Missing Episodes

The Magic Number

Doctor Who episodes were always recorded on video tape, and all tapes were held by BBC TV. In the 60's and 70's, BBC Enterprises made film prints of the episodes for overseas sales (because video tape standards around the world were different, but anyone could use film).

In the early 1970's, BBC TV erased hundreds of video tapes. They either thought that other copies of the shows they were erasing existed elsewhere, or they didn't think the shows were worth keeping. (Remember, this is years before the VCR.)

Over at BBC Enterprises, due to the complex nature of the rights involved, they only had a limited amount of time to sell the films. Any film print which was no longer viable was incinerated. They, also, probably thought the master copies existed elsewhere.

The result is that many television programs from the BBC's earliest years are gone, quite possibly forever.

Over 130 episodes of Doctor Who were lost this way, all from its first 7 seasons (1963-1970). However, in the 1980's, some of these episodes were kindly returned to the BBC from overseas television stations who had bought film copies from BBC Enterprises years before.

(I got most of the above information from an article in issue #253 of Doctor Who Magazine.)

Only a handful of episodes have surfaced recently. The only Doctor Who episode to be recovered in the last seven years was in the hands of a private film collector in New Zealand. He had bought the episode, stored in an unmarked film tin, at a film show without knowing what it was. When he screened it for some friends who happened to be Doctor Who fans, they recognized it as a lost episode, and so a copy of "The Lion" (part 1 of "The Crusade") was returned to the BBC. UPDATE 1/19/2004: Day of Armageddon has been recovered!

Telesnaps (still recordings of some of the film prints) still exist for many episodes, as do the scripts. Ironically, illegal audio recordings of missing Doctor Who episodes, made by fans, were welcomed at the BBC with open arms, as they were desperate to have any kind of recording at all for the programs they had lost. Many of these home-made audio recordings have been commercially released.

Old audio tracks and recovered film prints in poor condition are enhanced and taken care of by a group of people who have become known, unofficially, as the Doctor Who Restoration Team. These guys are headed by Steve Roberts, and they do an outstanding job.

Click here to read general information about Doctor Who.

There are 108 episodes of Doctor Who still missing.

Early Doctor Who episodes had individual titles. Starting in May 1966, each episode was simply known as a part of an overall story title.

Each missing episode is in black and white and is about 22.5 minutes long, with no place to break for commercials. The beginning of each episode should have the episode title and author. (Credits for the cast and crew of British programs aren't shown until the end.)

The following list is of all 108 missing episodes, in chronological order of broadcast. If you happen to find any, please contact the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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