Good evening comrades!
Long time no see!

What brings me back round these parts is a rumour I have heard from TWO sources:

1. 42 missing episodes have been found in Africa

2. Loads of missing episodes have been found in Tunisia / Turkey. A DVDful has been cleared by the BBFC for release later this year but it's all tightly under wraps.

Of course, all of this could be complete toot, but these two sources know people who know people, and both versions of the story have reached me within the last 24hrs! I've been around long enough to ignore missing episode rumours, but this is quite an eyecatcher, I'm sure you'll agree.

Has anyone else heard anything similar? (etc)

Ta,
Chuff x

Always welcome here, Chuff! And I've heard nothing similar, but hope springs eternal.

I think it has been mentioned here. But not, as far as I know, with with much authority. In fact you are now my most authoritative source for the rumour!

Nice to see you chuff. Hope you've been enjoying the episodes

'Ello Chuff!

1 sounds like another garbled version of the Sierra Leone story; some twenty episodes (the 'African Bicycle Prints') and lots of other missing archive stuff were found to be stored in a film archive in Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, it had been razed to the ground during the hideous civil war they had there. In 1999.

As for 2, there's no record of Doctor Who being sold to either Turkey or Tunisia... but I suppose stranger things have happened!

I've heard something similar on Gallifrey Base, I really hope it's true, that would be almost half of them found! I'd love to know the details as to which episodes have been dicovered if this is true, I hop BBC don't leave us in the dark about this!

Personally I'm hoping for Marco Polo, The Celestial Toymaker and The Abominable Snowman but we'll have to wait and see!

I don't want to get my hopes up, but that would be great if this was true. Fourty-two episodes is a lot, so we could have a number of completed stories.

Marco Polo, The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, The Celestial Toy Maker, The Dalek's Masterplan, The Tenth Planet, Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Faceless Ones, Evil of the Daleks, Wheel in Space, Web of Evil.

These are all stories I would love to see completed.

Again though, I don't want to get my hopes up.

Like everyone else, I don't want to get my hopes up
But if there is any truth in this, This will be the best news ever.
I don't care what episodes they are, I will buy the dvd's if and when released. If this is true that is.

May I suggest that for anyone interested in Dr Who's missing episodes they read a book called Wiped - Doctor Who's missing episodes by Richard Molesworth. This extremely well researched book lists not only every country episodes were sold to, but which TV station broadcast them. It explains how lost episodes have been found and why they were "wiped" in the first place. Whilst not saying that no further missing episodes exist, it does come to the conclusion that those epsiodes still missing are very unlikely to ever be recoverded. In most instances this because a particular story was never sold abroad but was disposed of by the BBC

Not directly, but Doctor Who Online claimed to have a huge story that they couldn't release that was not new series related. We wondered if it was episode finds but no confirmations were made. We had also heard similar rumours (44 episodes found) around the same time. Nothing confirmed though.

It would be absolutely fantastic if this turns out to be true! The sheer amount of episodes found sounds to good to be true though. Also If some of the missing episodes have been found, surely they would of made some sort of official announcement by now?

I have heard the first rumour from a couple of sources, usually trustworthy and not too interested in Who.

The second is news to me. I would love it to be true.

The missing Dalek episodes are the key ones. If they are discovered they can release an entire Daleks boxset!

This is the only 2013 rumour that really excites me. If, hypothetically, 42 missing episodes had been recovered and were released then that'd be essentially like 21 hours of extra Doctor Who this year for someone like me born well after the originals were junked.

This is the only rumour that excites me too.

This close to the anniversary, I can see them trying to keep it quiet till Nov.

However I think it's just wishful thinking. Never been a cache of this many episodes, and most recent recoveries have been an odd episode here and there.

It's the only rumour I know of. Everything else I'm excited about is confirmed fact.

Indeed. It all seems so unlikely.

I always wonder about the mentality of people who start rumours about missing episodes. What do they actually get out of raising fans' hopes?

..Give me a break. The show is going to have an amazing uickfire and entertaining anniversary special and you're more excited the snail-paced stuff is coming out?

Don't get me wrong, I love classic Who, but I'm definitely more excited for the recent stuff coming out. I don't live in the past.

Idiot.

None of us live in the past, but we sure as hell appreciate it more than you seem to, and missing episodes that I for one, haven't seen? That'd be an excellent treat and a great addition to the many things we have to cheer about during the anniversary year.

Snail paced?? This is classic British television, made with care and thought and love. Quickfire TV does not automatically equal quality. Slower paced story telling is just as valid. Just because it's not all whizz-bang fluff doesn't mean it's no good.

It's not a question of living in the past - do you have no appreciation of history?

Much as I love Classic Who, many stories crawl along at a snail's pace because they're shamelessly padded with wandering down corridors/tunnels and repetitive capture and escape scenarios.

As opposed to more recent stories which have a lot of running down corridors/tunnels etc?

No, that's only by modern standards and that's because we've been conditioned by multi-channel TV. I'm not saying there's no padding in Classic Who, there is, but the slower pace is simply the style of TV at the time and we notice it more because we are used to the insanely fast paced TV of 2013. Can you imagine An Unearthly Child as part of the 2013 series? It would be 5 minutes long

Personally I much prefer the TV of the 50s and 60s, It's more laid back and the story is the focus rather than the effects. I'd happily sit down for an evening of First Doctor stories interspersed with episodes of The Twilight Zone

If I were given the choice of 42 missing episodes of 60s Who or 14 new episodes of New Who, it would be the 42 missing episodes every single time.

What a nice welcome back for Chuffnobbler to have his nice polite thread descend so quickly into rude bickering. Lovely.