‘Doctor Who’ Fans Have Fresh Chance to Time Travel With Found Episodes

Two unearthed episodes, which were discovered in film canisters wrapped in plastic bags among the possessions of a dead collector in England, were restored by BBC archivists.

Fans of “Doctor Who,” the long-running sci-fi show about a time-traveling, space-venturing alien, will soon get to step into a time machine themselves to watch two recently rediscovered episodes from the 1960s.

Though the mission of “Doctor Who” and his human companions is to protect Earth from a variety of threats, the Doctor was never able to safeguard the program itself.

Nearly 100 episodes have been missing for decades because the BBC, which produced the show, either threw out recordings or erased expensive videotapes for reuse, believing they did not have any commercial value.

It was a common practice for programs to be erased shortly after broadcast, according to television and film scholars, and no episodes of “Doctor Who” made between 1963 and ’69 exist on their original broadcast videotapes.

One “Doctor Who” fan made 16-millimeter black-and-white telerecordings — film recordings of the live broadcast — of the two 25-minute episodes that were discovered.

On Friday, a charitable trust in England called Film Is Fabulous announced that it had stumbled upon them in film canisters wrapped in plastic bags among the possessions of the collector, who died recently.

“All we’re able to say is he cherished the films for many years, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for preserving these episodes of ‘Doctor Who,’” the trust, which works with the estates of collectors to preserve vintage films, said in a statement.

The discovery leaves 97 missing episodes of the 253 produced by the BBC between 1963 and 1969.

It’s the only discovery since nine lost episodes were returned to the BBC in 2013 after being found in Nigeria. Those episodes had been transferred onto film for sale to foreign broadcasters, according to the BBC, which said that rediscovered episodes were often the result of copies found in other countries.

“Doctor Who” has had more than 875 episodes over 61 years. The show first ran between 1963 and 1989 on the BBC, was revived in 2005 and has been running ever since.

Disney joined as a distribution partner and co-producer in 2023. There have been 14 actors who have played the Doctor.

“BBC Archives has been working to restore the original recordings and update these to broadcast quality, ensuring fans can enjoy a little extra treat with their Easter eggs this April,” Noreen Adams, the BBC archives director, said in a statement.

The two newly found episodes are “The Nightmare Begins,” which aired on Nov. 13, 1965, and “Devil’s Planet,” which aired on Nov. 27, 1965. They will be shown on the broadcaster’s streaming service, BBC iPlayer.

The episodes aired during the show’s third season, titled “The Daleks’ Master Plan,” and starred William Hartnell as the Doctor and Peter Purves as his sidekick, Steven Taylor. That season also featured Nicholas Courtney as Bret Vyon, Adrienne Hill as Katarina and Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen.

The Daleks are cylindrical-shaped metal cyborg aliens that seek to exterminate all forms of life. The episodes are the first and third episodes of an intricate 12-part story line, more than half of which is still missing.

The charitable trust invited Mr. Purves, 87, to the Phoenix theater in Leicester, England, last week under the pretense that he would be speaking to a group about how television was made in the 1960s, and then watch a couple of episodes from the archive.

The BBC showed Mr. Purves arriving at the theater, only to be surprised to learn that it would be a private viewing party, and that he would be watching a missing episode that had aired only once.

“Oh, you’re kidding,” Mr. Purves said, slack-jawed. “Oh, ohhh, boy.”

When his host apologized for luring him there under a false pretense, Mr. Purves said: “That’s a perfect lie. I’m absolutely thrilled.”

After watching the first episode, Mr. Purves was told there was yet another.

“You’re kidding!” he said, before settling into his seat for another episode.

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