Missing Episodes - History, Returns and Rumours of Returns

Today the BBC have released their Regenerations boxset which contains an animation of the infamous missing Doctor Who episode Tenth Planet 4, the last episode to feature William Hartnell as the First Doctor. Over the years this episode has been subject to more rumours than any other missing episode of Doctor Who. All that survives is a clip used on Blue Peter, some footage filmed off an Australian Broadcast on a cine camera, the Soundtrack and a number of Telesnap photos.

Over the last week Bleeding Cool.com, a comics and film/tv News/Rumour site, has run a number of stories about a possible return of some of Doctor Who's missing episodes:

Will Doctor Who Have A Very Special Surprise For Us In November?
Reaction To Those Doctor Who Lost Episode Rumours
More On Those Missing Doctor Who Episodes... Or Less
The Doctor Who Missing Episodes Rumour Gains A Little More Weight. Three Tons Worth.
BBC Officially Responds To Bleeding Cool Over Doctor Who Rumours (UPDATE)
Will A Missing Episode Teaser Appear On The Doctor Who: The Terror Of The Zygons DVD?

Some of the claims made here are waaaay beyond my ability to believe so I thought we'd have a closer look at the missing episodes. Much of the data I use here is sourced from Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes by Richard Molesworth from Telos books. If you have the remotest interest in this subject then buy this book. Any errors in the data within this article are mine!

We covered the story of the missing episodes on the Blog before when we looked at Marco Polo, the first missing story:

014 Marco Polo Part 1: The Roof of the World - Videotape
015 Marco Polo Part 2: The Singing Sands - Film & Selling Abroad
016 Marco Polo Part 3: Five Hundred Eyes - Ian Levine, The Film & Video Library & BBC Enterprises Film Store
017 Marco Polo Part 4: The Wall of Lies - John Cura's Telesnap Photos
018 Marco Polo Part 5: Rider from Shang-Tu - Tape Recording
019 Marco Polo Part 6: Mighty Kublai Khan - Reconstructions
020 Marco Polo Part 7: Assassin At Peking - Is that it?

Basically the BBC junked the expensive bulky videotapes of the original recording of Doctor Who during the 1970s on the grounds that they were of no further use once overseas sales options had finished. Any copies retained were on film, used for overseas sales. However the film prints too were being disposed of at the point the figure of Ian Levine enters the story, wanting to buy old Doctor Who film prints and effectively setting in motion the events that put a stop to the disposal of episodes. We owe Ian a great debt for this.

This is the current state of the BBC archives for the Black & White episodes which cover all the stories broadcast for the first Two Doctors William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton.

SEASON 1 1963-1964	EPISODES (STORIES Stories)	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
An Unearthly Child	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Daleks	7	1,2,3,4,5,6,7	-	7	0	COMPLETE
The Edge of Destruction	2	1,2	-	2	0	COMPLETE
Marco Polo	7	-	1,2,3,4,5,6,7	0	7	MISSING
The Keys of Marinus	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Aztecs	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Sensorites	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Reign of Terror	6	1,2,3,6	4,5	4	2	PARTIAL
SEASON 1 TOTAL	42 (8 Stories)			33	9
SEASON 2 1964-1965	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
Planet of Giants	3	1,2,3	-	3	0	COMPLETE
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Rescue	2	1,2	-	2	0	COMPLETE
The Romans	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Web Planet	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Crusade	4	1,3	2,4	2	2	PARTIAL
The Space Museum	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Chase	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Time Meddler	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 2 TOTAL	39 (9 Stories)			37	2
SEASON 3 1965-1966	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
Galaxy 4	4	3	1,2,4	1	3	PARTIAL
Mission to the Unknown	1	-	1	0	1	MISSING
The Myth Makers	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Daleks' Master Plan	12	2,5,10	1,3,4,6,7, 8,9,11,12	3	9	PARTIAL
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Ark	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Celestial Toymaker	4	4	1,2,3	1	3	PARTIAL
The Gunfighters	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Savages	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The War Machines	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 3 TOTAL	45 (10 Stories)			17	28
SEASON 4 1966-1967	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Smugglers	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Tenth Planet	4	1,2,3	4	3	1	PARTIAL
The Power of the Daleks	6	-	1,2,3,4,5,6	0	6	MISSING
The Highlanders	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Underwater Menace	4	2,3	1,4	2	2	PARTIAL
The Moonbase	4	2,4	1,3	2	2	PARTIAL
The Macra Terror	4	-	1,2,3,4	0	4	MISSING
The Faceless Ones	6	1,3	2,4,5,6	2	4	PARTIAL
The Evil of the Daleks	7	2	1,3,4,5,6,7	1	6	PARTIAL
SEASON 4 TOTAL	43 (9 Stories)			10	33
SEASON 5 1967-1968	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Tomb of the Cybermen	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Abominable Snowmen	6	2	1,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The Ice Warriors	6	1,4,5,6	2,3	4	2	PARTIAL
The Enemy of the World	6	3	1,2,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The Web of Fear	6	1	2,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
Fury from the Deep	6	-	1,2,3,4,5,6	0	6	MISSING
The Wheel in Space	6	3,6	1,2,4,5	2	4	PARTIAL
SEASON 5 TOTAL	40 (7 Stories)			13	27
SEASON 6 1968-1969	EPISODES	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	IN ARCHIVE	MISSING	STATUS
The Dominators	5	1,2,3,4,5	-	5	0	COMPLETE
The Mind Robber	5	1,2,3,4,5	-	5	0	COMPLETE
The Invasion	8	2,3,5,6,7,8	1,4	6	2	PARTIAL
The Krotons	4	1,2,3,4	-	4	0	COMPLETE
The Seeds of Death	6	1,2,3,4,5,6	-	6	0	COMPLETE
The Space Pirates	6	2	1,3,4,5,6	1	5	PARTIAL
The War Games	10	1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,10	-	10	0	COMPLETE
SEASON 6 TOTAL	44 (7 Stories)			37	7
TOTAL	253 (50 Stories)			147	106

However this wasn't the state of affairs as Ian found it when he first tried to buy episodes of Doctor Who. The BBC's Film and Video library had just 47 episodes from this period in it, all on film. That left 206 missing episodes of Doctor Who from the first 6 years of the show.

It should be noted that the BBC's paperwork at the time showed that Film & Video library held *48* episodes of Doctor Who. One was missing: Dalek Masterplan 4 - The Traitors, which had been borrowed by Blue Peter and never returned. Over the years this story has mutated to read that Blue Peter had lost Tenth Planet part 4, hence why the Film & Video Library only had copies of episodes 1-3. To this day it's uncertain why the Film & Video Library only hold the first three episodes. Blue Peter borrowed Tenth Planet 4 from BBC Enterprises and are presumed to have returned it there.

A large of complete stories were found in the possession of the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Enterprises, which included some episodes already in the Film & Video library. The BFI was also found to be holding the complete prints of 3 Troughton stories/21 episodes which they then returned to the BBC. This again includes episodes already in the BBC Film & Video library and is also the largest find of missing episodes outside of the BBC itself. Put these together and you have 116 episodes with 137 still missing.

A further 31 episodes have been found since then:

7 episodes The Web of Fear 1, Ice Warriors 1 & 4-6 and Dalek Masterplan 5 & 10 have been found on premises owned by or formerly owned by the BBC. It's worth mentioning this as the BBC are in the process of leaving Television Centre!

14 episodes have been returned from overseas broadcasters: In 1984 Reign of Terror episodes 1-3 were returned from Cyprus while the missing 3 episodes of the Time Meddler & War Machines were returned in 1985 from Nigeria, a single episode of the Celestial Toymaker from the ABC (episode 4: they'd been sent it in error by a broadcaster in Singapore!) and all 4 episodes of the Tomb of the Cybermen from Hong Kong. The last of these finds was in 1992. Both the Cyprus and Nigeria returns consist of more episodes than were missing. The return from Cyprus also included Aztecs 1, 3 & 4, all six episodes of the Sensorites plus a duplicate of Reign of Terror 6: Reign 4 & 5 & Axtecs 2 were destroyed in the Greek Invasion of the Island. The Nigeria return was 14 episodes not just the 6 listed above: the BBC already had all 6 parts of the Web Planet plus 1 part of the War Machines and Time Meddler. That represents the largest find to date outside of the BBC and the BFI. With the exception of the lone Celestial Toymaker episode and the incomplete but explainable Reign of Terror, the overseas finds from TV stations all represent complete stories. Cyprus & Nigeria also demonstrate that multiple complete serials can be returned at once.

10 episodes have been returned from private collectors. These are all prints that have somehow walked out of the BBC or another broadcaster at some point and which were believed destroyed: Reign of Terror 6, The Crusade 1 (New Zealand), Galaxy Four 3, Dalek Masterplan 2, The War Machines 2 (Australia, the very first returned missing episode), The Underwater Menace 2, The Faceless Ones 3, Evil of the Daleks 2, The Abominable Snowmen 2 and Wheel in Space 3. This is a wide spread of episodes from the 1st to the 5th season. A print of the Dominators 5 has been found in private hands and Invasion of the Dinosaurs 1, one of the only missing Pertwee episodes also came from a private source. So the spread of episodes out there is wide. But to date no complete story has been returned from a private source: They all have come back from television stations.

This table lays out the origins of all the episodes currently held by the BBC. Note some duplication and multiple copies of some episodes!

Season 1: 1963-1964	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
An Unearthly Child	4	1,2,3,4	1,2,3,4
The Daleks	7		1,2,3,4,5,6,7
The Edge of Destruction	2		1,2
Marco Polo	7
The Keys of Marinus	6	5	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Aztecs	4		1,2,3,4
The Sensorites	6		1,2,3,4,5,6
The Reign of Terror	6				6 (1982), 3 (1985)		1,2,3 (1984, Cyprus)
Season 2: 1964-1965	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
Planet of Giants	3		1,2,3
The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6	5	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Rescue	2		1,2
The Romans	4	1,3	1,2,3,4
The Web Planet	6	2	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Crusade	4	3			1 (1999, NZ)
The Space Museum	4	3	1,2,3,4
The Chase	6		1,2,3,4,5,6
The Time Meddler	4	2					1,3,4 (1985, Nigeria)
Season 3: 1965-1966	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
Galaxy 4	4				3 (2011)
Mission to the Unknown	1
The Myth Makers	4
The Daleks' Master Plan	12				2 (2004)	5 & 10 (1983)
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	4
The Ark	4	3	1,2,3,4
The Celestial Toymaker	4						4 (1984, Australia)
The Gunfighters	4	4	1,2,3,4
The Savages	4
The War Machines	4				2 (1978) Australia 1,3 (1992)		1,3,4 (1985, Nigeria)
Season 4: 1966-1967	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Smugglers	4
The Tenth Planet	4	1, 2, 3
The Power of the Daleks	6
The Highlanders	4
The Underwater Menace	4	3			2 (2011)
The Moonbase	4	2,4
The Macra Terror	4
The Faceless Ones	6	1			3 (1987)
The Evil of the Daleks	7				2 (1987)
Season 5: 1967-1968	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Tomb of the Cybermen	4						1,2,3,4 (1992, Hong Kong)
The Abominable Snowmen	6				2 (1981)
The Ice Warriors	6					1,4,5,6 (1988)
The Enemy of the World	6	3
The Web of Fear	6					1 (1978)
Fury from the Deep	6
The Wheel in Space	6	6			3 (1984)
Season 6: 1968-1969	EPISODES	Film Archive	BBC E	BFI	Private	BBC	Abroad
The Dominators	5	1,2,4,5		1,2,3,4,5
The Mind Robber	5	5	1,2,3,4,5
The Invasion	8	2,3,5,6,7,8
The Krotons	4	1,2,3		1,2,3,4
The Seeds of Death	6	1,2,4,5,6	1,2,3,4,5,6
The Space Pirates	6	2
The War Games	10	2,5,8,9		1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,10

This then leaves the following 106 Doctor Who episodes as missing from the archives:

Season 1: 1963-1964	9 Episodes of 42
Marco Polo	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
The Reign of Terror	4, 5
Season 2: 1964-1965	2 Episodes of 39
The Crusade	2, 4
Season 3: 1965-1966	28 Episodes of 45
Galaxy 4	1, 2, 4
Mission to the Unknown	1
The Myth Makers	1, 2, 3, 4
The Daleks' Master Plan	1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12
The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	1, 2, 3, 4
The Celestial Toymaker	1, 2, 3
The Savages	1, 2, 3, 4
Season 4: 1966-1967	33 Episodes of 43
The Smugglers	1, 2, 3, 4
The Tenth Planet	1
The Power of the Daleks	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Highlanders	1, 2, 3, 4
The Underwater Menace	1, 4
The Moonbase	1, 3
The Macra Terror	1, 2, 3, 4
The Faceless Ones	2, 4, 5, 6
The Evil of the Daleks	1, 3, 4, 5, 67
Season 5: 1967-1968	27 Episodes of 40
The Abominable Snowmen	1, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Ice Warriors	2, 3
The Enemy of the World	1, 2, 4, 5, 6
The Web of Fear	2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Fury from the Deep	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Wheel in Space	1, 2, 4, 5
Season 6: 1968-1969	7 Episodes of 44
The Invasion	1, 4
The Space Pirates	1, 3, 4, 5, 6

So how does this help us with rumours of missing episodes?

Well as far as single episodes go I'll potentially believe that anything is possible! The only exception here is Dalek Masterplan 7: The Feast of Steven which was never telerecorded. I think we can safely say that's gone for good. Next down the likelihood scale is an episode of Dalek Masterplan/Mission to the Unknown turning up: only one set of prints is known to have been made of these 12 episodes and that story was rejected by the censors in Australia, the only country to ever try to buy them. And yet THREE episodes of this serial are in the archives, all of which were found on BBC or "removed for safe keeping"

But if you're looking for a complete story to come back that's probably going to involve a set of prints recovered from a TV station abroad. Paperwork reveals the fate of *most* of the prints of Doctor Who episodes the BBC sold abroad and nearly all the time they were either destroyed by the overseas broadcaster on the BBC's instructions or returned to the BBC themselves.

Another element that effects overseas sales is that not every country bought every story. In general Hartnell's first two seasons were sold more widely that the rest. So while Marco Polo was sold to (deep breath) Australia, Canada, Malta, Singapore, Gibraltar, Aden, Trinidad & Tobago, Nigeria, Rhodesia, Barbados, Hong Kong, Uganda, New Zealand, Ghana, Zambia, Jamaica, Cyprus, Kenya, Bermuda, Thailand, Mauritus, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Iran and Ethiopia (phew) Power of the Daleks was sold to just Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and we know that New Zealand sent their copy on to Singapore reducing the number of known film prints of this story to just two. As we've seen above NOBODY bought the Dalek Masterplan, although copies were in Australia and got rejected by their censors so we can assume that the prints that survive today are the same ones returned to the BBC. So logically the chances of a print of an episode of Marco Polo surviving are far greater than finding a print of an episode of the Dalek Masterplan ........ and yet we still have 3 episodes of Dalek Masterplan and nothing of Marco Polo!

A set of prints of missing Series 3 Hartnell stories - Galaxy Four, the Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, The Savages and S5's The Smugglers survived in Sierra Leone till as recently as 1999 when they were destroyed in shelling in that country's civil war.

But there are a number of prints of episodes who's fate is unknown. Here's a list of the stories, which episodes are missing and which country bought them and hasn't been able to account for their fate:

FIRST DOCTOR
Marco Polo	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Ethiopia Jamaica Malta Thailand Mauritus
The Reign of Terror	4, 5	Gibraltar Ethiopia Jamaica Malta Thailand Aden Trinidad & Tobago Rhodesia
The Crusade	2, 4	Gibraltar Ethiopia Jamaica
SECOND DOCTOR
The Abominable Snowmen	1, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Ice Warriors	2, 3	Gibraltar
The Enemy of the World	1, 2, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Web of Fear	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar Nigeria
Fury from the Deep	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar
The Wheel in Space	1, 2, 4, 5	Gibraltar Nigeria
The Invasion	1, 4	Gibraltar
The Space Pirates	1, 3, 4, 5, 6	Gibraltar

Note the presence of several African nations on that list. See this map by the Wonderful Books people for more details of what was sold where.

I think that list above is a crucial one as it highlights what's possibly still sitting in TV company vaults somewhere and if someone suggested a complete story had been returned to the BBC one of the first things I'd do would be to check the name on that list to see if it was possible.

So if someone said to me, as an early version of the current round of rumours stated, "Power of the Daleks has been returned" I'd say "Only three countries bought it: Australia sent theirs back to the BBC and confirm they no longer have it. New Zealand sent theirs to Singapore and both no longer have it. Nobody who bought it doesn't know where their prints went". Sad but true. I'd love to see Power of the Daleks.

One the other hand if, as the most common variant of the recent rumour says, "The BBC have found copies of Marco Polo, Enemy of the World and Web of Fear" I look at the list above and think, "yeah that's plausible", especially as rumours of a package of films from Nigeria have been doing the rounds of Doctor Who fans, with some evidence, for the last few years.

However if someone says "NINETY missing episodes of Doctor Who have been found!" (the largest version of the recent rumour) I'm very sceptial! The above list accounts for 45 episodes total. So we're talking about ALL the episodes on that list PLUS another 45 episodes that someone has declared as destroyed. That's an awful lot of wrong paperwork!

The current rumours then: Wait and see. I'm erring on the side of it having being massively exaggerated but there being a kernel of truth in there somewhere so it wouldn't surprise me if something was unveiled for the 50th anniversary in November. The retrieval of one of the two Yeti/Great Intelligence stories (see above) would tie in nicely with the main villain for the last season of new Doctor Who though!