Post by Taxigirl on Jan 15, 2004 16:08:35 GMT
A long-lost Dalek episode of Doctor Who has been returned to the BBC by an engineer who rescued the film from destruction in the early 1970s.
The episode of The Daleks' Master Plan, from 1965, was returned by Francis Watson - who worked at the BBC when episodes were thrown out to make space.
Steve Roberts from the BBC's restoration team, said it is five years since an episode was last recovered.
"You always hope there will be more but this came out of the blue," he said.
Roberts says the episode, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor, was the second from the Master Plan storyline - and titled Day Of Armageddon.
"It's a really good episode," he said. "The first sets the story but this second one is where the action starts."
"It has Katarina, a companion played by Adrienne Hill, who until now has only survived in short clips.
"One of the most important things is that it contains the story's alien delegates who we only had photos of before."
Mr Roberts, whose team prepares episodes for DVD release, said the last episode discovered was The Lion, an episode from William Hartnell's The Crusades - in January 1999.