Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found (bbc.co.uk)
123 points by edent 14 hours ago
throwawaymobule 2 hours ago
It's strange for formerly lost media to get a whole news story about it. This should, but still strange.
Hope more are found sooner than another 13 years from now.
m463 3 minutes ago
I think there's LOTS of media out there, but there doesn't seem to be easy ways to convert it.
There was probably a renaissance period when conversion equipment was being actively developed and available, but that time is probably gone. For example I think a good film scanner would be the Nikon Super Coolscan 8000 ED, but current state of the art falls far short. For film, vcr tapes and more we should be doing so much better.
I have old family super-8 films that are kind of convertible, but not the magnetic sound strip.
nephihaha an hour ago
There are several "holy grails" in British TV history.
Lost Doctor Who episodes are one of them. Dad's Army also has lost black and white episodes (the colour ones have been repeated ad nauseam all my lifetime).
I can think of a few others. Scotch on the Rocks was a political hit piece written by Douglas Hurd showing an armed Scottish uprising along the lines of Northern Ireland. It was supposed to frighten people away from Scottish nationalism, but ended up causing copycat incidents. It vanished shortly after being broadcast probably because of its unintended effects.
The ultimate would be some of the pre-WW2 television broadcasts. Most of these were broadcast in the London area and practically nowhere else. Almost no one had recording equipment back then and they were often broadcast live.
ahartmetz 17 minutes ago
I just wanted to mention at this opportunity that some British TV series from the late 70s, early 80s are absolutely brilliant and some of the best stuff I have ever watched. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, Danger UXB, Sandbaggers and Sherlock Holmes are some of my favorites.
zahlman an hour ago
Why should that be strange?
MrGinkgo 3 hours ago
Film cans? I thought the whole reason the series was missing was because it was shot on video, and then the tapes were wiped after shooting?
mikehall314 2 hours ago
You're correct but as Uvix has said, BBC Enterprises made film copies for overseas sales before the original tapes were erased.
The earliest episode to survive on its original videotape is Ambassadors of Death episode 1 from 1970. None of the original 60s tapes still survive, though I believe there is at least one tape that we know used to have Doctor Who on it but which now has another programme.
The earliest episode to survive in its original medium is possibly The Dalek Invasion of Earth episode 5 (The Waking Ally). That's because, while this was shot on electronic studio cameras as usual, there were no videotape machines available to record.
Instead the output of those cameras was telerecorded straight to 35mm film. AIUI the negative of that telerecording still exists.
WalterBright an hour ago
> there is at least one tape that we know used to have Doctor Who on it but which now has another programme.
Recording over another recording does not completely erase the other. I wonder if it could be recovered.
mikehall314 an hour ago
gwbas1c an hour ago
The BBC used a kinescope much longer than the US. (A kinescope recorded TV to film.)
The US pushed a lot harder than Europe for videotape because kinescopes dropped frames off of American 60i frame rates, but worked really well for European 50i frame rates. Thus the BBC continued to use kinescopes for a long time.
Uvix 2 hours ago
Film prints were made for overseas sales.
beardyw 12 hours ago
I remember wanting to love Dr Who even before it was broadcast. The TARDIS was great, but the first series was disappointing. Like so many others, it was the first sight (and sound) of a Dalek which vindicated my hopes.
pessimizer 3 hours ago
I was afraid this would never happen again. Two very good episodes, too.
I just pray that we'll get to see a few more Troughton episodes. He's the doctor that set the standard that all future doctors followed, yet the least known because the moronic BBC wiped basically his entire run, and now we only have about half of it.
Tom Baker was "my Doctor" because he's the one who made me love the show when I was a kid, but Troughton (and Zoë and Jamie) are my favorite era.
edit: Zoë and Jamie are from way back when the companions were expected to be useful, before Sarah Jane. Zoë was better at math than the Doctor; imagine them doing anything like that now.
hnlmorg an hour ago
That era of companions was a response to the eras before then when companions were expected to just look pretty and scream on cue.
NetMageSCW 2 hours ago
Companions are still useful, they just bring different skills to the Doctor (humanity?).
hoyd 13 hours ago
Perhaps the doctor meant for these to be lost and not found, or that the daleks was afraid of them?
nephihaha 7 hours ago
I think Doctor Who was finding its feet in the Hartnell era and it was Troughton who really first defined the character to what he became later.
In the Hartnell era, the Doctor was a grandfather I think, looked old (although Hartnell was much younger than he appeared, thanks to the war etc) and seems to have been human.
undefined 12 hours ago
zenon_paradox 4 hours ago
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OutOfHere 6 hours ago
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Anonbrit 2 hours ago
People have been making the same complaint about Dr Who for at least 40 years, couched in the language of the day. Same with Star Trek.
afavour 3 hours ago
I view Doctor Who as part of a great tradition of sci-fi that pushes boundaries. Tennant's era was a primetime TV show that featured gay characters (Captain Jack in particular) without treating it like it was a big deal. When at the time it really wasn't that common (particularly in kid-friendly TV).
These attempts overshoot at times, like when Star Trek TNG put male crew members in "skants"[1] but they can always course correct. If you let minor things like that ruin your viewing of the show then that's on you, not them.
[1] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(2350...
iso1631 2 hours ago
> These attempts overshoot at times, like when Star Trek TNG
On the other hand the entire run of the "progressive" Star Trek didn't have a single gay character until 2016 - not even in guest stars (well there was the whole Dax/Trill thing, and the "non binary" character with Riker)
draygonia 3 hours ago
David Tennant was a great Doctor Who. It's definitely still a good show and I'm sure they didn't swap out the entire production cast between those seasons to 'wokify' it.
shablulman 13 hours ago
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mrlonglong 3 hours ago
We have all the voice recordings, feed that into AI along with the extant episodes and it should be able to regenerate (geddit?) the missing episodes.
HughParry an hour ago
Somebody spent a small fortune trying this a while ago with disliked results https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/entertainment/ailing-doctor-wh...
zamadatix 14 minutes ago
They seem to have been pleased with the results:
> “It has to be worth it for the pleasure it’s brought me to see them,” Levine said. “Doctor Who runs all night in my bedroom, complete, nothing missing.”
skerit 2 hours ago
Do we also have stills of all the episodes? Or only audio?
TetOn 2 hours ago
There are production stills that are used like a slide show and combined with the recorded audio. Certain episodes have been reconstructed using animation such that the basic scene blocking and events are played out alongside the recorded audio.
waltbosz 2 hours ago
Feels a bit like Jurassic Park
BurningFrog an hour ago
The risk of the episodes going wild and kill lawyers seems minimal though.
razingeden 39 minutes ago
panzagl an hour ago
benj111 2 hours ago
From a utilitarian pov yes. But that's completely missing the artistic point. Why shoot a film when you could just feed the script into an AI?
mrlonglong 2 hours ago
It could recreate missing episodes using the extant episodes. That's something worthwhile doing until someone finds them. It's not creating a complete new series.