{{Nine missing episodes of 1960s Doctor Who have been found at a TV station in Nigeria, including most of the classic story The Web of Fear.}}
The black and white story sees Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor battle robot yeti in the London Underground.
Also recovered is a complete version of Troughton’s six-part story The Enemy of the World.
It is thought to be the largest haul of missing episodes recovered in the last three decades.
“It’s thrilling,” said Mark Gatiss, an actor and writer for the 21st Century incarnation of Doctor Who.
“Every single avenue seemed to have been exhausted, every now and then something turns up – but to have two virtually complete stories out of the blue is absolutely incredible.”
The BBC destroyed many of the sci-fi drama’s original transmission tapes in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, many episodes were transferred on to film for sale to foreign broadcasters. It is often these prints found in other countries that are the source of retrieved episodes.
In this case, 11 Doctor Who episodes were discovered, nine of which were missing, in the Nigerian city of Jos.
The find was made by Philip Morris, director of a company called Television International Enterprises Archive.
Mr Morris said: “The tapes had been left gathering dust in a storeroom at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words, Doctor Who. When I read the story code I realised I’d found something pretty special.”
He said it had been a “lucky” find given the high temperatures in the African country. “Fortunately they had been kept in the optimum condition.”
Only episode three of The Enemy of the World already existed in the BBC archive. The Nigerian discovery of episodes one, two, four, five and six complete the story.
Episode one of fan favourite The Web of Fear existed, with the rest thought lost forever. Now episodes two, four, five and six have been recovered.
Episode three is still missing, but has been reconstructed from stills to enable restored versions of both stories to be made available for sale via download on Friday.
The latest find means that the number of missing episodes of Doctor Who has dropped from 106 to 97.
Former Doctor Who actors Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines told Lizo Mzimba they were “thrilled” with the discovery
BBC
Leave a Reply