Two lost Doctor Who episodes will air this week after going missing for 63 years

Doctor Who is returning this week in an unconventional way (Picture: Sunday Mirror/ Mirrorpix/ Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

Two rarely seen Doctor Who episodes that first aired decades ago are set to return to screens in just a few days.

The BBC sci-fi series first arrived on screens almost 63 years ago, spanning around 900 episodes, 41 seasons, 15 (main) Doctors, and a 2005 reboot.

With such a wealth of content, there have been several early stories from the Classic Who era (1963-1989) which have been lost to time and wiped from the records.

In fact, over 90 episodes from the 253 which aired in the first six years are unaccounted for.

However last month it was revealed that, in the first major recovery in over a decade, two more long-lost episodes have been found.

They will now be released on Good Friday. The two episodes in question – season three episode one, The Nightmare Begins, and episode three, Devil’s Planet – aired in November 1965, to launch William Hartnell’s third season with companion Steven Taylor (Peter Purves). They will available on BBC iPlayer from April 3 at 6am.

Nearly all of this William Hartnell adventure had been lost to time (Picture: BBC) This story centred around the Doctor’s arch-nemesis – The Daleks (Picture: BBC)

A clip released from one of the episodes, The Nightmare Begins, shows the Doctor attempting to get to a city in a jungle, before being held at gunpoint.

The intervening second episode, Day of Armageddon, was also recovered in 2004 by a former BBC engineer.

All in all, the revived trio are part of a 12-part ‘dark and gritty’ Dalek storyline written by Terry Nation, with nine segments still wiped from history.

As for where these gold-dust episodes were found, they were sitting in a cardboard box filled with a ‘ramshackle’ collection of vintage films discovered by charitable trust Film is Fabulous! (FIF), according to the BBC.

The episodes were only ever aired in the UK in the 60s, making them a true rare find and exciting addition to the Whoniverse.

Purves, 87, was invited to the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester, where the joyous finds were revealed, leading him to declare: ‘My flabber has never been so gasted.’

Purves, now 87, was surprised with the findings

BBC Archives are working to restore the original 16mm telerecordings ‘ensuring fans can enjoy a little extra treat with their Easter Eggs this April,’ Director of BBC Archives, Noreen Adams, shared in a statement.

Explaining the recovery process, FIF trustee chair Professor Justin Smith, explained: ‘We travel all over the country to recover film collections from private hands.

‘A lot of the films had suffered water damage and the cans had corroded. These are gems in what was an eclectic and ramshackle collection, a lot of which hadn’t been looked after as well as the Doctor Who had.

‘The collector did recognise what he had, but how he acquired them has been lost to time.’

There are still over 90 lost episodes (Picture: BBC)

Meanwhile, discussing his memories of the lost episodes, Purves added: ‘I’m not sure I even saw those programmes go out originally – I remember the stories, but having seen them, the pictures are unfamiliar to me.

‘I didn’t remember the first one when I was still almost comatose following the injury I received fighting in Troy in the wonderful Mythmakers – which of course is missing.’

The last time Doctor Who episodes were recovered was in 2013, through a Nigerian TV station housing nine missing instalments from two Patrick Troughton stories, The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear.

The BBC has been maintaining the legacy of Classic Who on iPlayer in recent years, with the vast corpus available on iPlayer.

This is the biggest discovery in over a decade (Picture: BBC)

It has even launched a colourisation project with the iconic 1963 tale, The Daleks, being released with colour just a few years ago. This was followed by Patrick Troughton’s The War Games.

The original series of Doctor Who aired on from 1963 to 1989, before being rebooted in 2005. The most recent season, starring Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor, aired last year.

During the finale of his second season, the character regenerated and appeared to be replaced by Billie Piper who played Rose Tyler, the Doctor’s first companion when the series was rebooted over two decades ago.

The finale also saw Jodie Whittaker, the 13th doctor, make a guest appearance while Gatwa’s Doctor appeared to be travelling through alternate universes.

The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet will land on BBC iPlayer on April 4, 2026.

A version of this article was originally published on March 13, 2026.

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