Lost ‘Doctor Who’ Episode Is About To Make a Return

Doctor Who has a long and complicated history. Starting back in 1963, the series has lost some of its episodes to the sands of time. Specifically 97 episodes. Now, fans are getting a chance to see these in a new form. The episodes themselves are still available in their audio form but the footage of the episodes is lost. Some are believed to be part of private collections while others have simply vanished. So being a completist with Doctor Who has been a hard journey for a lot of fans of the series.

Now, fans can experience some of the missing episodes with the animated series that brings to life the lost episodes with audio included from their original release. A new teaser gives us a look at “The Underwater Menace,” which stars Patrick Troughton as the second Doctor along with his companions Jamie (Frazer Hines), Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills).

The episode will be available in November and is now available for pre-order on DVD, Blu-ray or Blu-ray Steelbook. What’s exciting about this adventure is that it is a way for fans to see episodes of the show that have been lost to time. While many of us are going through the show from the new version of it (which began in 2005 with the Ninth Doctor), the earlier episodes are why the show is as important to long-standing fans as it is.

This animated series allows us to watch those episodes that have been hard to find to complete the series. This marks another animated classic with The Abominable Snowmen (1967), The Evil of the Daleks (1967), and Galaxy 4 (1965) also having been animated prior to this. It comes at a perfect time for fans to dive into Doctor Who.

Returning to the series

For roughly the last year, we’ve been on hiatus with the show. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor regenerated during her specials and now we are waiting to see what is going on with the return of David Tennant as the Doctor. Catching up on the series has been a popular move by fans. I myself restarted “new” Who and have been going through the show that way to catch up in time for Tennant’s return. I’ve seen all these episodes so it is more of a comfort than anything else but it is also an important reason why many fans don’t try to go through the older seasons of the show.

Doctor Who has been around for nearly 60 years (sure with some breaks) but that means that the missing episodes make it hard for a lot of fans. The work to put in to see them has made many just stick to the “New Who” of it. Having these animated shorts bring the lost episodes to life means that we can start to dive into Doctor Who as a whole a lot more than we have been able to in the past.

The Underwater Menace is available for pre-order now!

(featured image: BBC)