Though Doctor Who's early seasons got the classic series off on the right foot, many of the first 253 episodes were completely lost. The bulk of the First and Second Doctors' tenures were marred by missing episodes, and though those stories aired in the 1960s, they were unavailable to be viewed after they first played. While much is still known about the stories presented in the missing episodes, physical prints and tapes of the installments aren't available for modern audiences to enjoy. The streaming service BritBox features every available episode of classic Doctor Who, but large gaps still remain in the early days of the legendary sci-fi show.
All told, 97 episodes of Doctor Who were uned for, including several entire serials that have yet to be recovered. Though Doctor Who in a narrative sense, the incomplete nature of the earliest days of the show has represented a glaring hole in the important history of the series. Doctor Who has become a bona fide cultural phenomenon, and missing episodes have detracted from its legacy. Though classic Doctor Who wasn't the only show from that period of British TV history to have episodes go missing, it has elicited one of the largest responses from fans and historians alike.
The BBC Destroyed Old Doctor Who Episodes
The practice of "junking" was very common in British television during the 1960s, and famous series like The Avengers weren't immune to being thrown away. "Junking" pertained to the intentional erasure and disposal of old archived programs after they had initially been broadcast. The practice was to save space and money, as old tapes were reused, and reuse reduced the amount of storage needed for old episodes (via Doctor's first story saw him face the Daleks, but even that classic story was disposed of. Without syndication rights, there was little reason to keep old episodes after they aired.
All tapes from that era were missing at one point, but many lived on through filmed copies that allowed the episodes to be preserved. The First Doctor's first and second seasons survived mostly unscathed, but the show's third, fourth, and fifth seasons suffered the heaviest losses. 10 entire serials were completely wiped from existence including stories like Marco Polo and The Power of the Daleks, the latter of which was Patrick Troughton's first full story. Overall, 26 serials featured missing episodes across Doctor Who's first half-decade on the air. The BBC abandoned the practice of "junking" in 1978, but the damage was already done.
Missing Episodes Have Been Recovered And Recreated
New era All of classic Doctor Who's audio tracks survived, and with the help of surviving stills, animators have begun to bring the lost tales to life in a moving image as they were meant to be seen.