Doctor Who: The Recovered Episodes, I

[sir_guinglain]

I've added a Roman numeral to this as I expect I'll have more to say at a later date; but I'm in the process of downloading both stories from iTunes (pernicious system in many ways, but I'm curious to see these stories). For Doctor Who fans of my generation the knowledge that so many episodes from the 1960s were missing was infuriating. Most of us now know that Doctor Who did rather well compared to most other BBC television series from the period. Now, of course, it's done better, and The Enemy of the World can be enjoyed in full, and The Web of Fear has gone from missing episodes 2-6 of 6 to only missing episode 3 of 6. This is fantastic news, and it's been very well-managed.

Doctor Who Magazine, despite their apparent denials, have known for some time, as demonstrated by the magazine covers Debbie Watling and Frazer Hines are brandishing on DWM's new website; but one only needs to do a Google News search for the Nigerian city of Jos, where the episodes were found, to see why the presence of valuable BBC material there might have needed to be kept quiet. I suspect we won't have a full account of the discoveries for some time, if ever, though hero of the hour, Philip Morris, has a video up as part of BBC Worldwide's YouTube package of material related to the recoveries.

So: new Patrick Troughton to enjoy, completing one story in which we see Patrick Troughton's performance as dictator Salamander, and almost completing another including Nicholas Courtney's next-to-first appearance as Lethbridge-Stewart - not yet the Brigadier, but one story away from promotion. I might just manage an episode before bed...

ETA: "You're the most wonderful and marvellous man that's ever dropped out of the sky" will become a new favourite much-quoted line, I'm sure...