From Out of The Past: Nine Missing Late 60s Doctor Who Episodes Released

Well, it’s official: the BBC has announced that they have recovered nine episodes of Doctor Who from the run of Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor. Which means that I will only need to spend a full day watching British children’s television to bring myself up to speed… but since the episodes have been released only via iTunes, it will mean that I will finally be forced to give Apple my real name. Or wait something like 24 hours for the episodes to be released to Bittorrent. Jesus, did I say that out loud? Either way, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The episodes are from the 1967 story arc The Enemy of The World and the 1968 arc The Web of Fear, which is the first story to feature The Great Intelligence…

Hey Amanda? What’s The Great Intelligence?

Well Rob, he’s the guy with the evil snowmen. The one that was voiced by Magneto in that Christmas special. And I think he was the leader of The Whisper Men in that Name of The Doctor episode.

Were those the ones that ripped off The Gentlemen from Buffy? I don’t remember that one all that well. I was pretty shitfaced when we watched that.

You mean as opposed to now?

…don’t give me static. I’m doing journalism! Or at least blogging. It’s like journalism, only you can go off on ridiculous tangents, and no one cares if you do it in your underpants!

Anyway.

Apparently the episodes were found in some Nigerian television station’s storeroom, tracked down via shipping manifests from when the BBC was selling the show to other countries for syndication. The tapes or films or whatever were in good enough shape to get them remastered… although these stories aren’t a clean recovery sweep. Apparently the third of four episodes of The Web of Fear remains lost, and is only available as a series of production stills with the soundtrack attached (I haven’t seen any of them yet, so I can’t address how this looks or plays).

All of the episodes are supposedly available now on iTunes… although I just browsed the iTunes Web site and couldn’t find them. With that said, I don’t have an iTunes account and I’m writing this on an Android tablet, so your mileage may vary. However, if you’re an Apple hater like me, The Enemy of The World will be available for pre-order on DVD from the BBC to be released in November, with The Web of Fear available sometime next year. Or there’s always Bittorrent.

That’s nine down, 97 more to go…

(via Bleeding Cool)