Whovians, rejoice. The BBC is about to reveal a piece of Doctor Who history that even the TARDIS might have forgotten. Two lost episodes of the iconic sci-fi series Doctor Who will air in April, the current season’s showrunner has confirmed.
The two 1965 episodes, The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, were donated to the charity Film Is Fabulous by the estate of an anonymous collector.
“The collector recognized what he owned, but how he acquired them has been lost to time,” Professor Justin Smith Leicester of De Montfort University, who led the recovery efforts, told the channel.
Researchers said that although most of the donor’s private collection was destroyed by water damage, the Doctor Who episodes were intact.
Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies celebrated the news on Instagram and said the episodes would air in the UK in April, although a US broadcast date has not yet been announced.
“Lost for 61 years! Best of all, these will be available for FREE on BBC iPlayer in April,” Davies wrote.
He expressed his gratitude to Film Is Fabulous for finding the lost episodes and encouraged people to donate to the registered charity. “Maybe they’ll find more! As the Doctor says… ‘Daleks!'”
The episodes feature the first incarnation of the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, and a typical Dalek plot to conquer Earth and the galaxy.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC had a policy of destroying films or reusing videotapes, which led to the disappearance of dozens of episodes of Doctor Who and other popular British shows like Dad’s Army and Top of the Pops.
Episodes of Old Doctor Who occasionally surface, and in 2016 the newly discovered soundtrack to a storyline was made into an animated series called Power of the Daleks.
Meanwhile, Disney ended its working relationship with the BBC last year and star Ncuti Gatwa left the series. However, the British network says Doctor Who will continue and Russell T Davies is working on a new Christmas special.
