Portal:Doctor Who/Selected article/5

Doctor Who's missing episodes are the many instalments of the long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who that are missing, with no known film or videotape copies existing. They were erased (or "junked") by the BBC during the 1960s and 1970s for a variety of economic and space-saving reasons. In all, there are 27 serials that do not exist in complete form in the BBC's archives, because 108 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are missing, with many more thought to have been so in the past before episodes were recovered from a variety of sources, most notably overseas broadcasters.

Doctor Who is not unique in this respect, as thousands of hours of programming from across all genres were destroyed up until 1978, when the BBC's archiving policies were changed. Other high-profile series affected included Dad's Army, Z-Cars, The Wednesday Play, Steptoe and Son and Not Only... But Also. In addition, the BBC was not the only British broadcaster to carry out this practice, with ITV companies also destroying programmes; The Avengers, another series initiated by Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman, is a high-profile ITV victim of junking. Unlike other series, Doctor Who is unique in having all of its missing episodes surviving in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Additionally, every 1970s episode exists in some form, which is not the case for several other series.

Efforts to locate missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and by fans of the series. Extensive restoration has been carried out on many surviving and recovered 1960s and 1970s episodes for release on VHS and more recently on DVD. The surviving soundtracks of missing episodes have been released on cassette and more recently CD.