Doctor Who Missing Episodes
The Doctor Who missing episodes are the instalments of the long-running British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who that have no known film or videotape copies. They were wiped (or "junked") by the BBC during the 1960s and 1970s for economic and space-saving reasons. There are 27 incomplete Doctor Who serials, with 106 of 253 episodes from the first six years of the programme missing. Many more were thought to be lost until copies were recovered from various sources, mostly overseas broadcasters.
Doctor Who is not unique in this respect, as thousands of hours of programming from across all genres were destroyed by the BBC until 1978, when the corporation's archiving policies were changed. Other high-profile series affected included Dad's Army, Z-Cars, The Wednesday Play, Steptoe and Son, and Not Only... But Also. The BBC was not the only British broadcaster to carry out this practice; ITV companies also destroyed programmes, including early videotape episodes of The Avengers.
Doctor Who is unique, however, in that all of its missing episodes survive in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Stills or short video clips have been found for several missing episodes. All 1970s episodes also exist visually in some form, which is not the case for several other series.
Efforts to locate missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and by fans of the series. Extensive restoration has been carried out on many recovered 1960s and 1970s episodes for release on VHS and DVD. The surviving soundtracks of missing episodes have been released on cassette and CD. Fan groups and the BBC have released reconstructions of missing episodes, matching photographs from the episodes with the soundtracks. Two episodes of The Invasion were reconstructed using animation and released with the surviving episodes of that serial on DVD.
Read more about Doctor Who Missing Episodes: Background, Recovery, Restoration, Reconstruction, Orphan Episodes, Books, Documentary
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