Two long-missing Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s have just been found, and they’re due to hit BBC iPlayer around Easter 2026.

Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found – Quick Scoop

What was discovered?

  • Two lost Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s have been recovered after more than six decades.
  • They feature the First Doctor , played by William Hartnell, in a story involving the Daleks and a large-scale scheme to conquer Earth, the solar system and beyond.
  • The episodes are from the 12‑part serial “The Daleks’ Master Plan” (Season 3), long considered one of the darkest, most ambitious early storylines.

Fans have called “The Daleks’ Master Plan” a kind of lost epic – huge stakes, high body count, and a very 1960s sense of grim, space‑age peril.

Which episodes exactly?

Most reports agree that the recovered instalments are:

  • Episode 1 – “The Nightmare Begins”
  • Episode 3 – “Devil’s Planet”

from The Daleks’ Master Plan (1965–66).

They were previously among the long list of missing prints from the William Hartnell era, with only a handful of episodes and off‑air audio surviving.

How were the episodes found?

  • The films turned up in a donated private collection of thousands of reels belonging to a now‑deceased collector.
  • The collection has been described as “ramshackle” and “eclectic” – essentially a jumble of vintage film cans, some in plastic bags, sitting forgotten until archivists stepped in.
  • The discovery was made by the preservation charity Film is Fabulous! , which had already hinted in 2025 that a missing Doctor Who episode existed in a vulnerable private collection.

Once identified, the film prints were passed to BBC Archives , where specialists restored and digitised them to broadcast quality.

BBC archives director Noreen Adams said they’ve been working to clean up and restore the material so fans can watch them on BBC iPlayer this Easter , effectively turning them into a holiday “extra treat.”

Why is this such a big deal?

  • This is the first confirmed recovery of lost Doctor Who TV episodes since 2013 , when nine Patrick Troughton instalments (The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear) were found in Nigeria.
  • As of March 2026, there are still 95 Doctor Who episodes missing from the 1960s, spanning 26 serials (10 of them completely absent), so every single recovery matters.
  • The find ends the longest gap without any newly recovered episodes in the show’s history.

Former companion actor Peter Purves (Steven Taylor), now 87, was secretly invited to a Leicester cinema, where the rediscovered episodes were screened for him as a surprise.

He reportedly reacted with both emotion and humour, including the line that his “flabber has never been so gasted,” and joked that he’d still quite like some royalties after all these years.

What happens next?

  • The two episodes have been fully restored by BBC archivists.
  • They’re scheduled to drop on BBC iPlayer around Easter 2026 , letting modern audiences see them in as close to original quality as possible.
  • The discovery feeds optimism among archive hunters that more missing episodes are still out there in private collections and forgotten vaults.

Justin Smith of Film is Fabulous! has said they’re confident other missing instalments “are in existence” somewhere, even if no one yet knows where or who has them.

Archivists are still combing:

  • Private film collections
  • Old TV relay stations and overseas broadcasters
  • Attics, basements, and personal archives that might contain BBC export prints

Status of Lost Doctor Who Episodes (2026)

Here’s a quick snapshot of where things stand now:

[5][8][1][3] [7][9][8][1][3] [5][1][3] [1][3] [2][6][5]
Category Status (as of March 2026)
Total 1960s episodes still missing 95 episodes remain unaccounted for in BBC archives
Newly found in 2026 2 episodes from “The Daleks’ Master Plan” (Season 3, Hartnell, Daleks storyline)
Last major find before 2026 2013: 9 episodes from “The Enemy of the World” and “The Web of Fear” located in Nigeria
Release plan Restored and scheduled for BBC iPlayer during Easter 2026
Ongoing search efforts Film is Fabulous! and other archivists tracking vulnerable private collections worldwide

Forum & fan discussion angle

Online fan spaces have been buzzing with posts along the lines of:

“We’ve actually found more of The Daleks’ Master Plan in 2026 – I genuinely thought that ship had sailed.”

Common talking points in current forum threads include:

  • Whether this increases the odds of other holy grail stories resurfacing (like more from Seasons 3–5).
  • If the 2026 find confirms long‑running rumours that private collectors still hold missing BBC prints.
  • Speculation about further announcements from Film is Fabulous!, since they’d already hinted that more Doctor Who material might be in that same large collection.

Some fans are also comparing the 2026 discovery to the 2013 Nigeria haul, debating which is more exciting: a big batch at once or a smaller but high‑profile recovery from a legendary story like The Daleks’ Master Plan.

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    Two long-lost Doctor Who episodes from “The Daleks’ Master Plan” have been found in a private collection and will stream on BBC iPlayer Easter 2026.

TL;DR: Two long-lost 1960s Doctor Who episodes from The Daleks’ Master Plan have been recovered from a deceased collector’s film stash, restored by the BBC, and are set to hit iPlayer around Easter 2026, reigniting the hunt for the 95 episodes that still remain missing.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.