BBC Confirms 9 Lost Troughton Episodes Recovered!
It’s been a long week full of rumours and speculation, but the BBC have at last officially announced that nine missing Patrick Troughton episodes have been recovered and are available to watch now via iTunes.
The episodes in question, found in Nigeria, are from 1967’s The Enemy of the World and 1968’s The Web of Fear (part three still missing but reconstructed using stills and audio).
The two stories are already available to purchase on iTunes via the following links:
A DVD release of The Enemy of the World is set to follow on 25 November 2013, with The Web of Fear due 24 February 2014. More details here.
Details:
Recovered missing episodes of Doctor Who, the world’s longest running sci-fi drama are being revealed and available to view and own for the first time in over 40 years. Ten Doctor Who episodes were discovered through the tracking records of shipments made by the BBC to Africa that contained tapes for transmission. A restoration team has re-mastered each episode from the original black and white 1960s film and subsequently gone through a frame by frame restoration to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who.
Archive television recovery expert Phillip Morris, recalls how he found the film cans:
The Enemy of the World
The first recovered story is The Enemy of the World, the fourth tale of Series 5 which first aired on the BBC in December 1967. The story features Patrick Troughton as both the Second Doctor and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander), alongside companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling). On Earth in the near future, the Doctor and his companions are enmeshed in a deadly web of intrigue thanks to his uncanny resemblance to would-be 21st century dictator Salamander. He is hailed as the “”shopkeeper of the world”” for his efforts to relieve global famine, but why do his rivals keep disappearing? How can he predict so many natural disasters? The Doctor must expose Salamander’s schemes before he takes over the world.
The Web of Fear
A restoration teams has re-mastered episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6 from the original black and white 1960s film and subsequently gone through a frame by frame restoration to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who. Episode 3 has been reconstructed using stills and audio. This is the 1968 story, The Web of Fear, and, as the original episode three remains missing, part of this story has been reconstructed using stills with the original audio.
Starring Patrick Troughton alongside Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling the story introduces Nicholas Courtney for the first time as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart). The TARDIS narrowly avoids becoming engulfed in a cobwebby substance in space. It arrives in the London Underground railway system, the tunnels of which are being overrun by the web and by the Great Intelligence’s robot Yeti. The time travellers learn this crisis was precipitated when Professor Travers accidentally caused one of the Yeti to be reactivated, opening the way for the Intelligence to invade again. The travellers work alongside army forces as they battle the alien menace, hampered by one of their number who has fallen under the Intelligence’s influence and is a traitor in their midst. The Intelligence’s goal is to drain the Second Doctor’s mind. The Doctor sabotages the device with which it intends to achieve this, so he can drain the Intelligence’s mind instead, but he is rescued by his friends before he can bring his plan to fruition. The Intelligence is repelled into space and the Doctor and his friends leave the army to clear up the mess.
