Official: Two Missing Doctor Who Episodes Recovered, Coming to iPlayer This Easter
The BBC have confirmed two long-missing episodes of classic Doctor Who have been rediscovered in a private film collection, marking the first recovery of lost episodes since 2013!
The episodes, The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, originally aired in November 1965 as part of the epic 12-part serial The Daleks’ Master Plan.
The story stars the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell, alongside companion Steven Taylor, portrayed by Peter Purves.
The reels were uncovered inside a cardboard box within an amateur collector’s “ramshackle” archive of vintage films. The collection, which also included hundreds of home movies, was donated after the collector’s death to the Leicester-based charity Film is Fabulous!, whose volunteers discovered the rare material while cataloguing the archive.
The find is especially significant because The Daleks’ Master Plan was never sold overseas, meaning the episodes were long assumed to be completely lost. More than half of the serial is still missing, although episode three, Day of Armageddon, resurfaced in 2004.
Written by Dalek creator Terry Nation, the serial also featured early appearances from Nicholas Courtney as Bret Vyon, who later became famous as the Brigadier.
The newly restored Doctor Who episodes will be released on BBC iPlayer at Easter, with a special screening planned in London on 4 April.
