Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes

by Richard Molesworth

In the 1960s, the BBC screened 253 episodes of its cult science fiction show Doctor Who , starring William Hartnell and then Patrick Troughton as the time travelling Doctor. Yet by 1975, the Corporation had wiped the master tapes of every single one of these episodes. Of the 124 Doctor Who episodes starring Jon Pertwee shown between 1970 and 1974, the BBC destroyed over half of the original transmission tapes within two years of their original broadcast.
In the years that followed, the BBC, along with dedicated fans of the series, began the arduous task of trying to track down copies of as many missing Doctor Who episodes as possible. The search covered BBC sales vaults, foreign television stations, overseas archives, and numerous networks of private film collectors, until the tally of missing programmes was reduced to just 108 episodes.
For the first time, this book looks in detail at how the episodes came to be missing in the first place, and examines how material subsequently came to be returned to the BBC. Along the way, those people involved in the recovery of lost slices of Doctor Who's past tell their stories in candid detail, many for the very first time.
No more rumours, no more misinformation, no more fan gossip. The truth about Doctor Who's missing episodes can now be told in full!

Genres: Doctor Who, Nonfiction, Fandom, Tv

250 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2013

Reviews

[Stefan Zondag · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to really want to read it. It's thorough, comprehensive and painstakingly researched. All my respect to Richard. It's fascinating how the world of TV worked and how as a result episodes are now missing: the junking and burning of tapes jesus... Most painful and favorite part at the same time: "we had a bonfire"...

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exhaustive history of how the 1960s & 1970s episodes of Doctor Who were wiped, and then saved. In between exhaustive lists of How Things Moved Around the BBC, there is a fantastic tale of the archivists, like Sue Malden, in particular, who worked tirelessly to change the BBC policies and practices that encouraged the wiping of the videocassettes in the first place.

While fans may have pointed out the problem, it was the BBC Archivists who actually changed a rather hidebound organization's practices to actually SOLVE the problem.

[Daria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for the studious old-school Doctor Who fan, or for media-history-geeks in general.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource, though very dry and technical in many places. It also assumes the reader already has a great deal of knowledge of Doctor Who lore, e.g. story names, plot-lines, etc. so casual fans should start with an episode guide or two before reading this.

[Colm Mccrory · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want detail, then this delivers in spades.
Maybe a bit too much detail for the likes of me but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was pretty gripped by the chapter describing how the different episodes were returned.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quite incredible read, Richard Molesworth leaves the reader better understanding just why so much Doctor Who was lost in the 1970s, but equally importantly how the surviving material was recovered, in some cases almost miraculously.

Fans of the show will thoroughly enjoy this book. Dense and thorough, I recommend a gentle skim read to get the broad picture before delving into the rich and rigorous research. It is almost heartbreaking to read of stories now missing being preserved intact for great lengths of time, leaving one to almost believe (as with sporting replays) that maybe if you hope really hard the outcome will change.

The greatest encouragement is that the author used his final paragraph to express a hope that in time he would need to write a further edition. At the time of publication, he wrote: "The final truth is simply this. There are 106 episodes of Doctor Who that are missing." Only eight months after those words were published, nine episodes were recovered from a TV Relay station in Jos, Nigeria.

My hope is that in future years, I will have the chance to read a sequel to this book, entitled 'SAVED! How the missing episodes of Doctor Who were lost and found.'

[Tansy Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough history of television in Britain and how it worked, told through the narrative of the lost-and-found-again Doctor Who stories of the 60's and early 70's. Fascinating stuff, but quite densely packed - one for the obsessive fans & TV historians (like meeee), not the casual Doctor Who fan.

[John Mcpheat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the word "comprehensive" was invented to describe this book. You've got to be keen to read this. _Really_ keen. I found some of the technical detail laborious to get through, but the stories of the lost and found episodes were very compelling. And heartbreaking. How could they throw this stuff away?

[Matthew Kilburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essential account of why there isn't a complete run of Doctor Who episodes available for broadcast or commercial release, and how we have what we do have from the 1960s when Doctor Who was seen as a low craft born of ephemeral art. It predates the 2013 recoveries, so don't expect thrilling tales of Nigerian TV station discoveries.

[Nicholas Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book for the casual reader and is perhaps the most fan obsessive book I've read, however it is a fascinating book and I have learnt a huge amount about how television works at a practical level. One for those who have wondered how and why such a popular TV series could be wiped and leaves very few remaining questions.

[Reuben Herfindahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing read for serious classic Who fans.