Doctor Who missing episodes

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The First Doctor (William Hartnell) collapses prior to his regeneration (from the surviving clip of The Tenth Planet, Episode 4).

Many episodes of the long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who are  missing, with no known film or  videotape copies existing. They were erased (or "junked") by the BBC during the 1960s and  1970s for a variety of commercial and  space-saving reasons. In all, 108 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are  not currently held in the BBC's archives, although the situation was much worse in the past before episodes were recovered from a variety of sources, most notably overseas broadcasters.

Doctor Who is  not unique in this respect, as thousands of hours of programming from across all genres were destroyed up until 1978, when the BBC's junking policies were changed. Other high-profile series affected included Dad's Army, Z-Cars, The Wednesday Play and  Not Only... But Also. In addition, the BBC was not the only British broadcaster to carry out this practice, with ITV companies also destroying programmes; The Avengers (like Doctor Who a series initiated by Sydney Newman) is  a high-profile ITV victim of junking. Unlike other series, however, Doctor Who is  fortunate enough to have  all of its missing episodes surviving in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home, and  to have  every 1970s episode existing in some form.

Efforts to recover the missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and  by fans of the series. Extensive restoration has been carried out on many surviving and  recovered 1960s and  1970s episodes for release on VHS and  more recently on DVD. The surviving soundtracks of missing episodes have  been released on cassette and  more recently CD.

[edit] Background

Between approximately 1967 and  1978, large amounts of material stored in the BBC's videotape and  film libraries were destroyed or  wiped to make way for newer programmes. This happened for a number of reasons, the primary one being that agreements with the actors' union Equity and  other trade bodies limited the number of times a single programme could be broadcast, usually to two. These showings were also limited to within a set time period, such as two years. This was due to the unions' fear that if the channels filled their schedules with repeats, it  could lead to lower levels of production, putting actors and  other staff out of work. This attitude by the unions had the unintentional side effect of causing many programmes to be junked after their repeat rights had expired, as they were considered to be of no further use to the broadcasters.

Most Doctor Who episodes were made on two-inch quad videotape for initial broadcast and  then telerecorded onto 16 mm film by BBC Enterprises for further commercial exploitation. Enterprises used 16 mm for overseas sales as it  was far cheaper to buy and  easier to transport than videotape. it  also circumvented the problem of different countries using different video standards, as film was a universal medium whereas videotape was not. The BBC had no central archive at the time — the Film Library kept programmes that had been made on film, while the Engineering Department was responsible for storing videotapes. BBC Enterprises kept only copies of programmes they deemed commercially exploitable. They also had little dedicated storage space and  tended to keep piles of film canisters wherever they could find space for them at their Villiers House property. In the early 1970s, the city fire inspector's office cited the facility for the unsafe conditions of blocked hallways and  flammable material and  threatened to revoke their fire licence.

The can containing a BBC Enterprises 16 mm film telerecording print of Episode 2 of The Evil of the Daleks.

From around 1972 until 1978, Enterprises disposed of much of their older material, including many episodes of Doctor Who. This was mostly done because Enterprises' rights agreements with the actors and  writers to sell the programmes abroad had expired. With many broadcasters around the world now switching to colour transmission, it  was not deemed worthwhile extending agreements to sell this older black and  white material.

Meanwhile, as the Engineering Department library had no mandate to archive programmes that no other BBC department had issued retain orders for, older tapes were regularly wiped for reuse and  to free up space. The Film Library had no responsibility for storing programmes that had not been made on film, and  there were conflicting views between the Film Library and  BBC Enterprises over who had the responsibility of archiving programmes. These combined factors resulted in the erasure of enormous quantities of older black and  white programming from the BBC's various libraries. While thousands of other programmes have  been destroyed in this way, the missing Doctor Who episodes are  probably the best-known example of how the lack of a consistent programme archiving policy can have  long-term effects.

The degree of incompleteness varies, and  is concentrated on the First and  Second Doctor stories. Although some stories have  only one episode missing, others are  lost altogether, with Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor being particularly badly affected (from the first two seasons of the Troughton Doctor, only one story, The Tomb of the Cybermen, is  complete, and  this only exists due to a copy being returned from Hong Kong). All stories starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor are  now complete in the sense that all the episodes are  present, but some only survive as black and  white telerecordings or  US-standard NTSC copies.

In order of original transmissions, the very last Doctor Who master videotapes to be wiped were the first episodes of the 1974 serials Invasion of the Dinosaurs and  Death to the Daleks. The latter was recovered first from the Canadian station TV Ontario, albeit in the NTSC format, and  later in the original PAL format from Dubai.

For a few years Episode 1 of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was the only Pertwee episode to be entirely missing from the archives, until a black and  white 16 mm copy was returned to the BBC in the early 1980s. Archival holdings from Death to the Daleks, Episode 2 onwards are  complete on the original broadcast videotapes, with the exception of the final shot of Part Three of The Deadly Assassin (1976). This shot was removed from the master copy after its initial UK transmission following complaints from Mary Whitehouse of the  and  Listeners' Association">National Viewers' and  Listeners' Association. Subsequent repeats and  commercial releases have  restored the shot from off-air video copies.

The wiping policy officially came to an  end in 1978, when the means to further exploit programmes by taking advantage of the new market in home video cassette recordings was beginning to become apparent. In addition, the attitude became that vintage programmes should, in any case, be preserved for posterity and  historical and  cultural reasons. The BBC Film Library was turned into a combined Film & Videotape Library for the preservation of both media. Following the transfer of episodes still held by Enterprises, there were 152 episodes of Doctor Who no longer held by the BBC, although subsequent efforts have  reduced that number to 108, as of 2005.

The most sought-after lost episode is  Episode 4 of the last William Hartnell serial The Tenth Planet, which ends with the First Doctor transforming into the Second. The only portion of the regeneration sequence still in existence, bar a few poor-quality silent 8 mm clips, is  the few seconds of the scene which had been rebroadcast as part of a 1973 episode of Blue Peter.

In 1992, a fan named Roger K. Barrett claimed to have  a videotape of The Tenth Planet and  offered to sell it  to some Doctor Who fans and  the BBC, including Ian Levine, a well-known fan and  one time unofficial continuity adviser to the programme. However, Barrett turned out to be an  alias and  the existence of the episode a hoax. In a mini-documentary titled "Missing in Action" (aired during a 1993 BBC One repeat of Planet of the Daleks), Levine said that he experienced "the absolute utter depths of despair when we found out that it  was just a blank tape and  it was all a hoax", expressing his desire to get hold of Barrett and  "choke him until I found out why he misled everybody." Unfortunately, hoaxes of this kind are  not uncommon in Doctor Who fandom, with people like Barrett more  than willing to exploit the hope that copies of the missing episodes may still exist somewhere waiting to be recovered.

Compared with many BBC series broadcast in the 1960s, Doctor Who is  comparatively well-off in terms of missing episodes, with 145 of the 253 episodes broadcast during that decade still in existence. This is  mainly due to wide overseas sales which have  aided in recovery of episodes (see below). This is  reflected in the nature of the surviving episodes — Seasons 1 and  2, the most widely sold abroad of the 1960s episodes, are  missing only nine and  two episodes, respectively. Most of the episodes survive due to a late sale in 1973 to Algeria. By contrast Seasons 4 and  5, which sold to fewer countries, have  only one complete serial in existence between them.

Of all the series shown by the Corporation throughout the 1960s which had runs of significant length, only  and  Son">Steptoe and  Son can be said to have  a better survival record, with all episodes existing, albeit some only in the form of early domestic videotape copies created by the writers of the programme. Other programmes have  few or  no episodes in existence; United!, a football-based soap opera which broadcast 147 episodes between 1965 and  1967, has no episodes surviving at all. Doctor Who's popularity and  high profile has also helped to ensure the return of episodes which, for other less  well-remembered programmes, might never have  occurred.

Most 1960s episodes of the BBC's popular music programme Top of the Pops were also erased, especially given the greater difficulty of clearing the programme's performance rights. Ironically, the only surviving Top of the Pops footage of The Beatles exists as a 15-second clip in the 1965 Doctor Who serial The Chase, where the Doctor and  his companions watch the group on a monitor screen.

Doctor Who is  also comparatively rare amongst contemporaries in that all of the 1970s episodes exist in one format or  another, whilst other series such as Z-Cars and  Dixon of Dock Green have  episodes from as late as 1975 missing.

[edit] Recovery

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A short film sequence from Episode 5 of The Power of the Daleks. This clip survives in a 1968 edition of Whicker's World, which featured an  interview with Dalek creator Terry Nation.

Since the archive was first audited in 1978, a number of episodes thought missing have  been returned from various sources. an  appeal to broadcasters in other countries who had shown the programme (notably Australia and  African nations such as Nigeria) produced "missing" episodes from the archives of those television companies. The Tomb of the Cybermen, for example, was recovered in this manner from the Hong Kong television company ATV (formerly RTV) in 1992.

Some portions of these overseas copies were physically excised prior to transmission in the 1960s by the Australian and  New Zealand censors for being too violent or  frightening for the programme's early time slot and  younger audience. This posed a problem because episodes recovered from these sources were missing these segments. However, in October 1996 Australian Doctor Who fans Damian Shanahan and  Ellen Parry discovered a collection of the censored clips — several from missing episodes which do not exist in their entirety — in the archives of the Australian government censor. The clips had been sent by the ABC to the archives as evidence of the required edits having been made. Similarly, in 2002 New Zealand fan Graham Howard uncovered censored clips from The Wheel in Space and  The Web of Fear.

Episodes have  also been returned by private film collectors who had acquired 16 mm copies from various sources. For example, 16 mm film telerecording prints of Episode 2 of The Evil of the Daleks and  Episode 3 of The Faceless Ones were returned to the BBC by film collector Gordon Hendry. These episodes (the only one from Evil and  one of only two from The Faceless Ones to exist) had been purchased by Hendry for £8 each at a car boot sale in December 1983. At the time of purchase he had been completely unaware of their rarity, and  bought them out of mild curiosity and  childhood memories of the programme.

Perhaps the unlikeliest story from which episodes have  been recovered is  The Daleks' Master Plan, a serial which was never sold abroad. Only Australia ever requested viewing copies (save for Episode 7: "The Feast of Steven"), eventually electing not to purchase the serial. What happened to these viewing copies is  a mystery, as no records of their eventual disposition — whether they were retained in the ABC archives or  returned to the BBC — have  been found.

Nevertheless, 16 mm copies of three episodes from The Daleks' Master Plan have  been recovered. Two came from an  ex-BBC property which had been purchased by a Mormon church group in the early 1980s who had come across the films when tidying the basement and  subsequently offered them back to the Corporation. The third was returned in 2004 by former BBC engineer Francis Watson. Watson had taken the film home in the early 1970s after being instructed to dispose of junk material from a projector testing room at the BBC's Ealing Studios. Instead of throwing the film away, Watson kept it, eventually returning it  when he realised the value of the material.

Shortly after the junking process came to an  end and  the BBC was first taking stock of how much material was missing from its archives, enquiries were made to the  and  Television Archive">National Film and  Television Archive, held by the British Film Institute, as to whether they held any copies of BBC programmes which the BBC themselves did not. These enquiries produced three complete Second Doctor serials: The Dominators, The Krotons and  The War Games. These were all standard 16 mm film telerecordings except for Episode 3 of The Dominators, which was a 35 mm print. Episodes 4 and  5 of that serial originated from a foreign broadcaster and  had been slightly edited. However the missing material has subsequently been restored, either from a copy held by a private collector or  through the discovery of the censor clips.

Some of the surviving episodes were always held at the BBC, although the Corporation was not necessarily aware of this. In August 1988, Episodes 1, 4, 5 and  6 of the six-part story The Ice Warriors were discovered in a cupboard at Villiers House when the organisation was in the process of moving out of the building. Also, when the archive was first checked in 1978, forty-seven episodes were held by the BBC Film Library, in addition to those still held by BBC Enterprises. These Film Library copies were a combination of random viewing prints created for various episodes down the years which had subsequently found their way into the library's holdings, and  some of the few episodes that had originally been telerecorded onto film for transmission rather than recorded onto videotape. These film-recorded masters had been stored in the Film Library rather than in the Engineering Department with the videotapes.

However, despite the Film Library's remit, not all of these originally film-recorded episodes exist. On the other hand, there were also some unexplained items in the library, such as 16 mm copies of the first three episodes of The Tenth Planet, presumably viewing prints which were mistakenly returned to them at some point instead of BBC Enterprises. Most surprisingly of all, they also still held a 16 mm telerecording copy of the original untransmitted pilot episode of the programme, presumably a viewing print made in 1963 and  subsequently lodged at the library. The Film Library also held high-quality original film sequences made for insertion into videotaped episodes. Some of these, such as those from the opening two episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan, survive to this day, but there is  evidence to suggest that some film inserts were considered to be of lesser value than complete programmes and  were junked as late as the early 1980s.

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Bill Burridge as Mr Quill, in a scene censored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from the film print of an  episode of the missing serial Fury from the Deep.

Small excerpts have  also been recovered on 8 mm cine film taken by a fan in Australia, who filmed certain scenes directly from the television screen during repeat showings of various episodes. Clips from some missing episodes also survive where they were used in other programmes, with these other shows surviving. For example, scenes from the missing Episode 4 of The Daleks' Master Plan exist in a 1973 edition of Blue Peter, and  an Australian programme called C for Computer yielded otherwise-missing extracts from the first Second Doctor story The Power of the Daleks.

A lengthy excerpt from the 1965 serial Galaxy 4 was returned by Doctor Who fan Jan Vincent-Rudzki in the 1990s. The sequence had originally been taken from a viewing print of the first episode of that serial by the production team working on a 1977 Doctor Who documentary, Whose Doctor Who. After they had selected the short clip they wished to use from the extract they discarded the rest, and  Vincent-Rudzki, who was working as an  adviser to the production team, was allowed to keep the film. (Galaxy 4 was junked a short while afterwards, one of the final victims of junking.)

Most recently, two further short clips from The Power of the Daleks — along with a higher-quality version of one of the extant scenes — were discovered in an  episode of the BBC science series Tomorrow's World from 1966. The clips, lasting less  than 10 seconds each and  on film (as opposed to film recordings), only came to light when the Tomorrow's World segment was broadcast as part of the 11 September 2005 edition of the clip-based nostalgia show Sunday Past Times on BBC Two. Several sharp-eyed fans noticed that these clips were not among those extant in the archives and  informed the BBC.

Though numerous episodes are  still missing, full-length audio soundtracks for all missing episodes are  held by the BBC. Most come from off-air recordings made by fans, often made by use of a microphone placed close to the television set. While the quality of these off-air recordings vary greatly, multiple fan recordings exist for every episode; this has allowed groups such as the Doctor Who Restoration Team to compile "remastered" soundtracks for most of the remaining missing episodes.

On 20 April 2006 it  was announced on Blue Peter that a life-sized Dalek would be given away to anyone that could find and  return one of the missing episodes.^[1][2]

[edit] The recovered episodes

When the BBC Film & Videotape Library and  BBC Enterprises were first audited in 1978, the following thirty-nine episodes were absent from their collective archives, but have  subsequently been returned to the BBC via the various methods described above.

• The Reign of Terror — Episodes 1–3 & 6
• The Crusade — Episode 1
• The Time Meddler — Episodes 1, 3 & 4
• The Daleks' Master Plan — Episodes 2, 5 & 10
• The Celestial Toymaker — Episode 4
• The War Machines — Episodes 1–4
• The Faceless Ones — Episode 3
• The Evil of the Daleks — Episode 2
• The Tomb of the Cybermen — Episodes 1–4
• The Abominable Snowmen — Episode 2
• The Ice Warriors — Episodes 1 & 4–6
• The Web of Fear — Episode 1^[3]
• The Wheel in Space — Episode 3
• The Dominators — Episode 3
• The Krotons — Episode 4
• The War Games — Episodes 1, 3 & 4, 6 & 7, 10
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs — Episode 1
• Death to the Daleks — Episode 1

For a list of Doctor Who material still missing from the BBC archives, see List of incomplete Doctor Who serials.

[edit] Restoration

While the original 625-line PAL videotapes of some serials starring Jon Pertwee were wiped for reuse and  a few episodes are  only held as 16 mm black and  white telerecordings, some colour versions survived in the form of 525-line NTSC colour videotapes that were sent for broadcasting overseas. In the early 1980s, some of these tapes were returned to the UK from the offices of TV Ontario in Toronto, Canada, including all seven episodes of Inferno (1970). As well as this, some off-air colour videotape copies recorded by an  American fan in the late 1970s were recovered in the early 1990s, and  their colour signals were used (along with traditional colourisation techniques where necessary) to colourise the 16 mm monochrome film copies.

The serials that were restored in this way (and thus no longer incomplete) were  and  the Silurians">Doctor Who and  the Silurians, Terror of the Autons and  The Dæmons. Off-air NTSC colour tapes are  held for all the episodes of The Ambassadors of Death, but are  too badly damaged to permit anything more  than a partial restoration, with the cost of repair being prohibitive.

A new "Reverse Standards Conversion" process was used for the first time on the 2005 DVD release of The Claws of Axos. Driven by computers and  using a system designed by James Insell, with algorithms written by Jim Easterbrook, it  has the potential for use on other videos recovered from North America. Using other modern digital image processing techniques such as VidFIRE, the Doctor Who Restoration Team is  using available professional and  amateur film and  video recordings to generate digitally remastered versions of the early episodes for DVD release.

[edit] Reconstruction

An example of a Loose Cannon reconstruction from The Invasion, with rolling subtitles to indicate action not obvious from the audio track.

In addition to recovered short video clips and  audio soundtracks, there also exist still photographs taken off-screen by photographer John Cura. Cura was hired by the BBC, and  independently by many actors and  production staff, to document the transmission of many of their most popular programmes from the 1940s to the 1960s, including Doctor Who. These "tele-snaps" were generally used to promote BBC programmes and  for actors, directors and  other production crew members to keep a visual record of their own work in the days before home video recorders. In many cases, they form the only visual record remaining of several Doctor Who serials and  other missing episodes of many programmes.

Since the late 1990s, reconstructions of many of the missing serials have  also been made by fan groups such as Loose Cannon Productions, who distribute them for free. These "recons" are  based on the directors' original camera scripts, and  use a combination of the surviving soundtracks, surviving footage, photographs, still images (especially Cura's tele-snaps) and  specially recreated material. Although technically infringing copyright, these recons have  been tolerated by the BBC, provided they are  not sold for profit and  are only distributed in degradeable, non-digital formats such as VHS. Another fan-run project is  Who3D, which intends to recreate the missing footage using computer graphics.

"Official" high-quality reconstructions using the same methods were made for the BBC Video releases of The Ice Warriors (a 12-minute "highlights" reconstruction bridging the missing Episodes 2 and  3) and  The Tenth Planet (a full reconstruction of the missing fourth episode). The DVD box set Doctor Who: The Beginning consisted of the first three serials and  included a 30-minute reconstruction of Marco Polo, of which absolutely no footage exists. The Doctor Who Restoration Team has hinted that similar reconstructions might be done in future.^[4]

Screenshot from the animated The Invasion, Episode 1

In June 2005, BBC Audio began to release reconstructions as part of their "MP3 CD" line. Under the Doctor Who: Reconstructed banner, the CDs include the same audio portions as the previous audio CD releases, but are  on a single disc with Macromedia Flash-animated and  synchronised slideshow of tele-snaps and  other material. The tele-snaps play in sequence when viewed on a computer, or  a listener has the option to play the audio-only portion on an  MP3-compatible CD or  DVD player. The Power of the Daleks was the first such reconstruction to be released.

On 6 November 2006, The Invasion, an  eight-episode Second Doctor serial of which six episodes survive in the archives, was released on DVD with the missing first and  fourth episodes animated by Cosgrove Hall, matched up with a newly remastered soundtrack, created from the extant restored fan recordings.

Between the official reconstructions and  those done by fan groups, full-length reconstructions exist for all missing Doctor Who episodes.

Although it  is not strictly a missing serial, production of the 1979 Tom Baker story Shada was curtailed by a technician's strike after several scenes had been completed. The half-finished material would usually have  been junked as useless, but incoming Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner placed a preservation order on it, as he still hoped to salvage Shada as a finished production at a later date. The serial, which was written by Douglas Adams, was eventually released on video in 1992, with linking narration by Tom Baker.

[edit] The orphans

The surviving episodes which do not form complete stories — often referred to as "orphan" episodes — have  been released by the BBC in one of four ways:

1. The Hartnell Years, The Troughton Years, Daleks - The Early Years and  Cybermen - The Early Years on VHS tapes, released in the early 1990s
2. Abridged VHS releases, with the surviving episodes and  one or  more of the following:
   • Linking material recorded by actors (The Reign of Terror, The Crusade and  The Invasion)
   • Audio CDs with recordings of the missing episodes (The Crusade and  The Ice Warriors)
   • Reconstructions with photographs, surviving clips and  soundtrack (The Tenth Planet and  The Ice Warriors)
3. The Lost in Time DVD boxets in 2004.

Starting in the early 1990s, the BBC began to release existing audio recordings of serials with all or  a majority of episodes missing on audio cassette and  compact disc, with linking narration provided by former series actors such as Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Peter Purves, and  Frazer Hines. Serials with only one or  two episodes missing have  also been released in complete soundtrack format. Some serials (such as The Evil of the Daleks) were re-released during this time with improved audio restoration, changed linking narration, and  in some instances with scenes unavailable in the first release.

As of February 2006, the soundtracks for all of the missing episodes have  been released.

[edit] See also

• List of incomplete Doctor Who serials
• List of Doctor Who serials
• Doctor Who DVD releases
• Doctor Who audio releases
• Doctor Who Restoration Team

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Doctor Who Gateway - information and  articles on the missing episodes
  • The Doctor Who Audio & Video FAQ by Dominic Jackson
  • Mythmakers; the search for lost Doctor Who, by Ash Stewart (debunks many of the rumours that have  cropped up over the years)
• The Doctor Who Clips List by Steve Phillips
• The Doctor Who Restoration Team Website
• Blog describing many missing UK Television programmes

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