All 97 Missing Doctor Who Episodes Explained

Due to a combination of behind-the-scenes factors, there are 97 missing episodes of Doctor Who from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the British Broadcasting Corporation had a policy of “junking” archival programs like Doctor Who. There were multiple reasons for this ranging from lack of space to scarcity of material, but the policy led to numerous First and Second Doctor episodes being wiped from the archives. The same fate befell a handful of Jon Pertwee serials too, but thankfully overseas sales ensured that those Third Doctor stories weren’t completely lost forever.