For many years 108 episodes of Doctor Who have been missing, presumed wiped and lost forever. Yesterday the BBC have announced the recovery of 2 missing episodes. They are Episode 3 of the William Hartnell adventure “Galaxy 4” and Episode 2 of Patrick Troughton’s “The Underwater Menace”
Of particular interest is the episode of Galaxy 4. Previously this had been one of the most mysterious stories of all. No complete episodes were known to survive. A six minute fragment of one episode was all that existed. Unlike most lost stories there were no telesnapsmade. And only a handful of on set photos were taken. Only two poor images of the story’s aliens, the Rills, were known. 12 Their appearance was thus a matter of speculationfor fans. The recovered episode contain much clearer images.
The episode of Underwater Menace is the earliest surviving Troughton episode.
I’d like to make a plea to all the Dopers out there who are film collectors, to check their collections. If you own any old Doctor Who episodes on 16 mm, please recheck what episodes you own. Do not assume that the BBC still has a copy. The guy who just turned in the 2 episodes had them for 20+ years and he just assumed they weren’t unique. Don’t be “that guy/gal”.
There are numerous Doctor Who sites out there itemizing the missing episodes, which you can compare your holdings against. Do it today. Thank you.
Wow, awesome! It’s a bit mind boggling, though, how mysterious the Galaxy four episode is. I mean, it’s old, but it’s not THAT old. Surely there’s someone around who remembers making it, or even just watching it, and could fill in the gaps with a detailed plot synopses.
The detailed plot synopsis and scripts exist. Even the soundtrack for all four episodes exists, because some fan recorded it on cassette when the show was broadcast. What didn’t exist was a large number of photos from the episode. Most of the missing episodes still exist as a series of still photos.
… the Troughton ep has some of the worst monsters they ever made though.
