In the old days, the BBC had a habit of recording over their older programs in order to save some cash. A lot of British TV culture was lost because of this policy. More than a few Dr Who’s were lost this way. It seems parts of the lost episodes have been found and returned to the BFI archives. Now if they can manage to keep their money-saving fingers off of these shows Whovians can relax a bit.

Here’s how they were found:

“Through me,” says Ralph Montagu, Radio Times’s head of heritage and a lifelong Doctor Who fan. “I occasionally meet up with a group of film collectors and retired TV engineers at a café in Hampshire.

“A few months ago I spoke to Terry Burnett, who used to be an engineer at TVS [the former ITV franchise based in Southampton]. Somehow Doctor Who was mentioned in passing, and Terry said, ‘Oh, actually I think I’ve got an old episode.’

“I thought it was bound to be something we’ve got already,” says Ralph. “I tried not to get too excited, but he came back the next day and brought this spool with him. It had no label, so I had a look at the film leader and it said ‘Air Lock’. I thought, ‘What’s that?’ I checked online and saw that Air Lock was an episode of Galaxy 4 – a missing Hartnell serial. So then I got very excited.”

Ralph met Terry again a couple of weeks later, “And he said, ‘Guess what I’ve got.’ It was another episode of Doctor Who! Again not labelled on the can, but it turned out to be The Underwater Menace part two.”

• Doctor Who Online: Two Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found!
• Radio Times: Doctor Who: two long-lost episodes uncovered
• BBC Official Doctor Who: Missing Episodes Recovered!

A list of other Dr Who episodes still filed under ‘lost’ can be found here.

Clips from episodes “Galaxy 4” and “The Underwater Menace” featuring the 1st Doctor (William Hartnell) and the 2nd Doctor(Patrick Troughton) are featured below.

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