Two more lost episodes of Doctor Who found

[Drooling Iguana]

Unfortunately, they're from Galaxy 4 and The Underwater Menace which as I understand weren't exactly the high points of the show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/ ... s_ecovered

Missing Episodes Recovered!
11th Dec 2011

Two classic episodes of Doctor Who - thought to be missing forever - have been returned to the BBC archive.

Episode 3 of the William Hartnell adventure "Galaxy 4" and Episode 2 of Patrick Troughton's "The Underwater Menace" were purchased by film collector Terry Burnett at a village fete near Southampton in the early 80s. He had been unaware that the canisters contained material missing from the BBC.

Thanks to the kind loan by Mr Burnett, the classic footage has been shown today at the British Film Institute's annual "Missing Believed Wiped" event at the National Film Theatre in London. Host at the event was Doctor Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss who said: "Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans everywhere. It's always wonderful when a missing episode turns up but it's been years since the last one so to have two is just brilliant. Add to that a proper bit of action from the legendary Chumblies (and the horrifying Rills!) plus the utterly mesmeric Patrick Troughton on great form. Well, what more could we all ask for?"

Over 100 episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s still remain missing. The tapes were routinely wiped once the rights to repeat them had expired. It seems unfathomable to us today, but before the advent of DVDs and iPlayer, grainy black and white material was thought to no longer be of interest to the television audience. However, many film prints sold overseas have since been returned. These latest discoveries are the first complete episodes to have been located since 2004.

None of the four episodes of the 1965 adventure "Galaxy 4" were known to have survived, although a short extract had been retained.

Research has shown that the returned episodes originated from the ABC channel in Australia. In fact, the copy of The Underwater Menace is still missing a few short sections which were removed by the Australian censors upon its original transmission Down Under. Fresh scans of the missing material have been made by the National Archives of Australia and will be incorporated into the restored episodes ahead of a DVD release.

Details of a commercial release will be announced by 2 entertain in 2012.

[Ahriman238]

It's still all to the good. Even more so, in that gives new hope that the rest are still out there.

[lordofchange13]

Yes one day, we may have the first Doctor's adventures in their full black and white goodness.

[Kuja]

Huzzah! What a nice piece of news. Even if they weren't two of the greatest Doctor Who stories, it's wonderful to uncover yet two more missing episodes. Maybe with a little luck this piece of news will get people doing some double-checks just in case and uncover something else. Pie-in-the-sky, I know, but it's nice to hope.

[Isolder74]

Now if only we can find The Invasion, the story with Unit's first appearance and the first episode with the second doctor. We can all live in hope!

[Broomstick]

Good news for Who fans everywhere.

Isolder74, I thought "Power of the Daleks" was the first episode with Two, and wikipedia lists 6 of 8 parts of "The Invasion" as recovered....?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Power of the Daleks is indeed Troughton's first outing.

Also, The Invasion has all but episodes 1 and 4, and the most recent DVD release has the missing episodes recreated using animation (they have the soundtracks). It's one of my favourites. Amusingly, some of the soldiers seen in the final battle (any with black berets) are actually one of the battalions of the Coldstream Guards. Gotta love authenticity

[CaptainChewbacca]

So does that mean the guy who found them gets a life-sized Dalek from the BBC? I thought that was the deal.

[mr friendly guy]

Even if we don't find them, as long as we have the audios they can be recreated using cartoon format with the audios dubbed over. Witness the example mentioned earlier of the Invasion. Yes I have that DVD.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Is it just me, or is there something really cool about a series with so many episodes that they can't FIND them all?

[Bedlam]

Is it just me, or is there something really cool about a series with so many episodes that they can't FIND them all?

Actaully its rather sad really, they threw alot of the early stuff out just to make space. They didn't even realise what had been thrown away until they started thinking about repeats in the 70s. There were hundreds if not thousands of people who would have given important parts of their anatomies to make space for the stories but they got chucked instead.

Curse you BBC burocracy

[Isolder74]

Chuck made a great video on this topic.

Lost In Time Part one

Lost In Time Part two