LONDON (AP) — Over six decades of “Doctor Who,” the intergalactic adventurer’s adversaries have included evil robots, rampaging Yeti — and the BBC, which erased many early episodes of the now-iconic sci-fi TV series.
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’s streaming service.
The discovery leaves 95 episodes still missing from the adventures of a galaxy-hopping alien known as the Doctor that debuted in 1963.
“Doctor Who” — the “who” is an existential question, rather than the character’s name — has become a television institution with millions of fans around the world. But the BBC’s 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.
“The main broadcasters in the U.K. in the 1960s, 70s, up to the 80s really, junked quite a lot of content,” said Justin Smith, a cinema professor at England’s De Montfort University and chair of trustees of Film is Fabulous!, which works to preserve cinema and television history.
“In some ways finding missing ‘Doctor Whos’ is the holy grail” of classic TV discoveries, Smith told The Associated Press.
Smith said the charity found film cans containing the two rediscovered black-and-white episodes, “The Nightmare Begins” and “Devil’s Planet,” among the collection of a film aficionado who had died. The collector’s estate wishes to remain anonymous.
The episodes aired during the show’s third series in 1965 and feature William Hartnell, the first of more than a dozen actors to play the Doctor, in a story involving archvillains the Daleks – pepperpot-shaped metal aggressors whose favorite word is “Exterminate!”
Smith said that for “Who” fans, “it’s got it all, it really has. It is intergalactic, it’s got some great performances. It stands up really, really well.”
The newfound episodes feature Peter Purves, who played the Doctor’s sidekick Steven Taylor in 46 installments of the show.
“Twenty-seven of mine still are missing, but I’m delighted that two have been found,” 87-year-old Purves told the BBC. “It’s rather sad, but it’s great when some turn up.”
The discovery is the first since 2013, when nine missing “Doctor Who” episodes were found in the storeroom of a television relay station in Nigeria.
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.
“We know that other episodes are in existence,” he said. “We don’t know where they are or who’s got them — otherwise we’d be knocking on doors. But, yeah, I think there are more. The only question is when and where they will come to light.”
“Doctor Who” 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.
The most recent series, starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, aired in 2025. The show is due to return with an as-yet undisclosed actor in the role.
