Cinefantastique Online

William Hartnell

The UK’s The Radio Times reports that two lost 1960’s episodes of DOCTOR WHO  have been located. A segement of the first Doctor William Hartnell’s serial Galaxy 4 and an episode of second Doctor Patrick Troughton’s The Undersea Menace have sufaced.

Ralph Montagu, the Radio Times’s “head of heritage and a lifelong Doctor Who fan” explained “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 [former commercial broadcaster ITV's franchise, based in Southampton].
Somehow DOCTOR WHO was mentioned in passing, and Terry said, ‘Oh, actually I think I’ve got an old episode.’

Monatgu said “I thought it was bound to be something we’ve got already.   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.”

A couple of weeks later the two met up again, and Montagu relates that Burnett 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.”

The Radio Times article points out that for many fans the Underwater Menace segment may prove the more significant  find, being the earilest surving episode starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. 

Recent U.S. fans should be aware that these are half-hour episodes of longer. multi-part serial adventures. and are not complete stories unto themselves.

Recently screened in England, they will likely become available on DVD collections after some restoration work is finished.

For more details read the article at the link above.