Doctor Who Missing Episodes - Orphan Episodes

Orphan Episodes

Surviving episodes which do not form complete stories – referred to as "orphan" episodes – have been released by the BBC in the following ways:

• The Hartnell Years, The Troughton Years, Daleks – The Early Years, and Cybermen – The Early Years on VHS tapes, released in the early 1990s.
• As extras on other releases, such as The Faceless Ones episodes 1 and 3 and The Web of Fear episode 1 on The Reign of Terror boxset.
• Abridged VHS releases, with the surviving episodes and one or more of the following:
  • Linking material recorded by actors (The Reign of Terror, The Crusade, and The Invasion)
  • Audio CDs with recordings of the missing episodes (The Crusade and The Ice Warriors)
  • Reconstructions with photographs, surviving clips, and soundtrack (The Tenth Planet and The Ice Warriors)
• The Lost in Time DVD boxset in 2004.

Starting in the early 1990s, the BBC began to release existing audio recordings of serials with all or a majority of episodes missing on audio cassette and compact disc, with linking narration provided by former series actors such as Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Peter Purves, and Frazer Hines. Serials with only one or two episodes missing have also been released in complete soundtrack format. Some serials (such as The Evil of the Daleks) were re-released during this time with improved audio restoration, changed linking narration, and in some instances with scenes unavailable in the first release. Music clearance problems did, however, result in the Evil of the Daleks release not having some background compositions which played on its original soundtrack. These were replaced with more generic tracks.

By December 2005, the soundtracks for all of the missing episodes were released, albeit with copyright-uncleared music replacements where necessary, slightly rejigged sequences for reasons of clarity, and with overdubbed narration.