Doctor Who fans get new hope for missing episodes – as Peter Purves celebrates The Daleks' Master Plan restoration
At a special screening of the latest rediscovered episodes, there was more reason for fans to be optimistic of future finds.
“Uplifting, exciting” was the verdict of Peter Purves on the recent rediscovery of two lost episodes of Doctor Who at a special screening on Saturday (4 April).
The newly-recovered first and third episodes of the 12-part serial The Daleks’ Master Plan, in which Purves appears, were shown (along with the second episode, itself returned in 2004) to a packed house at the Riverside Studios arts centre in London.
Purves, now 87, played companion Steven Taylor for a year from mid-1965 but, in common with much of 1960s Doctor Who, many of his episodes were subsequently destroyed.
Just a few weeks ago, the Film is Fabulous! charitable trust recovered copies of two of them from the collection of a deceased film enthusiast, who had kept them safe, unwatched, without realising their rarity.
Overjoyed at being reacquainted with the episodes, Purves remarked: "Today has been one of those magnificent days. I’ve loved every minute of it and it’s so rewarding to be able to watch these in the company of so many people who haven’t seen them either for 60 years."
Recognising the diverse age-range of the enthusiastic audience, Purves acknowledged that few of those present could have caught the episodes’ single television screening way back in 1965.
Many of those who worked on The Daleks’ Master Plan have since passed away but they were not forgotten at the screening. The original Doctor William Hartnell, companion actor Adrienne Hill, director Douglas Camfield and story editor Dennis Spooner were all represented by their children or grandchildren.
In one of the panels that accompanied the screening, television producer and missing episodes hunter Paul Vanezis explained that the recovered episodes were discovered to be ‘cutting copies’ – prints used for technical review before duplicates were made for overseas distribution.
This means that there were probably more copies of the episodes made than was previously thought, giving fans fresh hope that more of them may yet turn up.
The Film is Fabulous! team are clear that they are not episode hunters and have no special interest in Doctor Who. Their remit is to preserve British film culture. The unearthing of missing episodes is a happy byproduct of their work with the film collector community.
Representing Film is Fabulous!, Sue Malden, formerly the BBC’s first archive selector, was hopeful that their work would lead to further discoveries of missing episodes – whether they be Doctor Who or other programmes.
Doctor Who's recovered episodes, The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, are available now on BBC iPlayer.
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