You'll Soon Be Able to Stream Two Long-Lost Doctor Who Episodes

"Two episodes of Doctor Who long thought to be forever destroyed have been recovered and restored, and they will be added to the BBC streaming service soon. According to the Associated Press, season three's "The Nightmare Begins" and "Devil's Planet" have been discovered in an anonymous benefactor's estate. They feature original Doctor William Hartnell and his eternal foe, the Daleks."

"Before digital tape, the BBC would reuse old tapes. It would record over old programs (or programmes, as the Brits'd spell it) because these things cost money and the BBC was government-funded. As a result, there are several episodes of Doctor Who that, ironically enough, have been lost to time."

""The main broadcasters in the U.K. in the 1960s, '70s, up to the '80s really, junked quite a lot of content," De Montfort University professor Justin Smith told the AP. "In some ways finding missing Doctor Who s is the holy grail.""

Two episodes of Doctor Who, "The Nightmare Begins" and "Devil's Planet" from season three, have been discovered and recovered after being lost for decades. These episodes feature original Doctor William Hartnell and the Daleks. Despite this recovery, 95 episodes remain missing from the series. The BBC lost many episodes because it reused tapes before the digital era, recording over old programs to save money as a government-funded broadcaster. This practice resulted in the loss of numerous Doctor Who episodes and other content from the 1960s through 1980s. Finding missing Doctor Who episodes is considered highly significant by researchers studying television history.

Read at Vulture