THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION:
Doctor Who was
produced between 1963 and 1989. Early in the history of the series, the
BBC (as well as other television companies) destroyed many of their television
series that they felt had run their course and would no longer generate
sales. The decision was made mainly for space and storage reasons.
At the time, no one realized the longevity of a show like Dr. Who, and so the
purges from the BBC Archive progressed from roughly 1972 through 1978. By
1978 a large portion of stories from the Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee eras
were wiped/destroyed.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE
THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!:
In 1978 the BBC began the process of trying to track
down and recover as many of these destroyed episodes as they could find.
And while great progress was made in finding copies and recordings of these
stories (the Pertwee era was completely recovered, albeit not all in its
original color format), there are still large gaps of missing episodes in Doctor
Who. Some seasons were hit very hard, with only a handful of extant
episodes and no complete stories. Seasons Three (Hartnell), Four (Troughton)
and Five (Troughton) were the worst hit. Seasons One (Hartnell),
Two (Hartnell) and Six (Troughton) have faired much better,
although there are still missing gaps. Recovery of missing episodes has
slowed down to a trickle in the past decade. The most recent recovery
being part one from The Crusade.
DID YOU HEAR THAT?!!
Currently, there are 109 episodes of Doctor Who that
are not held in the BBC's Archives. These episodes would be lost forever
if not for the foresight and dedication of a handful of fans. While video
recorders were still a decade or more away at that time, audio recording devices
were available. Many fans, not knowing that the BBC would eventually
destroy these stories, began making audio recordings of the episodes as they
were first being broadcast. Amazingly, many fans held onto these
recordings (and even tried giving them to the BBC during the 80's missing
episode hunt - though the BBC was only interested in video recordings of
episodes at that time). When using the recordings from several of these
sources, we now have audio recordings of every missing Doctor Who episode!
I'VE GOT SOME GOOD NEWS...
Several lower quality recordings had surfaced and
were passed among fans in the late 80's. By 1993, the BBC tried releasing
several of these audio recordings with narration by another actor who played
Doctor Who. The releases fizzled shortly thereafter. Then, by 1995, much improved recordings were brought
forward by several fans. These recordings were much clearer and easier to
understand. Again, these recordings made their rounds among fandom, and
then in 1999 the BBC released "The Massacre" as a test run to see if
audio recordings of missing episodes would sell well enough to justify further
releases. It did, and we are now well into a line of missing episode audio
recordings. Each story has linking narration by an actor from the episode
(so far, mainly companions) and is released in CD format.
...AND SOME BAD NEWS
While this is great news for U.K. fans, there is a
small hiccup for fans living outside the U.K. The audio recordings are
only distributed in the U.K, and so many fans won't find these CDs in their
local music store. Here in the U.S. there are several companies that
specialize in Doctor Who merchandise and import these audio CDs.
Additionally, the Internet makes it possible for fans to order these items from
the other side of the planet. I've provided some links to several U.K. and
U.S. sites that sell these CDs.
Robert Franks’ Doctor Who in the Archives
Lost and Found Episodes of Doctor Who