Great news Doctor Who fans – the BBC have today announced that two full missing episodes of the hit time-travelling drama have been returned to the BBC Archives!

The first is called Airlock and is the third episode of the William Hartnell story, Galaxy 4. The episode originally aired on the 25th September 1965 but up until now, only a small part of the first episode remained in the BBC Archives.

The second missing episode that has been recovered is the complete second episode of Patrick Troughton’s third story, The Underwater Menace, which is part of Season 4 of the original series. The episode originally aired on the 21st of January 1968 and is now the earliest full episode for the Second Doctor to appear in the Archives.

The episodes were purchased by film collector Terry Burnett at a village fete near Southampton in the early 80’s but until  very recently, Mr Burnett had been unaware that the canisters contained the missing episodes.

Both episodes were shown at the British Film Institute’s Missing Believed Wiped event this afternoon, making it the first time they’ve been since their original broadcast back in the 1960’s.

Commenting on the discovery, Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss said, “Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans everywhere. It’s always wonderful when a missing episode turns up but it’s been years since the last one so to have two is just brilliant. Add to that a proper bit of action from the legendary Chumblies (and the horrifying Rills!) plus the utterly mesmeric Patrick Troughton on great form. Well, what more could we all ask for?”

This is the first time since 2004 that new full episodes have been recovered. Unfortunately 106 missing episodes still remain. Now has never been a good time to check those old tapes in the attic for more!

Details of when the two episodes will be made commercially available will be announced next year.

Updated: Two galleries of images from the missing episodes can now be seen below.

Airlock:
[scrollGallery id=354 autoScroll=false height=420 thumbsdown=true]

The Underwater Menace:
[scrollGallery id=355 autoScroll=false height=420 thumbsdown=true]