Between 1967 and 1978 the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes. 97 of 253 episodes from the programme’s first six years are currently missing. Other affected BBC series include Dad’s Army, Z-Cars, The Wednesday Play, Till Death Us Do Part, Steptoe and Son and Not Only.. But Also. ITV regional franchisees, such as Rediffusion Television and Associated Television, also deleted many programmes.
About Doctor Who missing episodes in brief
Between 1967 and 1978 the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes. As a result of the cull, 97 of 253 episodes from the programme’s first six years are currently missing. Other affected BBC series include Dad’s Army, Z-Cars, The Wednesday Play, Till Death Us Do Part, Steptoe and Son and Not Only.. But Also. ITV regional franchisees, such as Rediffusion Television and Associated Television, also deleted many programmes, including early videotaped episodes of The Avengers. Each of its 97 missing episodes survives in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Most episodes are also represented by production stills, tele-snaps, or short video clips. After careful restoration, all 1970s episodes are available in full colour, which is not always the case for other series. Efforts to locate missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and by fans of the series. Many missing episodes have had their visuals reconstructed, either through specially commissioned animation or use of surviving footage and photographs. Despite many broadcasters around the world switching to colour transmission, almost all of Doctor Who’s final 1960s master tapes were erased in 1974. Despite the late destruction of these masters, BBC Enterprises held an complete archive of theSeries in the form of their 16mm film telerecording copies until approximately 1972, when they disposed of much of their older material, including many episodes of the Deep, Deep Fury and Deep Fury from the 1960s. Many of the episodes were usually junked because their rights agreements with the actors and writers to sell abroad had not expired.
With many broadcasters now switching to color transmission, many of the older material was not deemed to be of any further use to the broadcasters. BBC Enterprises also disposed of a large amount of older material including much of the late 1960s and early 1970s Deep Deep Fury, including the final serial Deep Fury in 1968 and the final episode of Deep Fury of the First World War in 1969. The BBC had no central archive at the time; the Film Library kept programmes that had been made on film, while the Engineering Department was responsible for storing videotapes. They had little dedicated storage space, and tended to place piles of film canisters wherever they could find space for them at their Villiers House property. The Engineering Department had no mandate to archive the programme videotapes they held, although typically they would not be wiped or junked until the relevant production department or BBC Enterprises indicated that they had no further use for the tapes. Until the BBC changed its archiving policy in 1978, thousands of hours of programming, in all genres, were deleted. The first Doctor Who master videotapes to be wiped were those for the serial The Highlanders, which were erased on 9 March 1967, a mere two months after Episode 4’s original transmission. Eventually, every single episode of the programme was wiped or wiped from the 1970s master videotape into 1970s into Episode 5. The final episodes for the 1968 serial The Deep Fury were destroyed or wiped in the late 1970s.
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