Doctor Who - Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years

William Hartnell is fast becoming one of my favourite incarnations of the famous Time Lord, The Doctor. Since the 2005 revival of the Doctor Who television franchise, I have been following with bated breath the Saturday evening adventures of the 'Last Son of Galifrey'. In my opinion, what has given Doctor Who it's longevity, is the idea of 'regeneration', in which The Doctor is able to change the form of his physical body upon death. This was shown in the revival series with Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston regenerating into the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant and subsequently Matt Smith has taken the reigns as the Eleventh incarnation.Upon my initial discovery of this wonderful television phenomenon, I decided to serve my curiosity of what has gone before by researching what is termed as 'Classic Who'. I now believe I am quite well-versed with the adventures of the First Incarnation of the Doctor (played by William Hartnell) and his subsequent audio adventures, along with his male and female companions. Unfortunately, there is a chunk of these serial adventures that are missing from the BBC Archives, following the 1970s/80s purging of back-dated media programs. Over the years, there has been a constant search for these lost stories, and sometimes episodes are found and given back to the BBC. These finds can range from a whole serial, individual episodes or a few very short clips, and it is a collection of these 'lost and found' episodes that are included on this DVD.'The Crusade' was broadcast during Doctor Who's second season in March of 1965, and the serial concerned the historical events of the Third Crusade, with the regular Tardis crew in the company of King Richard the Lionheart, and the Saracen outlaws. This historical serial was previously released on VHS alongside 'The Space Museum. However, because only two out of four episodes presently survive in the BBC Archives (Episodes 1 & 3), an Audio CD was included with the linking soundtrack to episodes 2 & 4. A special introduction and linking narration was specially made by William Russell in character as Ian Chesterson, and it is this release that is included on this DVD as the first 'lost' story, along with the linking soundtrack to the missing episodes in audio form. This also includes an interesting optional audio commentary on Episode 3 with Julian Glover, who played Sir Richard and Gary Russell.The second incomplete serial included is 'The Daleks' Master Plan' - of which only three out of twelve episodes have been found. This serial is the most sought after and includes the first on-screen death of a companion, Katerina of Ancient Greece, alongside the appearance of Jean Marsh as would-be companion Sara Kingdom, who was also killed in this story. It is inevitably fairly difficult to follow the events of this story with only three episodes to work with, so it is probably better to look up the initial preface of the serial first in order to grasp the overall plot. The episodes themselves look fantastic and the BBC Restoration Team have, once again, done a brilliant job in cleaning up these forgotten gems. Also included with this serial is another interesting, optional audio commentary on Episode 2, with Peter Purves and Kevin Stoney, who played Steven Taylor and Mavic Chen respectively, alongside set designer Raymond Cusick and moderator Gary Russell.The third and final serial, 'The Celestial Toymaker', has just one episode out of four included (Episode 4), and this involves The Doctor, Steven and Dodo attempting to 'play' their way out of the realm of the Toymaker. Again, it is better to know the overall preface of the story beforehand, but it is still an enjoyable lone episode, which leads directly into the the next complete serial, 'The Gunfighters' - recently released on DVD.With a few extra surviving clips and extant footage of other missing serials of the William Hartnell era, this surmises the overall content of the DVD. For some, it may be a little confusing and it is worth researching some background knowledge on the missing serials in order to place where you are in the continuum of the series. Maybe, in the future, animation technology will allow for these lost stories to be 'found' again, but, for now, this is as far as we Whovians will get to experiencing the missing stories in visual format, having had their original television soundtracks released on Audio CD and download (which I definitely recommend exploring in order to bridge the gap between said lost/missing serials!).

As most Doctor Who fans know, there are huge gaps in the archives for the black and white era of the show that featured the first two actors to play the role, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Due to a total disregard for archiving material and, criminally, as a cost cutting exercise, there was a systematic junking policy for `expired' TV shows across many broadcast networks through to the 1970's. In many ways, Doctor Who fared better than most with many complete stories surviving either in private hands or more often by happy accidents.Although anything to have survived is miraculous, in many cases, irritatingly, stories were left incomplete on the archive shelves. Pretty much useless to any broadcaster and indeed seemingly for home DVD or video release. But the bright guys at the BBC have spotted a way to gather up all this stray material and package it together on a collection of three discs featuring not only eighteen complete episodes but a whole myriad of other snippets and gems from the vaults.As a huge Doctor Who fan, I was thrilled to see all these homeless relics gathered together, but from a wider commercial viewpoint, I don't think it's a particularly interesting project. But isn't it wonderful for fans to be indulged in this way? I'd never seen either episodes of The Faceless Ones before, so this was a real treat, as it was to see the newly discovered gem from The Daleks' Master Plan.The problem for me is that alone, or even where two or more episodes exist, it's exceptionally frustrating to watch what remains of these stories. If you're watching episode one for example, you're completely hooked by the end and then hugely disappointed that there is no more! For stories that just have the odd episode from the middle of the story, it's enough to drive you barmy. My biggest irritation came from watching episode 4 of The Celestial Toymaker. What on earth is going on? It would have been so, so much better had the DVD contained a synopsis of what was missing to help flesh out some of the material and put things into context. Definitely an opportunity missed. In a step towards this, there are soundtracks included for two missing episodes from The Crusade and The Moonbase, which does help complete those stories, but since photos exist of both missing episodes, why weren't they included? When all there is to hear is music or sound effects, it leaves you bewildered as to what might be happening. A photo or a subtitle would have been so much more effective.Also gathered from the cutting room floor are many, many short clips (in some cases, don't blink or you'll miss them) from other completely deleted episodes. It's sad that in so many cases these split second clips are all that have remained. There's also a lot of home movie footage, which is really interesting. I believe this to be the only color examples of footage from the era and although short, they are wonderful to see.We can but hope that as time goes on, some of the missing material will turn up. No one would have thought the complete Tomb of the Cybermen would suddenly reappear in 1992. So hope springs eternal. Until then, here's some classic Who, brilliantly restored and remastered to enjoy.

If you are a fan of classic 60's Doctor Who then BUY THIS.Here is what you get:William Hartnell Years 1963 - 1966* Episodes 1 & 3 of THE CRUSADES* Episodes 2, 5 & 10 of THE DALEKS MASTER PLAN* Episode 4 of THE CELESTIAL TOY MAKERPatrick Troughton Years 1966 - 1969* Episodes 2 & 4 of MOONBASE* Episodes 3 & 6 of WHEEL IN SPACE* Episodes 1 & 3 of THE FACELESS ONES* Episode 2 of THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS* Episode 3 of UNDERWATER MENACE* Episode 2 of THE SPACE PIRATES* Episode 3 the ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN* Episode 3 of THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD* Episode 1 of THE WEB OF FEARPlus plenty of 15 - 30 second censor reel cuts and a 50 minute documentary on the missing episodes. There is a also audio commentary for some of these episodes such as Episode 2 of The Daleks Master Plan and The Evil Of The Daleks.FYI: This release was put on in 2003. Since then many classic Doctor Who episodes have been found. In 2013 all 6 episodes of The Enemy Of The World were found and released in DVD. And Episodes 1,2, 4, 5 & 6 of The Web Of Fear. Episode 3 of Galaxy 4 and Episode 2 of Underwater Menace were also found and released. You can get Ep. 3 of Galaxy 4 on the Special Edition of The Aztecs. And Ep. 2 of Underwater Menace on DVD. Be forewarned the UnderWater Menace DVD release has only Episodes 2 & 3 and features no animation of the missing 1 & 4 episodes. Just stills taken from Episodes 2 & 3 put to off air TV recordings. Apparently it was too expensive to animate. The Moonbase DVD release however, does feature animation for the missing episodes 1 and 3.The Faceless Ones DVD release does have animation for the missing episodes. From the reviews I have read the animation is getting better.

From 1963 to 1969, the BBC erased about 120 Doctor Who episodes. There are several explanations for this--They needed space in the Archives, they had legal problems involving transmission, they wanted to save money by re-using old tapes, or the recording had deteriorated because of bad storage practices--but this remains one of the dumbest moves of all time by a TV network, unless you think cancelling Star Trek takes that particular cake--because the VCR had already been invented and was becoming popular, and who knows how much revenue they lost.There followed decades of trouble and expense--still going on--in a worldwide search for the missing material in basements and back rooms of TV studios and a desperate call for Doctor Who fans to send in what they had recorded illegally off their TV screens. Much was recovered and heroically re-mastered, but much of the First and Second Doctors' material was lost forever. For example, the earliest stories alternated between science-fiction and history, and many of the latter were the best. The BBC was much more at home with Shakespearean rhetoric and historical sets and costumes than it was with aliens and monsters, and the historical tales had a much smaller silliness quotient. Of these, The Aztecs, The Romans, and The Gunfighters survived intact, but The Reign of Terror is available only with animated versions of the 4th and 5th episodes, The Crusade is known only by a few fragments, and the apparently brilliant Marco Polo is entirely lost.Doctor Who: Lost in Time is a collection of surviving bits and pieces available as a single disc from the William Hartnell years, a two-disc set from the Patrick Troughton years, or all three in a box. As such, it is of great interest to dedicated Whovians, but probably not useful as an introduction for the new or casual viewer. The William Hartnell disc contains surviving episodes from The Crusade, The Dalek's Masterplan, and The Celestial Toymaker, plus a few clips from The Smugglers and The Tenth Planet. The last-named is also available as a complete story, with the missing episodes restored with animation to the surviving entire soundtrack. The story is important because it ends with the first Doctor regeneration scene.The first Patrick Troughton disc contains Episodes 2 and 4 of The Moonbase--a Cybermen story which has been released separately with animation restoration of Episodes 1 and 3. It also contains one episode of a strange Atlantis story called The Underwater Menace, two episodes of The Faceless Ones, one episode of The Evil of the Daleks--in which the companion Victoria was introduced--plus footage from The Macra Terror, The Highlanders, and The Power of the Daleks.The second Patrick Troughton disc contains episodes from The Abominable Snowmen and a sequel called The Web of Fear, which has been restored with animation and released on its own. It also contains episodes of The Enemy of the World, in which Troughton plays both hero and villain and which has somehow been completely restored since, The Space Pirates, and The Wheel in Space, another Cybermen story in which companion Zoe is introduced. There are also fragments from Fury of the Deep and a documentary The Missing Years, which contains clips from Galaxy Four and chronicles the discovery of Doctor Who material in such places as the basement of a Mormon Church, local TV stations in Nigeria and Hong Kong, and the Australian Government Censor Office, where particularly horrific scenes were snipped out to protect the delicate sensibilities of Australians and, for some reason, kept.

This is a must have to add to anyone's collection of Doctor Who DVD's, even if it is a bit dated now. Many of the orphan episodes presented here have been either released with animation in recent years (i.e. Moonbase) or are no longer considered orphans (i.e. Enemy of the World), but there's some cool gems in here any fan would want to have on their shelf! Hopefully the BBC will start releasing Blu-ray seasons of 60's seasons soon, but until then this is a nice little compilation substitute.

The first reviewer was right. If you aren't a big fan of Doctor Who, this release might not be the best purchase for you.If, however, you know all about how the BBC decided back in the mid 70s that they had too many tapes lying around of the show, and decided to incinerate a bunch to save space, and wish the people doing it had thrown themselves in the incinerator instead, this release is for you.This is your only chance to catch a glimpse of classic stories we, but for bad luck and bad decision making, might be able to watch in their entireties.One bad thing, you'll be asking yourself when watching part 3 of The Celestial Toymaker "they junked The Web of Fear and kept this?!"....There are some really good episodes in this set. Your enjoyment of them will be tempered only by the realization that you'll never get to see what happens next.Excellent set though. I'd give it 6 stars if that were possible!

The mismatched story bits are not very appealing. I would have appreciated withholding the series offerings until more portions were available and were able to be presented much more completely.