Doctor Who holds a fond place in my and Rene’s memories as being one of the first science fiction shows we ever watched. I believe we were less than five years old at the time. Nerds in the making. We would tell our mom please put on the show of the guy with the crazy hair (Tom Baker - Fourth Doctor) that lives in the phone booth. Some how we always knew when it was on even though we could not tell time yet.

When we heard that Sci-fi channel would be airing the new series of Doctor Who we couldn’t believe it. I started chasing down info on the series old and new. I also looked for any place (legal or pirate) that was offering a complete series to date of Doctor Who.   Unfortunately no one had it.  I just couldn’t understand why, until my hunt lead me to a horrible truth about the good Doctor.

Between 1967 and 1978, material stored in the BBC’s ( the network that produced Doctor Who) videotape and film libraries were destroyed or wiped to make way for newer shows. Many reasons are sited as to why this happened but mostly it was due to an agreement between the network and Equity the actors’ Union. The idea behind this decision was that it would limit the amount of times the BBC could show reruns of a particular show and therefore keep actors employed by providing higher production levels. If there are no shows to watch because they have been destroyed actors would need to be hired to make some more.  Thankfully this only lasted until 1978 when the market for VHS home sales became apparent, but by then fully half the episodes would be gone.  It seems I would never have my complete Doctor Who series.

My sadness turned to optimistic joy when I heard about the restoration project by the BBC and reconstruction efforts of many fan based studios that are using everything from telesnaps to 3D footage to try and put the series back together again. Many of the restored episode footage came from overseas where the series; previously sold to foreign countries, where now being returned in an effort to help in the restoration project. The rest of the footage has come from private collectors who have picked up the original 16mm film copies from garage sales and conventions. As of 2005 there are 108 episodes still missing or incomplete.

Recently the childrens show Blue Peter even offered a prize to who ever can return missing doctor who episodes. The prize; a full scale model of a Dalek. Now if that dosen’t peak the interest of Doctor Who fans and get them on the hunt for the missing footage I don’t know what does. They say they don’t even want the originals just a copy for the restoration effort.

You can find out more about the missing episodes of Doctor Who here.

If you would like to know about the Blue Peter Dalek contest  follow this link.