Doctor Who fans get to step back in time with the discovery of 2 long-lost episodes

For decades, dozens of early Doctor Who episodes were feared to be lost forever — until two of them turned up recently in the garage of a deceased collector.

On Friday, the charity Film is Fabulous! (FIF), which works to preserve cinema and television history, announced that it found the two episodes of the now iconic sci-fi TV series in film cans, wrapped in plastic bags among a water-logged collection of other films.

Still, two black-and-white episodes, The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, were in pristine condition.

Both episodes — which feature the first incarnation of the titular Doctor, played by William Hartnell — haven’t been viewed since they originally aired during the third season of the show in 1965.

BBC archivists have restored the two episodes, which will be available next month on the broadcaster’s streaming platform.

The discovery brings down the count of missing episodes to 95 that were lost by the BBC because the broadcaster threw out film recordings or wiped video tapes for re-use.

FIF lured Peter Purves, who plays the Doctor’s companion Steven Taylor, to a local theatre in Leicester, U.K., on Wednesday under false pretenses to surprise him with the episodes. 

Justin Smith, a cinema professor at England’s De Montfort University and chair of FIF, spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal about how they pulled the surprise off, and what this discovery means to “Whovians” around the world.

Here’s part of that conversation:

I’m trying to imagine you taking a look at these plastic bags, these two cylinders. What did you think you were looking at in those moments? 

It was incredible because we discovered these missing episodes of Doctor Who in a collection that was in very poor condition. Many of the films had been stored in a garage and had got water damage. There were films throughout the property, but it just so happened that these two films were wrapped in bags, and when we undid the cans, the labels were pristine and very clear to be read. 

What did they say?

Doctor Who. In fact, they give the titles of the particular episodes in the series, The Daleks’ Master Plan.

The Daleks’ Master Plan was a 12-part story that … started in November 1965, and Episode 1 is called The Nightmare Begins … and it’s there for all to see on the label of the can two cans of 16-millimetre … black and white film.

You screened these episodes for Peter Purves, one of the actors featured in them. How did Peter react? 

First up, we got the 16-millimetre films cleaned and scanned, and then we brought them to our local cinema, the Phoenix Independent cinema in Leicester, and invited Peter on the pretext that he was going to talk to a bunch of journalists about missing television and what have you from the past.

Then when he arrived, we dropped the bombshell: “Actually, we’ve got you here on false pretenses. You’re here to see two missing episodes that you star in from 1965.” And he was absolutely over the moon. He was very emotional, and it was a lovely moment.

There were 97 missing episodes of this show. That’s down to 95 after what you’ve discovered. But why are they missing in the first place? Why were these in plastic bags in somebody’s house? 

We need to remember, stepping back in history, that in the mid-60s, the BBC didn’t know or envisage that Doctor Who was going to be the global phenomenon that it is today. They couldn’t possibly have known that. It was in its relative infancy.

Television more broadly, was in a very different place then. It was very immediate. It was of the moment. It wasn’t too concerned about preserving its legacy for posterity.

Storage was expensive. Videotape, we know when it came in, was regularly, routinely wiped and re-used because it was expensive. So, times have changed and it’s it’s easy to blame the BBC and say: “Why on Earth did they throw these things away?’ But, you know, we mustn’t forget that Doctor Who didn’t mean what it does today back then.

The family whose estate you found these bags and these cylinders at, how did they come to be in possession of them? 

This was a private collector who, like lots of film collectors, didn’t have any immediate connection with the film or television industry. He was, you know, he was an avid collector and had a very eclectic and varied collection of films at his property which were recovered.

We don’t know how he came by these episodes. He clearly, by the fact that they were rather better looked after than some of the other films in his collection, suggests that he did know the value of what he had. But it’s just good fortune, and we’re delighted that we’ve come across them and been able to return them to the BBC.