During the early years of Doctor Who everything was pre recorded onto video and the BBC could re use these tapes after the broadcast of the programme after a certain amount of time. The main years that these tapes were re-used were between the Patrick Troughton years 1967-69 but were then transferred to 16mm film for sale across the rest of the globe. Whichever countries bought them had two options after use, they could destroy the film or send it back to the BBC to be destroyed as there was no room in the archive as there was little need for one at the time. As colour TV was looming the BBC thought that there would be no need for old black and white recordings, and didn't know at the time what a popular programme Doctor Who would become. At the start of the 70's the films started being returned by the other countries that had bought the series and the BBC had run out of room to store them. In 1972 all of the films were unwound and put in a skip to be set fire to. In 1978 a new practice was brought in to archive older series, Doctor Who being one of them. The BBC lucky enough had most of the first two series from 1963-5 with a handful missing but a huge number had been destroyed with the majority from 1967-69. The BBC then knowing that the series had become very popular started to try to get them back from wherever they could. Not a lot of people had videos back in the 60's but quite a few were found from around the world, films and recordings from Australia and new Zealand, Canada, Cyprus to name a few. A few films ended up in the hands of private collectors. As the BBC found out they had 108 episodes missing, now all unfortunately erased from history. This three disk DVD set has episodes that have been recovered and restored, they do not have the full stories on them, but episodes that were thought lost and now recovered. The good thing is that every missing episode has audio, so it is not completely lost…
I shall take you through the DVD's
Disk 1: The William Hartnell years 1963-66
The
Lion - Episode 1 of The Crusade First broadcast 27 March 1965 The Tardis lands in a wood in Palestine where a King is ambushed and Barbara is taken prisoner by the Saracens.
The wheel of fortune - Episode 3 of The Crusade First broadcast 10 April 1965 King Richard knights Ian and sends him as a emissary to Saladin. While Barbara escapes El Akir's men in the streets of Lydda (commentary by Julian Glover and Gary Russell)
Day of Armageddon - The Daleks Master Plan Episode 2 First broadcast 20 November 1965 The Doctor, Steven and Katarina land on the planet Kembel in the year 4000, they meet security officer Brett Vyon. Meanwhile the Daleks have a plan to conquer the galaxy… (commentary by Peter Purves, Kevin Stoney and Raymond Cusick)
Counter Plot - The Daleks Master Plan Episode 5 First broadcast 11 December 1965 The Doctor and his companions follow Mavic Chen to Earth but Katarina is killed, Chen sends an agent Sara Kingdom to kill them all. Brett is the first one to die
Escape Switch - The Daleks Master Plan episode 10 First broadcast 15 January 1966 The Doctor has the core of the time destructor and leaves in the Tardis, the Daleks follow him to Egypt but he also encounters the meddling monk …
(The Daleks Master Plan contains two firsts for Doctor Who, it is the first appearance for Nicholas Courtney who played Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart from 1966-89, and the other first is the death of one of the Doctors companions "Katarina")
The Final Test - The Celestial Toymaker episode 4 First broadcast 23 April 1966 Trapped in the toymakers domain, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo are forced to play games in order to retrieve the Tardis
Special features
Audio soundtrack of episodes 2 and 4 of The Crusade
Introductions of 1 and 3 of The Crusade by William Russell (Ian Chesterton)
Surviving clips from The Daleks Master Plan, The Smugglers and The Tenth planet
Film footage showing the making of the Smugglers from 1966
The Underwater Menace Episode 3 First broadcast 28 January 1967 Professor Zaroff had promised to raise the lost city of Atlantis,but the Doctor realises that he wants to destroy the World
The Moonbase Episode 2 First broadcast 18 February 1967 A Plague has struck a weather station on the moon in 2070, Jamie has been injured on a moon walk and is now in sick bay. He believes that the phantom piper of the Mc Crimmons has come for him..
The Moonbase Episode 4 First broadcast 4 march 1967 The Cybermen have been forced out of the base but are gathering outside for an attack
The Faceless Ones Episode 1 First broadcast 8 April 1967 The Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie arrive in the Tardis on the runway of Gatwick airport
The Faceless Ones Episode 3 First broadcast 22 April 1967 Jamie meets Samantha Briggs who's brother has disappeared on a Chameleon tours holiday
(The Faceless Ones shows the departure of two of the Doctors companions Polly and Ben)
The Evil of the Daleks Episode 2 First broadcast 27 may 1967 The Doctor and Jamie look for the stolen Tardis in a London antique shop, but they find more than they bargain for
Special features
Audio soundtracks of episodes 1 and 3 of The Moonbase
Surviving clips from The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Underwater Menace and The Macra Terror
BBC1 trailer for The Power of the Daleks
The last Dalek - a short film about the making of The Evil of the Daleks
8mm film of lost episode footage
Disk 3 : The Patrick Troughton years 1966-69
The Abominable Snowmen Episode 2 First broadcast 7 October 1967 The Doctor arrives in Tibet with the intention of returning a holy relic to the monks, he now finds them hostile and what's more the Yeti have become savage killers (audio commentary with Deborah Watling and Gary Russell)
The Enemy of the World Episode 3 First broadcast 6 January 1968 The Doctor has an evil double "The Salamander" who's aim is to seize power..
The Web of Fear Episode 1 First broadcast 3 February 1968 Salamander has tried to steal the Tardis but gets sucked into the vortex, what will happen to the doctor and his companions ? (audio commentary with Deborah Watling and Derrick Sherwin, also Gary Russell)
The Wheel in Space Episode 3 First broadcast 11 May 1968 The Tardis arrives on an abandoned rocket in space, the Doctor and Jamie get taken to a nerby space station. The rocket is ordered to be destroyed by the Controller of the station with the Tardis still on board ! Also on board there are some alien eggs that start to hatch..
The Wheel in Space Episode 6 First broadcast 1 June 1968 The Cybermen have got to the wheel and are taking over the crew, they are poisoning the air supply. Jamie and Zoe rush to get an important part from the Tardis while the wheel is attacked by a meteor storm (audio commentary with Derrick Sherwin and trisan de Vere Cole)
The Space Pirates Episode 2 First broadcast 15 March 1969 The Tardis arrives on a space beacon, the Doctor and his companions are caught up in a war by Space Pirates
Special Features
Surviving clips from The Abominable Snowmen, The Web of Fear, Fury from the Deep, The Wheel in Space, and The Space Pirates
Film footage showing the making of The Abominable Snowmen on location filming and Fury from the Deep in the studio
The Missing years documentary - All the additional material narrated by Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling.
Cast include : The Doctor - William Hartnell Susan Foreman - Carol Ann Ford Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill Ian Chesterton - William Russell Steven - Peter Purvis Dodo - Jackie Lane The Doctor - Patrick Troughton Polly - Anneke Wills Ben - Michael Craze Jamie - Frazer Hines Victoria - Deborah Watling Zoe - Wendy Padbury
Being a Doctor Who fan ever since I was a child this was the first chance I had to see some of these really older ones that had been lost then found. It's such a shame that the BBC had destroyed so much footage, but in the early days I suppose they didn't know what a hit it would become. As for the DVD's I thoroughly enjoyed watching them, and I cannot pick out a favourite episode because they all have a certain quality to them. What really made this package great for me was the audio on The Crusade and The Moonbase to make these stories whole. Also the episodes have been cleaned up from looking old and grainy to neat clear crisp episodes. The BBC have done a marvellous job at that.
The Actors who provide the narration especially Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines are really enthusiastic about the roles than they had played and vividly remember doing the scenes. There is so much crammed on these disks I have found myself watching a disk a week.
The packaging is good with William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton on the front, on the back are excerpts from various lost stories of the years. The booklet inside is full of useful information and also gives you details of all of the missing stories available on CD. The only thing I didn't like much was on the audio options there was no narration on all of them, so if you just heard the music you never knew what was happening at the time.
I have found the cheapest place to get this DVD is Blahdvd.com priced at Ł17.99. Excellent value of this three disk set.
I hope you have enjoyed this review and it has been helpful to you all out there…
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This very special Doctor Who release features available episodes and rare footage from 18 ... more
black & white episodes where the complete story is no longer in the BBC archives. Including the newly discovered episode 'The Daleks' Masterplan' in addition ...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
A digitally restored collection of rare 1960s Doctor Who episodes, from stories which no ... more
longer exist in their entirety. They offer a unique glimpse at classic adventures which are now lost in time...Featuring 18 Full EpisodesThe Crusade Episodes 1&...
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