The sad fact faced by all fans of the BBC's long-running science fiction series Doctor Who is that nearly half of the 200+ episodes are considered lost or incomplete due to improper storage. However, episodes and tantalizing glimpses of "orphaned" stories from the reign of the first Doctor, William Hartnell (1963-66) have been culled together from 16 and 35mm prints and restored for this set. The most noteworthy treasure is "Day of Armageddon," the second episode in the epic 12-part story from season 3, "The Daleks' Master Plan," which has been unseen by the public since its initial airing in 1965. Also among the recently recovered is "The Lion," the first episode of season's 2's "The Crusade." The only other surviving episodes from these stories--episodes 5 and 10 from "The Daleks' Master Plan," and episode 3 from "The Crusade" (audio tracks and narrative links for the second and fourth episodes of this story are also included), as well as the sole remaining episode (#4, "The Final Test") from "The Celestial Toymaker" (featuring veteran actor Michael Gough) round out the disc. The DVD extras include fragments from the lost episodes of "The Daleks' Master Plan" and season 4's "The Smugglers" and "The Tenth Planet," all rescued from a variety of far-flung places; also included is commentary by actor Julian Glover for episode 3 of "The Crusade" and actors Peter Purves and Kevin Stoney, along with designer Raymond Cusick for "Day of Armaggedon," and some 8mm off-screen footage from the Hartnell era. Viewers can also access introductions to and an afterword for "The Crusade" (taken from the original VHS release) by accessing the "Play All" option on the main menu.

As with the First Doctor, a number of episodes and stories from Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor tenure (1966-69) are also incomplete or missing altogether, so The Patrick Troughton Years attempts to reconstruct the "orphaned" stories through episodes and clips culled from a variety of sources. For Who historians, the most important footage here is from Troughton's first appearance as the Doctor in season 5's "The Power of the Daleks," which is missing in its entirety; a rough glimpse of the transition from actor William Hartnell to Troughton is included, along with other surviving fragments. The complete episodes offered here are the sole remaining episode from season 4's "The Underwater Menace" (fragments from this story are included in the extras), episodes 2 and 4 from "The Moonbase," which features the return of the Cybermen (audio from episodes 1 and 3 is featured in the extras), episodes 1 and 3 from "The Faceless Ones," and episode 2 from "The Evil of the Daleks" (which includes commentary by actress Deborah Watling, who played the Doctor's companion, Victoria). Disc 2 marks the only episode from the Yetis' debut in "The Abominable Snowmen" (Watling again provides commentary), two episodes from "The Wheel in Space" (with commentary by director Tristan de Vere Cole and story editor Derrick Sherwin) and just one apiece for "The Web of Fear," "The Space Pirates," and "The Enemy of the World." Chief among the extras is the 1998 documentary The Missing Years, which interviews several of the film collectors responsible for rescuing these lost episodes and fragments (the doc has been updated to reflect the 2004 discovery of two William Hartnell episodes); the supplemental features offer fragments and behind-the-scenes footage from "The Macra Terror" (with a rare clip of the monsters), "Fury from the Deep" (which includes a scene reconstruction), "The Highlanders," and the aforementioned stories.

Patrick Troughton - The Great Lost Doctor Who!

This set is a REVELATION! It's indispensible. A month ago I had never heard the name Patrick Troughton, and was only mildly familiar with three Doctor Whos from the BBC America broadcasts: John Pertwee, Tom Baker (whom I liked a great deal), and that more lightweight Fifth one with blonde hair. The trouble was that the broadcasts here in America were on at such varying hours that I don't think I ever saw a complete Doctor Who story, just scattered episodes. I happened recently on some old VHS copies of several Tom Baker episodes, and was hooked. But where were the "complete 7th season", "complete 10th season" collections in Circuit City (or on amazon.com)? Instead, BBC had apparently decided to issue the storylines one by one, and about the only box set available when I was looking in earnest was this "Lost in Time" set, starring the First and Second Doctors. I snatched it up (having enjoyed the replacement First Doctor in the VHS of "The Five Doctors" - the tired performance of that odd short Second Doctor who looked like Moe of the Three Stooges did not impress me much.) When I happened on this DVD set, I watched the remaining William Hartnell episodes from otherwise lost storylines, and liked him well enough - a nice, crotchety elegance and intellect, at least when he wasn't blowing his lines and looking vaguely lost while the cameras rolled on around him. OK, and I am glad to have made his acquaintance. I bought the DVD set for the Hartnell episodes, but, as there were two other DVDs featuring this odd, unpromising Second Doctor fellow, I decided I'd suffer through those, at least so many as I could stand. But a very strange thing happened while I did so -- sometime midway during the final episode of "Moonbase" from the first season (we have 2 of the 4 original episodes), I realized with a lightning bolt of joy that this guy might just have been as good as Tom Baker. No - he was even better, unmistakeably better, I saw as I watched the "Faceless Ones" episodes and the others. The point of absolute conviction was watching the few superb moments from the climax of that greatest of lost storylines, "Fury of the Deep," with Patrick Troughton at his very peak, intense, brilliant, exciting beyond measure in the very highest expression of this art form -- the finest, and by a considerable margin, of all the Doctors, and that includes the great Tom Baker. Patrick Troughton was the perfect Doctor Who. Most unusually for me, I was heartsick about the terrible loss of the very best work of this fantastically gifted actor, and set about to listen to all the soundtracks I could find (while the Daleks at BBC destroyed the vast majority of Troughton's work as the Doctor, fans recorded the sound, at least, of the lost masterpieces, and BBC has atoned in some small measure for its abject stupidity and unforgiveable negligence by reissuing them.) I also discovered the remaining off-the-air "snaps" taken by a photographer who used to sell the images to actors in the series. (Why didn't anyone just film the episodes off the air, in kinescopes? But apparently no one did.) It is possible, I discovered, to recreate some sense of just how great the Second Doctor consistently was, by hunting down the soundtracks (on CD, MP3, and downloads) of the first season, interspersing the remaining episodes lovingly restored on this glorious DVD set, and checking the photo "snaps" on the BBC website. Having now lived through this first, great season in a week or so, I can report that the work, though a degree variable, was of the very highest quality, with Troughton and his supporting cast members, especially the actors portraying Jamie, Polly, and Victoria, reaching a peak never equalled, so far as I have seen, at any other time in the series. Here is an informal rating (on a scale from 1 - 10) of Troughton's first series storylines (1966-67), not one of them surving in total on film, and many of them lost utterly:
Power of the Daleks - 10 (highlights include Daleks hilariously masquerading as "servants" -- "shall I bring you more liquid?" --while they wait for their power to be restored by a naive scientist - go grab the soundtrack!)
Highlanders - 9+ (no sci-fi, just an old-fashioned "historic" storyline, quite swashbuckling and marvelously spun)
Underwater Menace - 4 (not the best of the series - and those pathetic "fish people" in the surviving filmed episode, suspended by huge black wires; Troughton's great, though)
Moonbase - 8 - good story line, marred a bit by cheesy special effects (paper Cyberman spaceships, e.g.) - perhaps sometimes it's better to listen to the soundtracks than to see the filmed version, but only when Troughton is not onscreen, he's not to be missed
Macra Terror - 9 - quite creepy, and even timely, given US politics as I write this (let him who has ears hear)
Faceless Ones - 10 - off the charts - suspenseful, well written, with Troughton at his hapless and commanding finest (luckily, one of the best episodes, Episode 1, survives on film and is part of this DVD set)
Evil of the Daleks - 8 - overlong, probably stretched out to fill the last few weeks of this season, but with a smashing (literally) climax as rebel Daleks (created by the good Doctor in one of his usual strokes of genius) destroy the Dalek home planet.
And that's just Troughton's first season - as for the second, which I am just peering into now, "Fury of the Deep" is a masterpiece, perhaps the very finest sci fi storyline to appear in a television series on either side of the Atlantic, ever. BBC saved about 45 seconds of that one.
Go grab this DVD set right now, and see the way Doctor Who deserves to be portrayed - an absentminded genius, an inept angel, a befuddled Prometheus, who always rises to the occasion with flair and brillance. You'll love Patrick Troughton - the greatest Doctor Who! He never disappoints.

THIS WILL BREAK YOUR HEART!

It's really a shame to see these episodes incomplete. It's a good thing they are recovered as well, but the fact remains, somewhere down the line the shows keep popping up from time to time, but never soon enough!!! I hope they do!

"Nuzzing in ze world can schtop me now!!"

A must-get for any fan of Doctor Who. This Three Disc DVD set contains all episodes that belong to incomplete serials. Also included are film clips from many different missing episodes and a revised "The Missing Years", a documentray detailing how Doctor Who episodes were lost or destroyed by the BBC. With the VHS line-up slowing dying from store shelves and on-line retailers, this release makes it that much more important for Who fans to acquire.