{"id":2329741,"date":"2026-03-15T19:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T19:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2329741"},"modified":"2026-03-15T19:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T19:50:26","slug":"two-lost-doctor-who-episodes-broadcast-only-once-in-1965-found-stashed-in-cardboard-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/two-lost-doctor-who-episodes-broadcast-only-once-in-1965-found-stashed-in-cardboard-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Two lost &#8216;Doctor Who&#8217; episodes broadcast only once in 1965 found stashed in cardboard box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F03%2F123642149.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Who would have thought it?<\/p>\n<p>Two missing \u201cDoctor Who\u201d episodes feared to be lost forever will be broadcast for the first time in 60 years after they were found stuffed in a cardboard box.<\/p>\n<p>The episodes of the iconic British science fiction television series were discovered wrapped in plastic in the private collection of a deceased film collector by the charity \u201cFilm is Fabulous!\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c4g7kwq1k11o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to BBC News<\/a> and a news release.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Two \u2018Doctor Who\u2019 episodes, lost for 60 years, were found and will air this Easter. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9BBC\/Courtesy of Everett Collection \/ Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The trust, run by movie collectors and lovers of vintage TV, approached the BBC Archives, which worked to restore the original 16mm telerecordings of the two black-and-white episodes.<\/p>\n<p>The episodes \u2014 \u201cThe Nightmare Begins\u201d and \u201cDevil\u2019s Planet\u201d \u2014 were originally broadcast in November 1965 during the show\u2019s third season starring the late William Hartnell as the Doctor. The episodes are part of a 12-part serial called \u201cThe Daleks\u2019 Master Plan\u201d which is still largely missing.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Both of the recovered episodes will be made available on the BBC\u2019s streaming platform, BBC iPlayer, this Easter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to have worked with the team at Film is Fabulous! to bring these lost Doctor Who episodes to viewers on BBC iPlayer this Easter,\u201d said Noreen Adams, director of the BBC Archives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBBC Archives has been working to restore the original recordings and update these to broadcast quality, ensuring fans can enjoy a little extra treat with their Easter Eggs this April,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The world\u2019s longest-running sci-fi series, \u201cDoctor Who\u201d features an eccentric alien main character traveling through time and space in the TARDIS \u2014 a spaceship resembling an old-fashioned British police box. It initially ran from 1963-1989 and continues to air after a 2005 relaunch.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The 1965 episodes, starring William Hartnell, were found in a collector\u2019s box and restored. <span class=\"credit\">BBC<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Over the decades, it has built up a cult appeal in the US, thanks to its campy special effects, glamorous assistants, and iconic villains such as the Daleks and the Cybermen.<\/p>\n<p>Hartnell was the first of 15 actors to play the Doctor, the most recent being\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/06\/01\/entertainment\/billie-piper-replaces-ncuti-gatwa-in-doctor-who-finale-shocker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ncuti Gatwa<\/a>\u00a0between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 253 episodes aired as part of the 26 seasons in the original \u201cDoctor Who\u201d series,\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/11\/11\/news\/sleuths-refuse-to-give-lost-doctor-who-episodes-to-the-bbc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">95 episodes are missing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC regularly deleted archive programs for reasons of a lack of space and a lack of rebroadcast rights.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The BBC deleted many old episodes; 95 are still missing, with 11 found in Nigeria in 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/04\/13\/entertainment\/ailing-doctor-who-superfan-spends-fortune-to-recreate-97-lost-episodes-to-see-complete-series-before-he-dies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cDoctor Who\u201d superfans<\/a>\u00a0have worked for decades to try and recover or restore the missing episodes. The last find of any missing installments of the series was in 2013, when copies of 11 long-lost episodes were found in a Nigeria TV station. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn some ways finding missing \u2018Doctor Whos\u2019 is the holy grail,\u201d De Monfort University film professor and Film is Fabulous! member Justin Smith told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p><em>With Post wires<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who would have thought it? Two missing \u201cDoctor Who\u201d episodes feared to be lost forever will be broadcast for the first time in 60 years after they were found stuffed in a cardboard box. The episodes of the iconic British science fiction television series were discovered wrapped in plastic in the private collection of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2329742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25507,312557,21741,22205,27727],"class_list":["post-2329741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-bbc","tag-doctor-who","tag-entertainment","tag-television","tag-united-kingdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Two-lost-Doctor-Who-episodes-broadcast-only-once-in-1965.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2329743,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329741\/revisions\/2329743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2329742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2329741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}