There’s been a lot of talk recently about the supposed recovery of classic Doctor Who episodes. And there’s some good news and bad news to go with those rumours. The bad news: No, the remaining 106 missing epsiodes have not been recovered.
The good news? Nine episodes have been found, in pretty good nick. And you can download them from today. Allon-sy!
So here’s how it all went down at the BBC press conference yesterday. Nine episodes from season five of Doctor Who were recovered, in a TV relay station in the city of Jos, Nigeria. The stories saved were The Enemy of the world and The web of fear. That means that 97 episodes are still left unaccounted for.
The episodes in question are from the second Doctor era, when Patrick Troughton was portraying the character. In a press statement Phillip Morris, who found the episodes, said:
The tapes had been gathering dust in a store room at a television relay 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.
It’s a great find, and hopefully, in some other dusty storeroom in the deepest parts of Africa, more episodes are lying about, gathering dust. Hey SABC, I think I know how you can solve your money problems!
Last Updated: October 11, 2013