Photo: Peter Stone/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Doctor Who’s release schedule has always been a little timey-wimey. Season premieres on Christmas? It’s odd. But this takes things to a new level. Two episodes of Doctor Who long thought to be forever destroyed have been recovered and restored, and they will be added to the BBC streaming service soon. According to the Associated Press, season three’s “The Nightmare Begins” and “Devil’s Planet” have been discovered in an anonymous benefactor’s estate. They feature original Doctor William Hartnell and his eternal foe, the Daleks. Even with these two found, there are still 95 episodes that have been lost to time. And space.
But why are there so many missing Whos in the first place? Before digital tape, the BBC would reuse old tapes. It would record over old programs (or programmes, as the Brits’d spell it) because these things cost money and the BBC was government-funded. As a result, there are several episodes of Doctor Who that, ironically enough, have been lost to time. “The main broadcasters in the U.K. in the 1960s, ’70s, up to the ’80s really, junked quite a lot of content,” De Montfort University professor Justin Smith told the AP. “In some ways finding missing Doctor Whos is the holy grail.” In fairness to those BBC workers of old, who’d have thought people would still care about a children’s show from 60 years ago?
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