Two Doctor Who episodes that were missing, believed wiped, have been found in a private film collection donated to a Leicester charity.
The episodes, which feature the First Doctor played by William Hartnell, were recovered by Film is Fabulous! (FIF), a city-based charitable trust.
The BBC said the recovered episodes will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer this Easter.
The trust said the missing episodes were found in a cardboard box that were part of a collector’s “ramshackle” collection of vintage films.
The two episodes made up the 12-part epic The Daleks’ Masterplan from the third series broadcast back in 1965. The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, feature William Hartnell as the Doctor and Peter Purves as companion Steven Taylor.
Hartnell played the first incarnation of The Doctor from 1963 until 1966.
The trust – comprising film collectors and cinema fans – approached the BBC Archives, which then restored rediscovered 16mm telerecordings.
BBC Archives Director Noreen Adams said: “We’re thrilled to have worked with the team at Film is Fabulous! to bring these lost Doctor Who episodes to viewers on BBC iPlayer this Easter.
“BBC Archives has been working to restore the original recordings and update these to broadcast quality, ensuring fans can enjoy a little extra treat with their Easter Eggs this April.”
A spokesman for Film is Fabulous! said: “This recovery means that the first three instalments of a once totally missing 12-part story now exist.
“They provide a dark and gritty outing for the Daleks, who were being groomed by their creator, Terry Nation, for their own series, and life outside of Doctor Who. Indeed, ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ was not sold by the BBC to overseas broadcasters.
“The collector cherished the films for many years, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for preserving these episodes of Doctor Who.
The charity now plans organise a special event at which the two restored episodes of Doctor Who will be screened.
“This celebration of vintage television will take place on Saturday, April 4 and the full details will be published shortly.”
“BBC Archives has ensured that the original 16mm telerecordings are restored – meaning viewers will be able to watch them in the best possible condition.”
The original series of Doctor Who aired on television from 1963 to 1989, before being rebooted in 2005.
Why are Doctor Who episodes ‘missing’?
Many episodes of 1960s Doctor Who are missing because the BBC routinely wiped or destroyed television recordings during that era, a practice driven by storage limitations, the cost of videotape, and a belief that old programmes had little long‑term value – home video wasn’t around then.
Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC cleared large portions of its archive to reuse tape or free up space, and many early Doctor Who serials were among the casualties. As a result, 95 episodes from the show’s first six years are no longer held by the BBC, leaving several early storylines incomplete.
Another factor was the way the programme was distributed internationally. The BBC often sold Doctor Who to overseas broadcasters on film prints, and once those broadcasters finished airing them, the prints were sometimes discarded, returned, or left forgotten in storage.
Some of the “lost” episodes that survive today were recovered from these foreign archives decades later. Others have resurfaced in private collections, where film enthusiasts unknowingly preserved material the BBC had long since erased.
The missing‑episode legacy has shaped how fans experience early Doctor Who. Surviving audio recordings, telesnaps, and animations help reconstruct lost stories.
