{{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.}}<\/p>\n
The black and white story sees Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor battle robot yeti in the London Underground.<\/p>\n
Also recovered is a complete version of Troughton’s six-part story The Enemy of the World.<\/p>\n
It is thought to be the largest haul of missing episodes recovered in the last three decades.<\/p>\n
“It’s thrilling,” said Mark Gatiss, an actor and writer for the 21st Century incarnation of Doctor Who.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
The BBC destroyed many of the sci-fi drama’s original transmission tapes in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In this case, 11 Doctor Who episodes were discovered, nine of which were missing, in the Nigerian city of Jos.<\/p>\n
The find was made by Philip Morris, director of a company called Television International Enterprises Archive.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The latest find means that the number of missing episodes of Doctor Who has dropped from 106 to 97.<\/p>\n
Former Doctor Who actors Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines told Lizo Mzimba they were “thrilled” with the discovery<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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