TWELFTH-CENTURY TARDIS turns up in Ethiopia

Cool!

The older kitschy versions are much better than the over-produced modern versions.

IMO, of course :-)

Looking forward to seeing the lost episodes.

Holy... This rumour has been going around for months and I've been discounting it just as long... but since the BBC just announced a press conference I'm honestly flabbergasted.

The 90/100/106 episode rumour seems to be bunk. It started off in the summer as "90 missing episodes found" and even some big name fans were taken in by it, but the BBC (and those in a position to know and/or find out) always rubbished it. The story seems to be this: in the summer, someone in Africa (probably an old TV company, but a private collector has also been mentioned) sent a large package of old TV material to a company in the UK. The shows were to be remastered from old, obsolete formats into something that could be played with modern technology, something that the company specialised it. Somehow this news got picked up by the Dr.Who fraternity who made 2+2=106. So, almost certainly its a case of "move along, nothing to see here."

At any rate, if Ethiopia has got anything, they never bought the broadcast rights to the Troughton era, so all we'd have to recover at best would be a handful of Hartnells, but still better than nothing.

BUT just suppose the rumour is true, could the BBC have kept it quite for all these months? Ostensibly yes. The two episodes found in 2011 were "found" in the summer but this was a well kept secret until "Missing Believed Wiped" at the British Film Institute in December. Even the programme said they would be showing "1960s BBC Science Fiction" with no mention as to what it was. No one had a clue until much closer to the event. And when "Tomb of the Cybermen" was found in 1991, the BBC put out a cover story that it was simply four episodes of an already existing story. The secret was apparently kept hidden for at least a few weeks; all other missing episode "finds" have been quite quickly reported.

But there is always the caveat that the Radio Times seems sure that something has been found, even though they can't deny the story from the BBC itself! I don't know if you remember in late 1993 when it was reported widely that over a dozen episodes from Scandinavian countries had been found and were being rush released onto video? It turned out to be a hoax, but the interesting thing here is that the rumour was never confirmed or denied by the BBC (much like the current situation) and that it started within the corporation.

If it is an episode find, I think it'll be a couple - and not the massive hoard reported breathlessly in the press.

If you want to know more about the archival situation with regard to Dr.Who (and the cornucopia of existing formats and clips), have a look at http://www.paullee.com/drwho

..or the BBC could just be playing their cards close to their chest for now and wait to announce it either during the 50th anniversary celebrations or when they are ready to release it as part of a premium box set of classic episodes.

So, how many still missing ?

100(ish) just found, but many of those would have been ones that were not 'lost' and so not so spectactular a find.

106? Shurely Shome Mishtake

Been watching this rumour with amusement for the last 6 months, and there's been a lot of conflicting reports. Like the "large cache of old films cargo" story seems to have been debunked a few months back. The fact that 106 stories are missing, and (allegedly) 106 have been found tells us that if there is a grain of truth to the rumour, that grain is well hidden and the rest is just wish-list. Because we will never find 106. Part 7 of The Dalek Master Plan - "The Feast of Steven" (actually the original first Doctor Who "Christmas Special") - was never recorded onto film and never sold abroad. So the number of 106 doesn't originate from someone in the know but from fan speculation. As I suspect is "where" it comes from and "who" has found it.

It's quite possible something has been found, but the BBC has kept quiet for various reasons. The main reason being that if you're negotiating to buy old Doctor Who film, you don't want other Collectors getting wind and offering a price you can't match. The BBC may be a big corporation, but it has a budget like anyone else, it's pockets aren't bottomless. There are Doctor Who fans out there who would love to get their hands on cans of film containing stories that no-one else has (or is likely to) see, and some of them could easily outbid Auntie.

Then of course there's this rumour: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-06/doctor-who-newly-discovered-missing-episodes-to-be-released-for-sale-this-week

Who knows? (lol). Personally, you can keep your old scratchy Hartnell. I'll be over the moon if only Troughton's "Web of Fear" or "Evil of the Daleks" is rediscovered.