In message 001801c0bef4$5ce541c0$e535fea9@neilfaulkner, Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes
B7 was pre-video, just about (I got the 4th Season on this thing called 'Betamax' which greying Lysters might remember),
We still had a Umatic at work, last time I looked...
made to be seen once and then consigned to memory, if that. Less than half the series was ever repeated, at least on BBC. This might also explain why they didn't bother too much on continuity - they had no reason to think that anyone might notice.
Just about <digs deep into memory> but it *was* possible, just not widespread.
I was living in Australia at the time B7 was originally broadcast - we went back to the old country and the old folks for Christmas 1981, which meant that with the ABC being several months behind the BBC in showing B7, I got to see series 4 for the first time starting from (IIRC) Gold. Interesting experience... Anyway, back to the matter in hand. One of the distant cousins had this new-fangled thing called a video recorder, which was jolly good as far as I was concerned because he'd been merrily recording "The Five Faces of Dr Who", the Who retrospective with one story from each doctor, and it was my first chance to see "An Unearthly Child". (And for the Who pedants, yes, I *know*, but that's what most people think of it as.)
John's a bit of a tv geek (hardware, not software) with a decent disposable income, so he would undoubtedly have been the first one in the street to get a domestic vcr. I'm not sure how long he'd had it for, but I'd guess several months.
Parents were so impressed with the educational potential of this new toy that they bought one when we got back to Australia, _Cosmos_, for the taping of. Needless to say, *I* used it for taping series 4, and _Edge of Darkness_.