FAQ Section 3
The Lost "Doctor Who" Episodes
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FAQ Item 3.1 - What are the "missing episodes" or "lost episodes"?
During the early seventies many Doctor Who stories were destroyed by
the BBC, along with vast amounts of other material kept by the BBC, in
order to cut costs in storage. This was in the age before home video,
when the material appeared useless due to the limitations on televised
repeats in Britain.
Many of the lost episodes are of the later William Hartnell and much
from the Patrick Troughton era. 109 episodes are still missing.
There are also audios of the shows made by fans which are of varying
quality. The BBC has copies of these.
In addition to the lost Hartnell and Troughton episodes, some Pertwee
episodes exist only in black and white versions. Recently, several
episodes from "The Silurians", "Terror of the Autons", "The Daemons"
and "The Ambassadors of Death" have had their color restored using
low-quality color video tapes recorded in the U.S.
A complete list of the Missing Doctor Who episodes appears below:
Episode Title Parts Missing Author Story Code
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Marco Polo all John Lucarotti D
The Reign of Terror 4-5 Dennis Spooner H
The Crusades 2,4 David Whitaker P
Galaxy Four all William Emms T
Mission to the Unknown all Terry nation T/A
The Myth Makers all Donald Cotton U
The Dalek Masterplan 1-4,6-9,11-12 Nation & Spooner V
The Massacre all John Lucarotti W
The Celestial Toymaker 1-3 Brian Hayles Y
The Savages all Ian Stuart Black AA
The Smugglers all Brian Hayles CC
The Tenth Planet 4 Kit Pedler DD
Power of the Daleks all David Whitaker EE
The Highlanders all Gerry Davis FF
& Elwyn Jones
The Underwater Menace 1,2,4 Geoffrey Orme GG
The Moonbase 1,3 Kit Pedler HH
The Macra Terror all Ian Stuart Black JJ
The Faceless Ones 2,4-6 David Ellis KK
& Malcolm Hulke
Evil of the Daleks 1,3-7 David Whitaker LL
The Abominable Snowmen 1,3-6 Mervyn Haisman MM
& Henry Lincoln
The Ice Warriors 2,3 Brian Hayles OO
The Enemy of the World 1,2,4-6 David Whitaker PP
The Web of Fear 2-6 Mervyn Haisman QQ
& Henry Lincoln
Fury From The Deep all Victor Pemberton RR
The Wheel in Space 1,2,4,5 David Whitaker SS
The Invasion 1,4 Derrick Sherwin VV
The Space Pirates 1,3-6 Robert Holmes YY
Further information about missing episodes and transcripts for some
of them can be found at various web sites, including
http://freespace.virgin.net/dominic.jackson/coi/audio-video-faq.html
http://www.mcs.dundee.ac.uk:8080/~ggreig/Dr_Who/MissingEps.html
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Union/BTS/Scripts/intro.html
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FAQ Item 3.2 - I know something about missing episodes. What do I do?
Here's the name and address of who to contact with missing episode
information:
Christine Slattery,
Television Archivist,
BBC Film and Videotape Library,
Reynard Mills Industrial Estate,
Windmill Road,
Brentford,
Middlesex,
England TW8 9NF
Tel: 0181-567 6655
Reports on whether the supplier of these lost episodes will be reimbursed
have varied from source to source. The most substantial report I have
received so far has been:
"There is an amnesty, and no questions at all will be asked if private
collectors do have some of the missing episodes; all the BBC wants to do
is to copy the film print (or whatever), the original being retained by
the donor. "
(Thanks to Steve Roberts,
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/steveroberts/restorat.htm)
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FAQ Item 3.3 - What are the "missing novelizations"?
W.H. Allen and Target Books, between the years 1973 and 1991, published
a set of novelizations for just about every Doctor Who story ever produced.
155 in number, they span the Doctor Who era from "An Unearthly Child" all the
way to "Survival", some greatly expanded on the original stories, others
basically verbatim transcripts.
A few serials, however, have never been novelized. They include Douglas
Adams' "The Pirate Planet", "City of Death" and "Shada" and Eric Saward's
"Resurrection of the Daleks" and "Revelation of the Daleks".
In the case of the Adams' serials, he has refused to novelize his stories
because a writer of his caliber would never stoop to churning out a novelization
for a low fee. Furthermore, several plot elements from "City of Death"
and "Shada" were reused in Adams' two Dirk Gently novels.
The Dalek episodes never reached print because of royalties disputes between
Terry Nation, the original creator of the Daleks, and Eric Saward, who penned
many of the later Dalek serials and deviated greatly from Nation's original
concept of the Daleks.
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FAQ Item 3.4 - What are these Missing Episodes that I see in bookstores?
To further confuse the issue, during season 22, the show was temporarily
pulled off the air and the stories that were planned for season 23 were
shelved and never filmed. There are novelizations of 3 of the stories
that were intended for that season.
The stories and the novelizations are as follows -
Title Author ISBN #
The Nightmare Fair Graham Williams 0 426 20334 8
Mission to Magnus Philip Martin 0 426 20347 X
The Ultimate Evil Wally K. Daly 0 426 20338 0
Eric Saward was also supposed to novelize Robert Holmes' planned "Yellow
Fever". Like his two forthcoming Dalek novelizations, however, it is
uncertain when or if this will see the light of day.
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FAQ Item 3.5 - What is Shada?
Shada was the name of a six part story, which would have been the last
one of the 1979 season. The story was scripted by Douglas Adams and
many scenes were shot on location in Cambridge England. However during
production, a strike by television personnel at the BBC prevented
the completion of the show. While large amounts of filming were
complete, various aspects such as special effects and large parts of studio
filming were not completed. This particular show was then considered
dead in the water. Interest in Shada did not let up, and various
attempts to save the story were made. Finally, in 1992 the BBC released
the extant material for "Shada" on videotape, with new special effects
added and Tom Baker providing the links for missing material.
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