Missing episode A " missing episode " is generally considered to be a televised episode of " Doctor Who " which no longer exists in its entirety . It is distinct from an episode which was never made , such as those which would have comprised the original season 23 . Technically , all 1960s episodes of " Doctor Who " , are missing , in that the original videotape masters were definitively lost . However , thanks to filmed copies of the masters , many of these episodes are still available for fans to view . In a practical sense , then , a " missing episode " is one without either an extant videotape master or a filmed or digital duplicate . , there are 97 episodes missing from the archives . Though these missing episodes no longer exist in their entirety , several remnants exist for fans to sample . Clips — sometimes bits excised to comply with a network ' s editorial policies , sometimes bits included as teasers on other programmes — exist from many of the missing episodes . In a few rare instances , these clips are drawn from the original masters . Telesnap s , photographs taken of the performance as it was being videotaped or filmed , also exist of almost every missing episode . There are also instances , perhaps most notably with " The Smugglers " , where home video recordings of the actors in rehearsal on location at least give a flavour of what the characters might have looked like in costume . By far the most common way for fans to enjoy missing episodes , however , is through audio . Complete audio tracks of all episodes exist , thanks to off - air recordings by fans in the 1960s . The soundtracks for the missing episodes have all been released with linking narration by the BBC Radio Collection . Scripts and of these episodes also help to keep them accessible . History . In the early days of British television , episodes were not generally repeated after their original broadcast . Contracts with various parties , in particular the musicians ' and actors ' unions , gave broadcasters a limited time frame in which their recorded material could be used . Most episodes of television programmes were therefore not re - broadcast . As the videotape was relatively costly at the time , the medium was actually more valuable than the content recorded on that medium . Since home video had not yet become a viable commercial product , there was thus no financial incentive to keep previously - broadcast material in the BBC Archives . It made more sense , at least in the short term , to wipe and reuse videotape than it did to pay to have the apparently useless episodes indefinitely stored . What is perhaps unusual about " Doctor Who " is that there were in fact " two " purges . The first , involving the videotaped masters , was absolute , insofar as the 1960s episodes were concerned . " All " episodes were wiped , so that the videotape could be reused . The second was the junking of the filmed duplicates of the master . This second purge was much more haphazard . Why certain filmed prints were junked , while others remained , has no single answer . Episodes were junked at different times , for different reasons . The trashing of the filmed copies was clearly not carried out by persons familiar with " Doctor Who " , else certain key episodes — notably those in which the Doctor regenerated or companions came and went — would surely have been retained . " Doctor Who " was just one of many programmes to suffer these purges . However , its unusually serialised nature was particularly affected by the haphazard manner in which the filmed duplicates were purged . In the case of , for example , sitcoms , the loss of a single episode meant the loss of a single story . With " Doctor Who " the loss of a single episode meant that an individual story would then be incomplete . As a result , some serials of " Doctor Who " were affected more greatly than others . Recovery of full episodes . As new contracts were struck with performers ' unions , and home video began to be seen as a viable commercial enterprise , the BBC established an Archive Department charged with recovering lost material . The BBC was particularly pressured to begin the recovery of " Doctor Who " episodes by Ian Levine , a " fan adviser " officially employed by the " Doctor Who " production office . The efforts he helped to start would eventually result in the recovery of several episodes . One particularly rich vein of recovery was through BBC Enterprises , the arm of the BBC which sold BBC products outside the United Kingdom . Their own archives were in fact separate from those of the BBC , and no one had bothered to cross - check their holdings against those of the BBC proper . This simple check resulted in some of the earliest recoveries . At the same time , sales records held by Enterprises allowed investigators to trace filmed duplicates to various overseas broadcasters . A global hunt then began , which has resulted in several finds . One of the more notable was when the entirety of " The Tomb of the Cybermen " was found in Hong Kong in 1991 . At the same time , what emerged was the fact that the Troughton episodes had been significantly less popular overseas than the Hartnell ones . There were thus fewer possible locations for duplicates of Second Doctor episodes . Consequently , there are comparatively fewer remaining episodes of Troughton ' s Doctor . Outside of the " official " paper trail , episodes have sometimes turned up in the hands of private collectors . Because the owners have a legal right to own the physical prints , the BBC has offered to let the collectors retain their copies , after making a duplicate for the Archive . In July 2011 , film collector Terry Burnett returned " Air Lock " , episode 3 of " Galaxy 4 " and episode 2 of " The Underwater Menace " to the BBC after discovering that these two episodes were missing from the BBC Archive through a chance meeting with Ralph Montagu , the head of heritage at " Radio Times " . However , the recovery was not announced to the public until later in December . These were the first full episodes to be recovered since " Day of Armageddon " , episode 2 of " The Daleks ' Master Plan " in 2004 . In October 2013 , it was announced that 9 complete episodes of " Doctor Who " had been found at a TV relay station in Nigeria . The episodes in question were found by archive television recovery expert Phillip Morris . Five of the episodes were from " The Enemy of the World " ; episode 3 , already existing in the BBC Archive , makes " The Enemy of the World " a complete story . The other 4 episodes were from " The Web of Fear " , which up until now had only episode 1 existing in the BBC Archive . Episodes 2 , 4 , 5 and 6 are now back in the BBC Archive ; however , Episode 3 is still missing . Clip recovery . For many of the missing episodes , short clips exist . These come from several sources : The vast majority of these clips were released on the " Lost in Time " DVD box set . A few clips discovered later were released on the " Genesis of the Daleks " DVD . List of missing episodes . Third Doctor television stories . All episodes of the Jon Pertwee era exist in the BBC Archive . However , some of the episodes only existed as monochromatic film prints , mostly recovered from overseas broadcasters . Though filmed in colour , most of the world ' s broadcasters did not then transmit in colour , requiring BBC Enterprises to provide monochromatic prints for overseas sales . Improvements in colourisation technology resulted in all of Jon Pertwee ' s episodes being for all practical purposes " recovered " , unlike the 1960s missing episodes . However , they ended up being the most complicated to outline , as there have been many versions of some of them , since the colour restoration process began in the early 1990s . Note , too , that some of these recolourised episodes have actually been broadcast , giving some of the restored episodes original transmission dates of their own . As of the DVD release of " The Mind of Evil " in June 2013 , all of the Pertwee - era stories are now available in colour . Recolourised television stories . Other episodes existed in colour in some form in the BBC Archive prior to the Restoration Team ' s involvement , giving the team an " easier " starting point for their efforts . These are the serials that have had at least some restorative work done by the team . As of January 2011 , there have been a few instances — " Planet of the Daleks " , part three , and all but episodes 1 and 5 of " The Ambassadors of Death " — where the team have recolourised an episode , despite having only a monochromatic copy from which to work . Nearly complete episodes . Some of the episodes held by the BBC are not , in fact , complete . Perhaps they have massive physical damage across a few frames , or maybe they were recovered from copies that had frames removed by overseas censors . In this latter case , the missing material has also been recovered as a separate clip . Sometimes , it has been re - integrated in to a home video release . However , a few remain minimally incomplete : For the DVD releases of these episodes , the " Doctor Who " Restoration Team has restored the original uncut soundtracks ( usually from off - air audio recordings made by fans ) with specially made cutaways or CGI to cover the missing frames . The VHS release of " The Dominators " contained additional cuts due to material which was missing from the archives at the time , but has since been recovered . Episode 4 of " The Time Meddler " still has 12 seconds missing . Because there have been multiple home video releases of these episodes , some versions have had the missing clips restored , while others do not .