BBC Press Release
Barely a fortnight in, 2004 already looks as though
it might turn out to be a very good year for Doctor Who
fans. As if the thought of the new series gearing up to
start production in a few month’s time wasn’t
exciting enough, fans the world over will be delighted
to learn of the recovery of one of the 109 missing
episodes from the show’s early years.
Day of Armageddon is the second episode of the epic
twelve-part story The Daleks’ Master Plan, transmitted
over three months in the winter of 1965/66 as part of
the series’ third season. Until this week, only parts
five and ten were known to exist, having themselves been
discovered in a junkpile in the mid-eighties. The
episode stars William Hartnell, the original Doctor Who,
with companions Steven (Peter Purves) and Katerina
(Adrienne Hill), along with Space Special Security agent
Bret Vyon, played by Nicholas Courtney, who would later
return to the series in the regular role of Brigadier
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.
Doctor Who episodes have a history of being returned
from slightly strange places and in the past they have
been found in such diverse locations as a church
basement, a car boot sale and even a jumble sale in New
Zealand! The latest find is no exception, as the episode
is literally a gift from the opposition – in this
instance from Francis Watson, Head of Engineering at
Yorkshire Television in Leeds.
As a young engineer working for the BBC in the early
seventies, Watson had been given the task of clearing
out a room full of junk at the Corporation’s
Television Film Studios in Ealing. Among the rubbish
were two 16mm cans marked Doctor Who, which Watson saved
from destruction so that he could watch them on the
projector at his local film club. For over thirty years
and through two house moves, he kept the films safe and
now feels that the time has come to return them to the
BBC. Watson says that he has always felt slightly
embarrassed about “borrowing” the films, but he can
be assured that, thirty years on, both the BBC and fans
of the series will be only too happy about it, for his
minor indiscretion as a junior engineer undoubtedly
ensured the episode’s survival.
The second of Watson’s film cans contained a
poor-quality episode of The Expedition, an episode of
the very first Dalek adventure, of which the BBC already
has a master copy. Day of Armageddon is a great find
however, as it is a crucial episode which helped to set
up the ambitious twelve part story, a classic
space-opera romp through space and time which sees the
Doctor and his companions try to thwart the traitorous
‘Guardian of the Solar System’, Mavic Chen, and his
Dalek allies - culminating in the destruction of time
itself! Importantly for both fans and historians alike,
this second episode contains scenes with several
characters for which very little visual reference
material still exists – in fact only a single, blurry
photograph of the alien leader Celation is known to have
survived in a private photograph collection.
This latest find was returned to the BBC via the
Restoration Team (http://www.restoration-team.co.uk), a
group of Doctor Who fans from within the television
industry who for over a decade have been restoring and
re-mastering episodes of the series for BBC transmission
and commercial video / DVD release. Day of Armageddon
came to light almost exactly five years after the
previous missing episode, The Lion, was recovered from a
film collector in New Zealand, and returned to the BBC
via the Restoration Team. Those who worked on the
restoration of that episode are looking forward to
seeing – and working on – Day of Armageddon, and
hope that it won’t be long before the public are given
a chance to enjoy this episode once again).
Day of Armageddon is now available on the Doctor
Who box set, Lost
in Time.
