As I’ve mentioned in the past, Doctor Who has been on the air for a long, long time. And while we live in a world now of preservation and archivism , the BBC of yore didn’t have quite the same respect for posterity. They didn’t see much value in keeping around copies of old sci-fi serials, so the tapes were often erased, recorded over, or thrown away. As such, there are over one hundred episodes of the classic Doctor Who that are believed lost forever. Fans have worked to recover and recreate most of them over the years, but the episodes in their original broadcast form no longer exist.
Yesterday, however, two of the missing episodes were found; episode 3 of the First Doctor adventure Galaxy 4, and episode 2 of the Second Doctor’s the Underwater Menace. These mark the first discovery of whole episodes for 7 years. They came from the ABC Channel in Australia, and interestingly are still missing a few segments that were cut by the censors, but the censorship bureau reportedly still has those and they will be worked back in.
Specific plans for release have yet to be announced, but the BBC has made some clips available in the meantime.
While there are still plenty of missing episodes to go, this is good news for fans and a reminder to never give up hope. After all, if there’s one thing the Doctor teaches us that’s to be optimistic.
Source: BBC
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