OF FATE

It is believed that Algeria returned the prints (which had both the original English soundtrack and Arabic dub intact) to the BBC in circa 1976. It is thought that these prints (such as The Daleks) were some of the ones that Ian Levine found taped up awaiting destruction when he visited BBC Enterprise’s office at Villiers House in early 1978.

The fact that the majority of William Hartnell’s first season survives may very well be due to the return of these prints from Algeria.

ALGERIA IN DOCTOR WHO

There are no instances where Algeria is mentioned in the series.