Read The Doctors Who's Who Online
Authors: Craig Cabell
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #General, #Performing Arts, #Television
WHAT FOLLOWS IS
a list of
Doctor Who
episodes missing from the BBC archives. The BBC has spent much time and trouble recovering old stories from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras, but many episodes are still missing, feared lost forever. If any film collector has
anything
they feel may be of value to the BBC, whether clips, whole episodes or complete stories, the BBC would dearly like to hear from you. The most recent discovery of ‘Enemy of the World’ and ‘The Web of Fear’ in a Nigerian TV station store room (as publicised across the media on 12 October 2013), is proof that the search for missing stories/episodes is not a futile one.
Note regarding the Missing Episodes Guide
: The number in parenthesis is the number of episodes for that story, which is then followed by the numbered episodes missing from that story. There are 97 episodes missing from the archive, which equates to 26 incomplete stories.
WILLIAM HARTNELL MISSING EPISODES:
‘Marco Polo’ (7) eps 1–7; ‘The Reign of Terror’ (6) eps 4 & 5; ‘The Crusade’ (4) eps 2 & 4; ‘Galaxy 4’ (4) eps 1, 2, 4; ‘Mission to the Unknown’ (1) (note: this story does not feature the Doctor) ep 1; ‘The Myth Makers’ (4) 1–4; ‘The Dalek Master Plan’(12) eps 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12; ‘The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve’ (4) eps 1–4; ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ (4) 1–3; ‘The Savages’ (4) eps 1–4; ‘The Smugglers’ (4) eps 1–4; ‘The Tenth Planet’ (4) ep 4.
PATRICK TROUGHTON MISSING EPISODES:
‘The Power of the Daleks’ (6) eps 1–6; ‘The Highlanders’ (4) eps 1–4; ‘The Underwater Menace’ (4) eps 1 & 4; ‘The Moonbase’ (4) eps 1 & 3; ‘The Macra Terror’ (4) eps 1–4; ‘The Faceless Ones’ (6) eps 2, 4, 5, 6; ‘The Evil of the Daleks’ (7) eps 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ (6) eps 1, 3, 4, 5, 6; ‘The Ice Warriors’ (6) eps 2 & 3; ‘The Web of Fear’ (6) ep 3; ‘Fury From the Deep’ (6) eps 1–6; ‘The Wheel in Space’ (6) eps 1, 2, 4, 5; ‘The Invasion’ (8) eps 1 & 4; ‘The Space Pirates’ (6) 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Note regarding Jon Pertwee stories
: Although there is a record of every single episode featuring Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, the quality of some prints is not up to scratch. Also some surviving prints are overseas edits of full-length UK episodes/stories or colourised from existing black and white stock. Therefore if anybody has prints of Pertwee episodes they are encouraged to
contact the BBC to check if they have a full-length version currently missing from the Archives.
Fan Favourites
: Although recovery of all
Doctor Who
episodes is a priority of fans and the BBC alike, long-term fans of the show highlight the following episodes as the greatest priority to recover: ‘Marco Polo’ (rated as one of the greatest historical stories ever and one the BBC poured more money into than usual, regarding sets and costumes. This 7-episode story is the only completely missing story from
Doctor Who
’s first ever season), ‘The Tenth Planet’ episode 4 (the whole story apart from the last episode exists in the BBC archives). Although the regeneration scene exists, the rest of episode 4 is sadly missing. ‘The Power of the Daleks’ (the whole story is missing from the archive, but the recovery of episode 1 is most desirable as it shows the Doctor coming to terms with his new body), ‘The Dalek Master Plan’ episode 12 (features a gruesome end to a
Doctor Who
companion and climax to the longest-ever story, 9 episodes remain missing).
Note regarding DVD releases
: Some missing episodes have been animated and the original soundtrack – which still exists of every
Doctor Who
episode – applied to create a complete record of some stories. If at least half the story exists in the archive, there is a valid reason to ‘complete’ missing stories and release them on DVD, but please do not think that the missing episodes are no longer required: they are. Stories that have benefited from the animation process and therefore available on DVD are ‘The Reign of Terror’, ‘The Invasion’, ‘The Ice Warriors’ and ‘The Tenth Planet’. Other stories planned for this process include ‘The Crusade’, ‘The Underwater Menace’, ‘The Web of Fear’ and ‘The Moonbase’. If animated episodes were
made of all these stories there would be less than 20 missing stories from the BBC archive.
Reconstructed stories
: Some fans are not happy with the animation process applied to some missing stories. There are other reconstructions of missing episodes/stories, built from surviving clips and extensive photographs or photograph reconstructions. Good examples of this are episode 4 of ‘The Tenth Planet’ and all seven episodes of ‘Marco Polo’ in colour. It must be stressed that none of these reconstructions, animated or otherwise, compensate for the loss of the original episode/story, but they give a clear picture of how they were made and appeared to the original audience, ‘Marco Polo’ being most impressive.
Also missing from the BBC Archive
: worthy of mention here is the multitude of other shows missing from the BBC archives, from Patrick Troughton’s
Robin Hood
to the TV
Navy Lark
. There are also many missing early performances from legendary double acts and comedy series, such as
Morecambe and Wise
and
Steptoe and Son
. The BBC would dearly like to hear from anyone who may hold copies of these too.
ENDURING THE YEARS
For a programme to endure for 50 years it has to have something constantly refreshing about it, something that continues to stimulate the audiences and makes them thirst for more.
What is especially interesting about the legacy of
Doctor Who
, and before we drill down to some of the very best individual stories, is the power of key seasons.
Throughout its history,
Doctor Who
has enjoyed a string of brilliantly written and darkly portrayed stories that have enhanced its life. Listed below are the author’s top five favourite seasons:
So, what makes these seasons important? By and large they are the first complete season of the first four Doctors. There is a slight cheat for Patrick Troughton as his first season started with the last two William Hartnell stories, so the season detailed is his first
full
season.
The point is: different production crews, writers and cast are identified in all but one of the seasons listed above, even if you picked the Fourth Season instead of the Fifth. Granted Tom Baker appears in two seasons, but there are great changes between the Twelfth Season and the Fourteenth Season. Really it’s not just the Doctor who regenerates, the whole programme does too, and this injects new life. To begin with, in the very first season, Verity Lambert’s passion for getting it right was supreme, supported by Sydney Newman, Mervyn Pinfield, some great writers and, of course, Waris Hussein (at key moments). Lambert created a wonderful new programme. At a key moment in Patrick Troughton’s tenure as the Doctor, a host of wonderful stories happened on the bounce. The Fifth Season is sometimes referred to as ‘The Monster Season’, and with it beginning and ending with Cybermen and including the only two Yeti stories so far and introducing the Ice Warriors, it is no wonder. But often overlooked is Patrick Troughton’s doppelganger story, ‘Enemy of the World’, where he plays the
good Doctor and the evil Salamander, in what is nothing short of a magnificent performance.
Jon Pertwee’s first season enjoyed the same ‘hand-over’ of the old from the new, plus the programme was suddenly in colour and, thanks to the input of Malcolm Hulke, the show took on a more serious and philosophical angle, especially for stories like ‘The Silurians’ and ‘Inferno’. ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ featured helicopters and the most exciting shoot-out (only rivalled by the death toll in ‘The Mind of Evil’ during the next season).
The first Tom Baker season – the Twelfth Season – was a radical change of direction for the character and, with the return of the Daleks and the Cybermen too, it couldn’t fail to please.
Like Tom Baker’s first season, his third (the Fourteenth Season), falls within that fan favourite run of stories known as ‘The Hinchcliffe Years’ with new producer Philip Hinchcliffe taking the darkness – gothic appeal – much further than his predecessor, Barry Letts. Some of the great lines come from the Fourteenth Season, such as: (Cardinal Borusa) ‘If heroes don’t exist it is necessary to invent them’; (the Doctor to the Master) ‘You’ll delay an execution to pull the wings off a fly’; (Robots of Death) ‘Kill the humans’; and of course (Sarah Jane Smith) ‘Eldrad Must Live!’
What this analysis of individual seasons clearly shows us is that the various reinventions of the show, the injection of new blood, is what keeps the programme fresh and innovative. It is something that has already happened in the new millennium
Doctor Who
in the transition from David Tennant’s Doctor to Matt Smith’s.
That said, one might argue that John Nathan-Turner stayed too long as producer and the show was cancelled as a
consequence, but then again Nathan-Turner did so much good for the show over the years, he more than justified his reign. In fact, his first season as producer saw him change Tom Baker’s outfit, change the opening titles and theme music and introduce three new companions and lose two, and of course regenerate the Doctor. So why isn’t Tom Baker’s last season in the top five? For some people it might be, indeed three of the author’s favourite stories are in that season, but the swish music and glitzy title sequence took a lot of foreboding doom out of the show, and maybe tempered the anticipation, failing to whet the appetite as much as the eerie music that had played to audiences for the past 18 years. That and poor choices of first two stories really hammers the Eighteenth Season into seventh place (sixth place going to the Fourth Season).
By his own admission Tom Baker never liked a ‘themed season’ and ‘The Key to Time’ season, the Sixteenth Season, seems to get overlooked as a consequence. This may be a reason why Colin Baker’s ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ season doesn’t get much credit either. It is vindicated by the fact that Peter Davison’s second season, the Twentieth Season, doesn’t get knocked too much. Not because it is the 20th Anniversary season but because there are only three themed stories within it (‘The Black Guardian Trilogy’), and they are framed by other stories. It is probably during the Twentieth Season that we begin to seen big ideas being compromised by dwindling budgets. The huge snake at the end of ‘Snakedance’ is embarrassing rather than scary, but from the Twenty-First Season onwards, the effects grew noticeably more daft, and that’s where the original series began to lose credibility and of course, viewing figures.
When discussing the legacy of
Doctor Who
, one must recognise the opening seasons of the new millennium Doctors,
and note the repetition of pattern already referred to. I don’t compare the new series with the classic series, because it is unfair on both. The stunning CGI and budget of the new adventures is tarnished by the need to explain everything within 50 minutes (two episodes if you’re lucky).
Doctor Who
will continue to evolve and change with the times; another 50 years should see him reach the end of his second cycle of regenerations – all that’s needed is an excuse to stimulate that second cycle. If the Master can get power from the Keeper of Traken and be resurrected by Black Mass, there must be some answer for the Doctor too. But perhaps the lifeline is already there. During ‘The Five Doctors’, the Master was offered a whole new life-cycle by the High Council of the Time Lords, so perhaps a future generation will be applauding the 100th Anniversary of
Doctor Who
. Books will probably not be physical hardbacks and paperbacks then, so if a book was produced to update this one the reader won’t need to hump several telephone directories around with them, the Kindle, or its replacement, will be enough.
AN EXPLORATION OF 50 YEARS OF
DOCTOR WHO
THROUGH 50 OF ITS GREATEST STORIES