For decades, fans of classic Doctor Who believed that certain episodes from the show’s early run were gone forever—thanks to the BBC’s former practice of “junking” its vintage programming. There have been some successful recovery efforts over the years, including revivals achieved with the help of animation, but a true triumph came earlier this year when two episodes from the 1965 arc “The Daleks’ Master Plan,” featuring William Hartnell as the First Doctor, came to light.
You can now watch both episodes on the Doctor Who: Classic YouTube channel. This discovery naturally sparked questions about whether or not more long-lost Doctor Who material might still be out there, especially since “The Daleks’ Master Plan” entries were discovered almost accidentally, buried in an extensive collection from a film and TV fan who’d recently passed away.
The head of Film Is Fabulous!, the group dedicated to preserving private collections filled with vintage TV and film treasures that discovered the Doctor Who episodes, recently offered an update for Doctor Who fans hungry for more.
As reported by the Radio Times, Film Is Fabulous! founder John Franklin spoke at a recent “Daleks’ Master Plan” screening in Manchester, England.
“At the moment, we categorically do not have any missing episodes of Doctor Who,” he clarified.
He emphasized just how much digging is involved in the process. “Taking a collection where there’s 16,000 films would currently take us two years to catalogue. I mean, it’s a lot of work,” he said, adding that it’s important that the process also respects the wishes of the collector.
However, he’s absolutely not ruling out the possibility of more Doctor Who discoveries in the future. “It’s my hope, my expectation, that we will be in a position soon to take some of those collections, to identify some of the missing items that those people have, to return them to the BBC.”
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