How Doctor Who's Missing Episodes Came Back [Part 1]

0:00 part of the magic of missing episodes is that you expect they're gone forever but sometimes if we're lucky and wish really hard they come back many dot two episodes like many television programs and films from the last century are lost to time and in 1978 the state of the doctor who archive was in a sorry affair 206 episodes of 1960s doctor who and 59 john purpose went missing and thought to be lost forever why did the bbc junk their own material and how did we go from 265 missing episodes to only 97 the doctor who episodes you

0:45 have in your collection today are really half as interesting as the stories of how they ended up there this is the story of how the missing episodes came back [Music] the first question people ask when they discover the reality of missing episodes is why would the bbc junk their own history the answer is complicated the history of lost media has a recurring theme mistakes assumptions and errors where doctor who was filmed it was generally made on videotape this videotape would then be tele-recorded telerecording in the most

1:32 easiest way to explain it is when a 16-millimeter film camera records the screen of the videotape playback therefore a copy is made but this copy is on film rather than videotape this would also be copied so that it could be sold internationally the videotape version would be archived for a certain period of time until it was white and reused this was because videotape was expensive and it made sense to reuse such a valuable source when these videotapes were white it was generally assumed that a 16 millimeter film copy would be kept the international 16 millimeter versions could be used by the country until they rebroadcast rights expired at this point they are instructed to either a return

2:19 to the bbc b send it to another country or c junk the episodes themselves so let's say an episode made its way back to the bbc it would face two similar options either it would be jumped or it would be kept many of these copies found their way into the incinerator or into a dumpster out back or if they are incredibly lucky they survived by sheer luck nowadays the idea of junking episodes of a popular television program sounds insane but during the 1960s reruns and home media weren't a priority like they are nowadays the bbc weren't required to retain any of these episodes and there was pressure to keep the costs

3:05 down by wiping and reusing videotape with the 16 millimeter film copies once the rights to sell these episodes overseas expired they were withdrawn de-assessioned and junked i want to make it clear then i'm here to make it clear the junking of doctor who was not an evil plot by the bbc or a targeted attack against the show it was simply routine lost media exists all over the world and in different ways still happens to this very day so how did the junking stop in the early 70s the bbc were aware that their archive wasn't in a good state it wasn't just an internal secret either

3:51 the public were also aware in an interview in november 1975 anne hanford the head of the bbc film library said the bbc neither needs nor can afford to preserve a copy of every videotape or film it transmits it was becoming clear that something needed to change but how that change would manifest was a whole new question [Music] the bbc decided to create a new position an archive selector their job would be to stop the junkings and ensure that future productions were retained sue molden who had been working in the archive at the time was appointed this role she would be the ideal candidate because

4:37 she saw firsthand how poorly the current archiving policies were and could make real systemic change when she had inspected the archive and got the new systems in order she decided to look back on the archive and discover how certain programs were lost to time and how they can learn from that and possibly fill in some of the gaps thankfully for doctor who fans she chose doctor who as her pet project imagine if your entire 1960s doctor who collection looked like this when sue morden originally looked at the bbc's film and videotape library the only full cereal from doctor who in the 1960s was an unearthly child and that was it of course there are a bunch of

5:23 individual episodes and standalone episodes but the only full complete story was this one before we continue i want to mention that paperwork can sometimes have errors sometimes episodes are marked junked when they weren't and went walkies so please keep this in mind for the future it will never be a hundred percent accurate due to human error in the documentation when sue inspected the list the first thing that stood out to her was the gaps she said it was then that i learned about the rights that the bbc's deal with equity allowed one showing and one repeat within two years for nearly all of its programs and after that you junk it this is especially important when we move on to the third doctor's stories

6:09 now if you're a john purby fan your collection would look a bit like this which is a lot healthier than the hartnell and trouton eras but why does john pertwee have more surviving episodes than the first two doctors most of the transmission videotapes that were retained from pertwee's final two seasons would have been coming up to their two-year wiping date only 59 episodes out of the 128 remains in the archive spearhead from space was captured on 16 millimeter film and therefore was retained because you can't wipe and reuse film like you can with videotape now that the bbc's film and television library had been searched where could more episodes be

6:56 ian levine had been a fan of doctor who since he was 10 years old he built up his career in the music industry but also kept a close relationship with doctor who when he assisted with the making of the who's doctor who documentary he first encountered the sad fate of the doctor who archive he met an individual from bbc enterprises the commercial firm of the bbc in 1977 and expressed his interest in purchasing old episodes of doctor who he found many roadblocks when attempting to purchase episodes from the 1960s due to rights agreements with the writers guild and equity a union protecting the rights of actors eventually he negotiated special agreements with both companies and got permission to start buying

7:41 episodes for private use for 200 pounds each during the production of who's doctor who a list was drawn up with what episodes existed at bbc enterprises film store at villia's house this was a separate archive that primarily handled international sales of bbc material let's say for example if australia wanted to purchase marco polo they would have got their copies from here ian was allowed to view each episode held by the film and videotape library and noticed that many episodes were listed from the documentary that weren't present there he knew that these episodes were at villia's house and requested to inspect the archive and this is where everything changed when he inspected the film store at philia's

8:28 house he recovered 56 previously missing episodes and 125 copies of existing episodes at this point your collection should start to look like this this means that seasons one two and six are almost complete with a bunch of random orphan episodes in between and also just one second oh my god it also means that you've got basically all of the purpley episodes except for invasion of dinosaurs episode one and death to the daleks episode one as well but some of these john pertwee episodes don't exist in their original color and only in black and white but either way it's looking a lot more impressive so

9:14 what is villia's house bbc enterprises is the commercial division of the bbc they're in charge of merchandising licensing and international sales of their programs villius house was one of the storage archives for the film prints that would be sent to other countries for broadcast when ian levine explored the documents at vilia's house he was able to determine that up until january 1972 they had retained a 16 millimeter copy of every episode of doctor who from an unearthly child up until the demons except the feast of stephen unfortunately in early 1972 this is when they began to start junking episodes the reason why the feast of steven didn't have a 16 millimeter copy was because it wasn't offered for

10:00 international sale this could be because it was a christmas special and wouldn't arrive in other countries in time for the festive season the method of junking taken place at villa's house would be to take the can of film to the skip outside push out the center of the spool therefore the film would unravel making it next to impossible for people to steal bbc property unfortunately it makes it impossible for it to be recovered today the general rule of programs being junked is five years after its first broadcast this is when the riots were usually expired the rights could be renewed like many dot 2 episodes did such as the following listed on screen but oddly some were junked whilst they still had the rights to sell them so he was behind listing which episode

10:47 was to be junked the film recording clerk pamela nash [Music] before we discuss pamela nash she has been derided as the destroyer of doctor who's history when in fact the reason we have many episodes today is because of her she is the person behind making the 16 millimeter tele recordings of every episode and had no idea that she was holding on to the possible last remaining copies ever all of the 16 millimeter tele recording episodes that are in the archive today are there because she made them if it wasn't for pamela nash and the international sales we wouldn't have any of those episodes now onto the part where you completely

11:33 discard that and begin to hate her when ian levine went to vilia's house and inspected the archive he saw that all seven episodes of the daleks were scheduled to be junked panicked he tried to get in front of pamela nash who was the only person who could have stopped the junking pamela explained that she needed more space to store new programs and ian didn't like the sound of that very much levine believed that their argument would encourage her to junk the story faster and went to find sue molden according to ian sue was unaware of the doctor who prince at philia's house and she sent a holding order to nash to halt the junking therefore ian levine saved the daleks well kind of

12:19 [Applause] sue however recollects the story differently sue said that she found out about vilia's house before she even met ian levine her journey to vilia's house started when she contacted the bfi and discovered that they were holding onto three patrick trouten stories the dominators the crotons and the war games when she asked how they got hold of them the bfi explained a woman named enid mawson who worked at enterprises vilia's house sent it to the bfi to preserve sue then visited enid at philia's house to go through the archive to search for more missing episodes of doctor who she claims that she met ian levine during this time but she had already begun marking up

13:04 what enterprises had at the time she said that ian inspired her to look at what had been sold overseas therefore it was sue who saved doctor who well kind of [Applause] enid however recollects the story differently she said i'm at a loss as to why sue morden associated me with the doctor who films i have no memory of me personally having anything to do with sending material to the bfi therefore it was ian or sue well it definitely wasn't enid or was it i have no idea who saved doctor who sometimes their memory cheats and we will never know truly who found these episodes all we do know

13:50 is that all were involved in bringing back a part of doctor who's history accepting it properly [Music] by the end of 1978 the total of missing episodes stood at 139 now that the bbc's internal archive was set in stone it was time to explore external options who had copies of doctor who was it illegal to be holding on to this copyrighted material and most importantly can we get those episodes back thanks for watching this first part the main source of this series is the 2013 book white by richard molesworth i ordered it through telos publishing and it got here super quick and it is incredibly detailed and is essential to any missing episode

14:37 enthusiast full disclosure i'm not being paid to say this but they did send me a few free books don't forget to click below to subscribe to the official joshnez youtube channel