It has happened and it’s all over the news. Two long lost pieces of archive television have been recovered, announced, and will be made available for the general public in the UK to view this coming Easter. Two episodes of Doctor Who from 1965, The Daleks’ Masterplan Episode 1 – The Nightmare Begins, and The Daleks’ Masterplan Episode 3 – Devil’s Planet, were found in the collection of a sadly deceased unnamed film collector and are now back in the BBC Archives.[1] For any fan of 1960s British telly this is wonderful news, and for fans of that time travelling Timelord, the Doctor, this is holy grail stuff! The Daleks’ Masterplan is an epic 12 part story of which, until just a few days ago as I write this, only 3 episodes were known to exist. Now there are 5!
As a long time Doctor Who addict whose fascination with archive TV began with watching and falling in love with old black and white episodes of that show, (see my previous post) this was particularly joyous news. But I have to admit I was already hugely excited by the amazing work of the British charitable organisation, Film is Fabulous!
I mentioned, in my post about ABC TV’s first day of broadcasting in South Australia, the sorry state of the courtroom drama, Boyd QC. Of the 84 episodes of this program produced between 1956 and 1964 only 6 were known to exist. That is until Film is Fabulous! (FiF) came on the scene. After announcing the discovery of 3 episodes in 2024, they went on to reveal and present another formerly missing episode at their television festival in 2025. Now there are 10 episodes of Boyd QC that one day I hope will be made available to view in some way for old TV nuts like myself all around the world.
Doctor Who and Boyd QC, however, are just the tip of the iceberg as far as FiF’s lost television finds are concerned. In just a few years of operation the team have recovered episodes of Sykes, Hugh and I, The Troubleshooters, Saber of London, The Third Man, Douglas Fairbanks Jr Presents, Moonstrike, Basil Brush, The Vice, and more including an incredible 28 missing episodes of Emergency Ward 10!
Perhaps the most incredible part of this story though is that all this archive TV gold that FiF has given back to us is only a by-product of their actual mission. In the past so-called ‘episode hunters’ have approached film collectors who may have had specific items of missing television in their collections and been told ‘we’re only interested in these two or three film cans out of your thousand plus collection. The rest is your problem.’ FiF on the other hand has a mandate to help film collectors catalogue, preserve and where necessary find new homes for their entire precious collections.
Film collecting is, on the whole, a hobby for a much older generation. Many of these celluloid aficionados who have been building their collections for decades are inevitably getting old and sadly passing away, leaving families to deal with often enormous accumulations of film.
I know how incredibly difficult it was for my sisters and I to deal with our mother’s amazing collection of books when she had to go into care. She had been an avid reader and collector of books all her life, and they were very precious to her. Dealing with the boxes and boxes of books that Mum loved so much when we were grieving ourselves and trying to care for our father through it all, was hellish. And these were books. Almost everyone has books.
Film is a specialist area with a very small niche of people who have the necessary knowledge of how to handle large amounts of old film practically and safely. Asking a grieving family to deal with the sometimes thousands of reels of film that their family member may have collected through their lifetime is far too much. Is it any wonder that in the past such collections have ended up in skips and landfill?
But now, in the UK at least, there is Film is Fabulous! They will, with delicacy and kindness, offer their assistance and expertise for no cost to the collectors or their families, and take on the gargantuan task of caring for these precious film collections. The fact that sometimes within the stacks of beloved motion picture reels, newsreels, educational films and family home movies there may be a rare or missing piece of archive television is a glorious happenstance for Archive TV lovers stemming from the kindness and dedication of the FiF team. I hope that someday an equivalent organisation, with the same laudable goals, can be formed here in Australia and around the world to preserve our collective media history.
To learn more about the amazing work of Film is Fabulous please visit their website at filmisfabulous.org.uk. If you are able, you can support their quest to help film collectors across the UK by making a tax deductable donation via their website. Otherwise, the best help we can be is to sit back, let them continue their meticulous and time-consuming task without interruption, and simply reap the rewards as they and when they are revealed.
[1] BBC – Lost Doctor Who episodes discovered in ‘eclectic’ collection
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