Two lost Doctor Who episodes found in a dead collector's home videos

Peter Purves, 87, was lured to the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester under false pretenses. When they played back footage of himself as companion Steven Taylor in a 1965 Doctor Who serial nobody had seen in six decades, his reaction was succinct: "My flabber has never been so gasted."

The two episodes — parts one and three of The Daleks' Master Plan, a 12-part serial starring William Hartnell as the first Doctor — turned up in a cardboard box inside a dead collector's stash of home videos, mostly of trains and canals, the BBC reports. Film is Fabulous!, a Leicester charitable trust, found them while sorting through what its chair Prof Justin Smith called "an eclectic and ramshackle collection."

The episodes were written by Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, and Dennis Spooner. Nicholas Courtney turns up in them as the mercenary Bret Vyon, years before he settled into his most famous role as the Brigadier.

Australian and New Zealand censors deemed the serial too violent for broadcast, so it was never sold overseas. The BBC then wiped its own black-and-white recordings. That combination left the episodes lost for nearly 60 years. The last time missing Doctor Who surfaced was 2013, when episodes turned up at a Nigerian TV station — but those came from overseas archives. These are the first ever recovered from a domestic collection.

Purves had notes about the BBC's archival habits: "I've never forgiven the BBC for losing those episodes, it would be really nice to get a few royalties." Restored versions go up on BBC iPlayer this Easter.

Previously:

• Lost Doctor Who episodes found, but the owners fear getting in trouble
• Doctor Who returns to BBC control without Disney backing

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