{"id":521733,"date":"2026-03-13T19:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521733\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T19:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:39:08","slug":"lost-doctor-who-episodes-from-the-1960s-found-and-restored-by-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521733\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost ‘Doctor Who episodes’ from the 1960s found and restored by BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Over six decades of \u201cDoctor Who,\u201d<\/a> the intergalactic adventurer\u2019s adversaries have included evil robots, rampaging Yeti \u2014 and the BBC<\/a>, which erased many early episodes of the now-iconic sci-fi TV series.<\/p>\n

A film charity announced Friday that it has found two previously lost 1960s episodes in film cans wrapped in plastic bags among the possessions of a deceased collector. They have been restored by BBC archivists and will be available next month on the broadcaster\u2019s streaming service.<\/p>\n

The discovery leaves 95 episodes still missing from the adventures of a galaxy-hopping alien known as the Doctor that debuted in 1963.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoctor Who\u201d \u2014 the \u201cwho\u201d is an existential question, rather than the character\u2019s name \u2014 has become a television institution with millions of fans around the world. But the BBC\u2019s attitude to the show in its early years was careless. Scores of episodes were lost because the broadcaster threw out film recordings or wiped video tapes for re-use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main broadcasters in the U.K. in the 1960s, 70s, up to the 80s really, junked quite a lot of content,\u201d said Justin Smith, a cinema professor at England\u2019s De Montfort University and chair of trustees of Film is Fabulous!, which works to preserve cinema and television history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways finding missing \u2018Doctor Whos\u2019 is the holy grail\u201d of classic TV discoveries, Smith told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Smith said the charity found film cans containing the two rediscovered black-and-white episodes, \u201cThe Nightmare Begins\u201d and \u201cDevil\u2019s Planet,\u201d among the collection of a film aficionado who had died. The collector\u2019s estate wishes to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

The episodes aired during the show\u2019s third series in 1965 and feature William Hartnell, the first of more than a dozen actors<\/a> to play the Doctor, in a story involving archvillains the Daleks \u2013 pepperpot-shaped metal aggressors whose favorite word is \u201cExterminate!\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith said that for \u201cWho\u201d fans, \u201cit\u2019s got it all, it really has. It is intergalactic, it\u2019s got some great performances. It stands up really, really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newfound episodes feature Peter Purves, who played the Doctor\u2019s sidekick Steven Taylor in 46 installments of the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-seven of mine still are missing, but I\u2019m delighted that two have been found,\u201d 87-year-old Purves told the BBC. \u201cIt\u2019s rather sad, but it\u2019s great when some turn up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery is the first since 2013, when nine missing \u201cDoctor Who\u201d episodes were found in the storeroom of a television relay station in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

The newly recovered episodes form part of a 12-part storyline, much of which is still missing. Smith said he is hopeful more instalments might turn up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that other episodes are in existence,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know where they are or who\u2019s got them \u2014 otherwise we\u2019d be knocking on doors. But, yeah, I think there are more. The only question is when and where they will come to light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoctor Who\u201d ran from 1963 to 1989 and was revived in 2005. Its longevity is due partly to the flexibility of the premise. The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, can travel to any point in space or time and can regenerate into new bodies, allowing the character to outlive any particular star.<\/p>\n

The most recent series, starring Ncuti Gatwa<\/a> as the Doctor, aired in 2025. The show is due to return with an as-yet undisclosed actor in the role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Over six decades of \u201cDoctor Who,\u201d the intergalactic adventurer\u2019s adversaries have included evil robots, rampaging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8827,88,1076,793,25222,206,81912,235345,14734,8828,67071,13813,48225,1049,235344,965],"class_list":["post-521733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bbc","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-general-news","tag-media-and-entertainment-industry","tag-movies","tag-ncuti-gatwa","tag-peter-purves","tag-philanthropy","tag-public-media","tag-scifi-and-fantasy","tag-steven-taylor","tag-streaming-media","tag-united-kingdom","tag-william-hartnell","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}