Long-Lost DOCTOR WHO Footage Surfaces After 60 Years With Recovered Daleks’ Master Plan Episodes
If you’re a Doctor Who fan, this is the kind of news that feels almost unreal. The BBC recently revealed that two long-lost episodes from the classic 1960s era of the series have finally been recovered, and we’re getting a glimpse of them in action.
For the first time in more than six decades, footage from the legendary serial Doctor Who story The Daleks’ Master Plan is being shown again.
The BBC released a montage of clips from two episodes that have been missing since their original broadcast in 1965, giving fans a rare look at a piece of television history that many assumed was gone forever.
The recovered episodes are titled “The Nightmare Begins” and “Devil’s Planet,” the first and third installments of the massive 12-part Dalek storyline. They resurfaced thanks to a donation to the charitable trust Film is Fabulous, and they’ll soon be available for fans to watch in restored form.
The newly released footage includes several exciting moments for longtime Whovians. There are scenes featuring William Hartnell as the First Doctor, along with classic Dalek scheming that helped define the early years of the show.
The montage also carries some emotional weight for fans of the franchise. It includes a glimpse of Nicholas Courtney in his very first Doctor Who appearance as Space Agent Bret Vyon.
Courtney would later become a major part of the series as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart starting in the 1968 story The Web of Fear, remaining closely connected to the show until his death in 2011.
There’s also a brief look at Adrienne Hill as Katarina. The character, a handmaiden from ancient Troy introduced in the prior serial The Myth Makers, became the first Doctor Who companion ever killed off.
The character’s short run came from the creative challenge of having a companion from the distant past who required constant explanations of modern concepts.
For decades, large portions of early Doctor Who episodes disappeared due to the BBC’s archiving practices during the early days of television.
Back in the 1940s and 1950s, the idea of preserving television programs for the future wasn’t really a priority. Actors’ unions often pushed for new performances rather than repeat broadcasts, treating TV productions more like stage shows.
Later, as color television became the industry standard, many monochrome recordings were viewed as outdated material with little long-term value.
Because of that mindset, numerous recordings were wiped, reused, or lost. Storage limitations played a role, as film reels were sometimes erased to make room for newer programs. There were also complications between different BBC departments responsible for storing and distributing archived material.
The Daleks’ Master Plan faced an even tougher situation. The serial was never sold internationally because censors at the time believed the story was too violent for overseas broadcast. That meant far fewer film copies existed in circulation, making the chances of recovery incredibly slim.
It wasn’t until 1981 that the BBC officially committed to maintaining a complete archive of its programming as part of its royal charter. By that time, a staggering 152 episodes of Doctor Who were already missing.
Over the decades that number has slowly dropped as recordings have been discovered in private collections and international archives. With the recovery of these two episodes, the total number of missing episodes now sits at 95.
Even now, the feeling of seeing these clips again is pretty remarkable. They’re fragments of television history that haven’t been seen by the public since they aired more than 60 years ago.
It’s also wonderfully fitting for a series built around time travel. In a very Doctor Who way, the past has come back to life.
Restored versions of “The Nightmare Begins” and “Devil’s Planet” from The Daleks’ Master Plan will begin streaming in the UK on BBC iPlayer early next month, giving fans a chance to experience these once-lost episodes all over again.
