Missing Episodes Recovered - Press Release - It's Finally Official....

Well, the press conference was this afternoon and yet the BBC embargoed the information until midnight.  It makes you wonder why they don't bring these embargo times forward - as the number of episodes recovered and, indeed, the stories they are a part of were leaked all over twitter within hours of the press conference.  The press release reads:

All six episodes of The Enemy of the World and five of The Web of Fear were found by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, in a television relay station in Jos, central Nigeria. 

Morris tracked records of shipments made by the BBC to Africa, that contained tapes for transmission. BBC Worldwide is currently re-mastering these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who. 

The pair of sequential adventures were originally screened on the BBC as part of Doctor Who’s fifth season, for 12 weeks between December 1967 and March 1968. They star Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, with Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling as companions Jamie and Victoria.

The Enemy of the World sees Troughton take on the dual-role of both the Doctor and his antagonist, Salamander, in a thrilling tale of spies, natural disasters and one man’s desire to control the whole world.

Also recovered is the 1968 story, The Web of Fear. Unfortunately, Episode Three is still missing but reconstruction has been made this using still image ‘telesnaps’ of the episode and the original audio soundtrack, which has been restored. The story introduces Nicholas Courtney as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as the Brigadier) and sees the Doctor do battle with the Great Intelligence for a second time. 

Phillip Morris says, “The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words ‘Doctor Who’. When I read the story code I realised I’d found something pretty special.” 

Fiona Eastwood, Director of Consumer Products, BBC Worldwide comments: “We are thrilled with the recent discovery of The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World and we’re very happy to be working with iTunes on bringing remastered versions of these treasured episodes to fans as we celebrate the 50th year of Doctor Who.”

"Enemy of the World" can be pre-ordered from the BBC Shop priced £13.99 and will be released on 25 November 2013 whilst "The Web of Fear" will be released on DVD next year.

You can download both stories from itunes for £9.99 per story (£1.89 per episode) by following the links below:

Web of Fear - itunes

Enemy of the World - itunes

Here's the DVD cover art for both titles: