Missing Doctor Who episodes returned to the BBC!

[dbminter]

The BBC has officially confirmed that missing episodes of Doctor Who have been recovered and returned.  So far, they're only claiming "a number" of the 106 missing episodes have been recovered.  They found episodes of both William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton serials.  There will apparently be a press conference on Thursday to announce the number of recovered episodes, the titles, and where they were found.

 

 

I would have to say that all 106 episodes could not have been returned, as has been rumored.  Supposedly, The Feast Steven episode was never offered to foreign markets because it was a Christmas episode and had nothing to do with the rest of The Dalek Master Plan.  So, it seems unlikely it could have been recovered from a foreign market.  Mission To The Unknown may be problematic, too, because as a stand alone episode, it may not have been offered or was offered with The Dalek Master Plan.  And, as for the rest of the missing episodes of The Dalek Master Plan, I seem to recall that that story was offered to foreign markets but that no market bought the story.  So, it seems unlikely that episodes from The Dalek Master Plan would be recovered from foreign markets.  The 3 recovered episodes were found in the United Kingdom.

 

 

If I could have my wish list of recovered episodes, it would be:

 

 

The Tenth Planet Episode 4, the holy grail, the one every wants

Mission To The Unknown

The Dalek Master Plan all remaining missing episodes

The Power Of The Daleks all 6 episodes

The Evil Of The Daleks all 6 missing episodes

The Moonbase 2 missing episodes

The Wheel In Space 4 missing episodes

[dbminter]

So, now we know.  All missing episodes of The Enemy Of The World and all but 1 missing episode of The Web Of Fear were the recovered ones.

 

 

While the recovery of any missing Doctor Who episodes is good news, I will admit I'm disappointed that nothing from my wish list above was found. 

[dbminter]

And now there's a rumor that there's one more missing episode recovered to be unveiled in mid November, in time for the 50th anniversary of the series premiere.

[Ch3vr0n]

You got any proof to those claims. I've got a rather complete collection dating right back to the first season in the 60s. I'd love to complete it.

[dbminter]

No proof at all.  Just a post on Kasterborous.com.  That's the nature of the beast.  There was no proof that The Enemy Of The World and The Web Of Fear had been recovered, but lots of missing episodes recovered rumors.

 

 

http://www.kasterborous.com/2013/10/another-missing-doctor-episode-due-unveiled/

 

 

Apparently, the current buzzing rumors center around Marco Polo.  Of course, the past rumors claimed all 106 missing episodes had been recovered from Nigeria, including one episode, The Feast Of Steven, that was never offered for overseas sales. 

[dbminter]

Found one more link:

 

 

http://doctorwhoarchive.com/2013/10/28/latest-missing-episodes-rumours/

 

 

This seems to be more of a wishful thinking post than actual facts, though.  Mostly a collection of unsubstantiated rumors.  I'd not heard them before.

[dbminter]

The latest update on the Doctor Who Archive is that the Dalek Master Plan was found.  This is just wishful thinking, though, because they say The Feast Of Steven was recovered.  This is impossible as this episode was never copied to film or tape before the master copy was wiped.  It was never offered to Australia, the only country that ever received copies of the serial, and that was viewing copies, the fate of which is unknown.

 

 

Macro Polo returning, though, has a higher likelihood.  That story was included in the original rumors that claimed that Enemy Of The World and The Web Of Fear had been recovered.  So, it seems if any recovered episodes remain, they would be from Marco Polo.

[dbminter]

The latest batch of recovered episodes rumors is now centered on The Wheel In Space, it seems.

 

 

Of course, some of these same rumors claim that Web Of Fear episode 3 is found, 4 episodes of The Dalek Master Plan, Marco Polo, and The Tenth Planet episode 4 have all been recovered.

[dbminter]

Now the Marco Polo rumor takes an interesting and unexpected turn.

 

 

The current scuttlebutt is that silent film copies exist of the episodes.  Someone recorded them with a camera, apparently, as the episodes aired live during their one and only transmission.  To make matters worse, the surviving recorded soundtracks are apparently incomplete, with gaps in the audio.  So, matching them up with these kinetoscope copies would cause issues.