Sunday, December 11, 2011

Missing episodes of Doctor Who found!

Breaking news from Missing Believed Wiped held today. Two episodes of Doctor Who returned: Galaxy 4: Airlock & The Underwater Menace: Episode 2. I have not heard any information yet on how these episodes have been found or the stories behind how they survived all these years.

UPDATED: 12/11/11 1:33pm CST

Do you want to see a minute of a clip from each episode?

Galaxy 4 go here
Underwater Menace go here


UPDATED: 12/11/11 12:08pm CST

Here is the official press release/article from the BBC:

Two classic episodes of Doctor Who - thought to be missing forever - have been returned to the BBC archive.
Episode 3 of the William Hartnell adventure "Galaxy 4" and Episode 2 of Patrick Troughton's "The Underwater Menace" were purchased by film collector Terry Burnett at a village fete near Southampton in the early 80s. He had been unaware that the canisters contained material missing from the BBC. Thanks to the kind loan by Mr Burnett, the classic footage has been shown today at the British Film Institute's annual "Missing Believed Wiped" event at the National Film Theatre in London. Host at the event was Doctor Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss who said: "Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans everywhere. It's always wonderful when a missing episode turns up but it's been years since the last one so to have two is just brilliant. Add to that a proper bit of action from the legendary Chumblies (and the horrifying Rills!) plus the utterly mesmeric Patrick Troughton on great form. Well, what more could we all ask for?"
Over 100 episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s still remain missing. The tapes were routinely wiped once the rights to repeat them had expired. It seems unfathomable to us today, but before the advent of DVDs and iPlayer, grainy black and white material was thought to no longer be of interest to the television audience. However, many film prints sold overseas have since been returned. These latest discoveries are the first complete episodes to have been located since 2004.
None of the four episodes of the 1965 adventure "Galaxy 4" were known to have survived, although a short extract had been retained. "The Underwater Menace" dating from 1967 is now the earliest surviving complete episode featuring Patrick Troughton's performance as the Second Doctor.  Research has shown that the returned episodes originated from the ABC channel in Australia. In fact, the copy of The Underwater Menace is still missing a few short sections which were removed by the Australian censors upon its original transmission Down Under. Fresh scans of the missing material have been made by the National Archives of Australia and will be incorporated into the restored episodes ahead of a DVD release.
Details of a commercial release will be announced by 2 entertain in 2012.

You can read it from their site here
Earlier today, forums became alive with rumours of episodes coming back including episodes from The Wheel in Space to The Space Pirates. What is interesting is that from the beginning, I heard the Galaxy 4 episode was definately one of them.

Rumours started this morning from all sorts of sources:

@RadioFreeSkaro
Rumour confirmation yet to come but for those who've not heard, two missing Classic #DoctorWho episodes have been found...

Clayton Hickman:
 "It's Rilly Drahvin me mad waiting for news of these 2 newly found Who episodes. I just Fish People would let us know. I Amdo excited! "
@Markgatiss
Christmas has come early! Today, in fact. Stand by
@edstradling
Expect a youtube report from me this evening on certain #DoctorWho rumours. At this point they sound decidedly fishy.

and then from the BBC itself:

@bbcdoctorwho Doctor Who Official
Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans. Expect us to tweet some very - no REALLY exciting news in just a couple of hours' time.


Finally someone attending MBW:
@keirhardie
The finding of Doctor Who episodes The Underwater Menace-2 and Galaxy 4-3 has been announced at Missing Believed Wiped at the NFT. Hurrah!

More info to come as I get it. Please check back.

6 comments:

Michael Fett said...

Greg you need to post more about the missing episodes of Doctor Who more often its seems like have you good luck. Strange coincidence just a few weeks later after your post they popped up. While not the Holy Grail of episodes I wanted I will still take them.

Gregbert said...

I was thinking that too. Since I wrote the article, these 2 episodes turn up and also the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short turns up too.

Just call me the Missing Episode Whisperer. :)

Dave G said...

All I want for Christmas is The Tenth Planet 4. Oh, and all the other missing episodes. I promise I have been good!

Greg said...

As I am kneeling next to my bed, hands clasped ready to pray, "Dear Santa, please give this man Dave what he asks for! He's been ever so good!"

Dave G said...

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love better give to me...
12 Daleks Masterplanning
11 Highlanders Piping
10 Smugglers a-Smuggling
9 Terrors Reigning
8 Macras a-Terroring
7 Marcos a-Poloing
6 Daleks Powering (or Eviling, or both!)
Tenth Planet 4
4 Galaxies
3 Savages
2 Ice Warriors
And a Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve.

Anonymous said...

There's definately more episodes still out there. These two turning up in 2011 proves that! Some employees at the BBC helped themselves to 16mm film cans that were about to be junked, and as soon as word got around this became regular practice. Sadly that practice itself wasn't documented, making it now a tough task of trying to find out who those employees were and where they live now!