Call it a tale of modern archeology, one where the adventurer doesn’t spend time digging through long forgotten tombs, but rather the dusty hallways of television stations and studio warehouses looking for that one treasure thought lost long ago. For Doctor Who fans, nearly 100 episodes of the show from the 1960s are missing, but now thanks to Terry Burnett, two episodes have resurfaced.
The two episodes in question are episode 3 of William Harnell’s Galaxy 4, and episode 2 of Patrick Trughton’s The Underwater Menace. Galaxy 4 introduced the Chumblies and the Drahvins, while The Underwater Menace features Jamie McCrimmon’s first journey with the Doctor as his traveling companion.
Terry Burnett purchased the films in the early ’80s at a village fair, and wasn’t aware tat the film canisters contained the missing BBC footage. The two episodes were screened at the National Film Theater in London as part of the British Film Institute’s “Missing Believed Wiped” event. Back in the day, the BBC routinely wiped tapes and destroyed films of original series, without recognizing that in the future, people would want to watch old reruns.
These particular episodes came from the ABC channel in Australia.
These lost episodes will be scanned and cleaned up and show up on a future DVD release.
2 Comments
I’m excited to see these, as they will be new to me and therefore “new” adventures of past Doctors for me to enjoy.
These totally sound fantastic, far better than the recreations