2026 - October to December
October 2026
2 - On their FB, FIF announce that Riverside will hold an encore screening of the two recovered episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan plus "Day of Armageddon" on 31 October 2026.
In attendance will be Toby Hadoke, Sue Malden and John Franklin. The official link is here.
In response to a comment about more Doctor Who being found, FIF reply that "there's always hope".
3 - Prior to the Riverside screening of The Underwater Menace and The Faceless Ones, one of the hosts Gavin Rymill posts that today's screening will feature the answer to an unsolved question posed in The Doctor Who Missing Episodes Podcast.
At 1pm UK time, the screening of the two existing episodes of both The Underwater Menace and The Faceless Ones takes place at Riverside Studios. No special reveals occur (Ed:- I later discovered that the "unsolved question" related to some overdubbed dialogue by Patrick Troughton in the former story).
4 - On their FB, Fantom Events post an intriguing reel, with still photos from missing Doctor Who stories and the captions "Withdrawn", "Deaccessioned", "Junked".
The reel's caption is "Coming soon...". The same is posted on their X.
Member The Firemaker on GB gives the stories the photos are from as being:
The Evil of the Daleks
Marco Polo
The Faceless Ones
The Tenth Planet
The Abominable Snowmen
Galaxy 4
The Daleks' Master Plan
The Crusade
The Moonbase
The Massacre
The Underwater Menace
The Ice Warriors
The Celestial Toymaker
The Wheel in Space
The Power of the Daleks
(Ed:- With thanks to hayleyjone86 on Gallifrey Base.)
5 - On GB, member absinthe_boy reports that FIF have stated they will not announce any other Doctor Who recoveries at their upcoming Riverside event on the 31st of this month.
6 - Fantom Events announce on their FB that the event their reel relates to (Ed:- see 4 October 2026) is "Missing Who", an event celebrating the recovery of missing episodes of Doctor Who. Peter Purves is slated to attend.
The event takes place on 24 April 2027.
7 - Fantom Events posts that Carole Ann Ford has also been booked to attend Missing Who.
8 - On their FB, FIF announce the person who will conduct the first phase of their London-based trial: Rebecca O'Connor Thompson will be cataloguing the collection belonging to the late Keith Wilton (Ed:- as surmised on this blog; see 30 September 2026).
Meanwhile on their FB, Fantom Events announce that John Franklin of FIF will be a guest at "Missing Who" in April next year.
10 - On their FB, Fantom Events announce that Sue Malden of FIF will be a guest at "Missing Who".
Meanwhile on their X, Fantom also announce Sally Faulkner - Isobel Watkins from The Invasion - as a guest at Pandorica 2026, being held on 1 November this year.
12 - On their FB, Fantom announce that Frazer Hines will be a guest at "Missing Who".
Meanwhile on their FB, FIF post a query to their followers as to what missing artefacts should be prioritised, and also in some of their comments hint at a shift in their strategy away from "at-risk" collections towards identifying collections with missing material.
13 - On their FB, Fantom post that Wendy Padbury will join the guest list for "Missing Who".
14 - On their X, FIF announce they will be holding a special live Q&A webinar for Director-tier Patreons. The event takes place on Monday, 19 October 2026 at 7:30pm GMT.
15 - A new forum - Planet Telos - goes live to replace the (sadly) defunct Planet Mondas Forum.
16 - And on Planet Telos - getting the new forum off to a flying start - member georgeagdgdgwngo posts some screen grabs of messages he was sent "years ago" - that The Tenth Planet:4 and - he clarifies - The Daleks' Master Plan:4 ("The Traitors") are known to be in a private collection, but the person concerned "won't hand them back".
These are the two episodes "supposedly" lost by Blue Peter. The cans are in the possession of "an ex-BBC employee", whose wife contacted the old Restoration Team about them.
Meanwhile, the Crime and Comedy Theater Company is putting a performance of 1965's The Crusade, starring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Carole Ann Ford and Peter Purves.
The performance forms part of Happy Who Year, a convention being held in January 2027. The official link for the play is here.
17 - On Planet Telos, member georgeagdgdgwngo reports that "extras" for The Myth Makers and The Smugglers have been filmed, and that Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury have filmed something together.
Forum owner Bowtiesarecool says these may be for releases in 2027/28.
Meanwhile, on Digital Spy Forums, member Rooks says that in a 2-part U&Gold documentary dealing with recently discovered, unbroadcast material from BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, one of the people behind the finds mentioned "good news on the horizon" regarding missing Doctor Who.
It's unclear who made the finds, but in a clip on this webpage Richard Latto is seen.
(Ed:- the documentary is called "Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive". An article on the topic can be found here.)
18 - On the YT channel TalkTV, Richard Latto is interviewed about the Only Fools and Horses finds. (This is the actual source of the comment about Doctor Who, not the documentary.) At 10:52, Richard is asked about potential Doctor Who finds, he responds that he has "heard rumours", but all he can say is "watch this space".
19 - FIF hold their first Q&A webinar, giving the state of play on missing episodes in film collections.
On Planet Telos, member vikings reports that FIF state they still know of three separate collections that contain at least one episode.
Further points are reported on GB: member MoDo says that "several" means three, as in episodes known besides the two episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan. Member Flashpoint additionally states that of the three collections with these three missing episodes, one collector is sadly terminally ill, and when the time comes the family will contact FIF. The other two collectors fear reprisals (specifically, the effect on their pensions).
Member narich provides more information: the terminally-ill collector has the largest collection of the three, and negotiations with FIF are ongoing with the other two, due to their concerns about coming forward.
Finally, Steve Manfred reports that FIF's "pipeline" of incoming film is "overflowing", and the Doctor Who brand team are calling "weekly" for updates on finds.
20 - FIF release the first instalment of the Q&A webinar for their Patreon members. (The following three parts will be released daily this week.)
"The Culture of Film Collecting"
First, FIF state they we shouldn't underestimate not only the amount of film but of television “out there” (ie, both in collections and archives), especially considering the lack of archival policies of broadcasters as late as the 1980s.
FIF are expanding their operations by adding administration and cataloguing roles. They aim to constantly expand and are open to feedback and suggestions. The best way to support FIF is via their Patreon to help them continue their work.
21 - FIF release the second instalment of the Q&A webinar.
"The Process of Preservation"
FIF say there is no typical method for acquiring collections, as each collector and their circumstances are unique, from geographical location to their physical condition to the number of films in their collection.
In a couple of instances FIF have had to move quickly to acquire collections, including the one containing 6 episodes of Doctor Who, two of which were the two missing episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan. The collection went to court because the executors of the estate predeceased the collector, and the entire estate had been left to a high street charity. The court upheld the will, and FIF negotiated directly with the charity and acquired the film collection.
In the case of the two Master Plan prints, the film itself had physically shrunk. The collector had never projected the films; if he had they would have been damaged due to the sprocket holes not aligning on the projector.
Research into cutting copies is ongoing and they’ve found a seam of interesting research, especially by way of former industry professionals (especially Simon Chambers and Robert Maynard). They have provided a lot of feedback on the two Master Plan episodes, advising they are the final iteration of cutting copies known as “answer copies”.
The BBC’s practice was to use one label type was put on all iterations of cutting copies.
FIF have two groups they deal with in the film community, active living film collectors and film collectors’ estates. FIF’s profile in the community as a neutral party is facilitating returns of missing material.
FIF estimate the number of active film collectors across the UK and Europe to be 2,000. Older collectors are less inclined to be “active", which highlights the importance of FIF’s role in contacting these “inactive” collectors.
John knows of a collection that holds “very important material” including “television episodes that everyone would like to see”. (Ed:- This sounds like the terminally-ill collector who as reported elsewhere holds at least one missing episode of Doctor Who.) The collector’s wife has assured John that she will contact him "when something happens".
Part of FIF’s role involves going into people’s homes and dealing directly with the bereaved, helping them work through their grieving. Regardless of length of time it takes, FIF supports the families and tries to preserve as much film as they can, respectfully and humanely.
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Meanwhile on their FB, FIF announce that they will hold another live Q&A in November this year. Further, the videos from this month's Q&A will be available on their YouTube channel "within in month".
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22 - FIF release the third instalment of the Q&A webinar.
"Dealing with Copyright Holders"
The challenges FIF encounter when dealing with copyright holders are “many and various”. The physical medium of film has no relation to the IP rights and FIF’s first duty is to the copyright holder; however commercial networks in the UK such as ITV manifestly have no interest in their archival legacy. There’s no interest in preserving and showing historical programming as it’s costly and it isn‘t commercially viable for the network to show publicly.
If FIF finds missing TV that lots of people would want to see that was produced by the BBC, and FIF present this to BBC Archives and they would like to present this at FIF’s next event, the rights holder ie, if the writer decides they will charge a high fee to for it to be screened the BBC won’t sanction it.
Independent broadcasters used intermediary companies to return screened material to the UK, some of these “cut corners”; for instance, the recovery of Emergency Ward 10, one was so vinegar syndromed it couldn’t be identified as to which episode it was, and many episodes were missing from the batch that should have been returned and may have ended up in private collections.
Next was the answer to the question submitted by this blog's author, which was is there any update on the “several” collections known to have “several” missing episodes of Doctor Who?
John’s update: there’s no update in terms of acquiring missing material; John’s original statement did include the one known episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan, but John was aware of three other collections with three missing episodes of Doctor Who. One of these is that belonging to the terminally-ill collector. FIF continue not to be focused on individual episodes or television shows; they are preserving silent and feature films, documentaries and of course missing television.
Two collectors who are former industry professionals are concerned about losing their pensions, FIF is having ongoing dialogue with them about their entire collections, that comprise several thousand films. These collections are situated in different parts of the country. Their pipeline of collections and films is “overflowing”, which must be cleared before they can take the next items in. John believes there will be good news down the line in terms of preservation of material. FIF will continue to do what it does and treat collectors respectfully and humanely.
In response to has the Doctor Who community been a net positive or net negative to FIF’s mission? Justin Smith says overwhelmingly positive; FIF has this community to thank for a global awareness and support of FIF and its mission, particularly with the recovery of the two Master Plan episodes and the four public screenings. When two prominent film collectors were invited to a Doctor Who event and were overwhelmed by the support of Doctor Who fans for FIF’s cause. They are not on a treasure hunt, they aim to rescue at-risk film collections and Doctor Who fans have shown they understand this. New FIF staff member Laraine Porter has been impressed by the energy of this multi-generational fandom and its social media savvy.
The Riverside Studios event on 31 October is their event, with members of FIF in attendance.
FIF conduct triage when recovering and removing film from a site. The factors used in assessing the level of risk relating to each collection include whether the collector is recently deceased, and the circumstances of the family involved which are often as FIF describes it “distressed circumstances”, the condition of the actual films and the conditions in which they are stored. FIF have at times entered buildings in a state of physical collapse, and extreme care has had to be used for fear of actual physical injury. The family often also wish to sell the property and move on with their lives, and there is often a very tight timeframe to do this triage and remove the films (as little as two weeks). As a result, FIF will never be able to save every film or even film collection will be saved. John was recently offered a film collection in Penzance but there simply wasn’t enough time to get to the collection, perform the necessary triage and save it in time.
Finally, FIF is working as collaboratively as they can with the BFI but time and costs do not always allow this. FIF relies on institutes like the BFI to provide “clues” as to where material could be, there is a lot of detective work involved.
23 - FIF release the fourth instalment of the Q&A webinar.
"Future Plans and Ambitions"
FIF’s goals for the future include adding the to the history of
film, such as compiling an oral history of film collecting by way of
the knowledge and memories of collectors and industry professionals
(editors, film cutters). Also through acquiring technical knowledge, for
instance research into differing definitions of “cutting copies”.
Another goal of FIF
is to continue to encourage older collectors to catalogue their
collections, and add the list to their will as a codicil. This
cataloguing work however requires enormous resources and additional
personnel, as FIF now deal with thousands of films a week.
John mentions
clearing an upstairs loft in 42 degree heat.
John is contacted
every week by the Doctor Who brand team asking for news on finds.
John is cautious about saying more, that we now know as much as the
brand team does, and he says we will all find out at the same time
when there is something to say! (Ed:- John's coy demeanour at this point struck me as being highly
suggestive that they DO know something else that they are choosing
not to disclose at this time – which to be perfectly frank is
something I already suspected. Time will tell.)
FIF would also like
to show an extended run of the recovered episodes of popular and
influential series Emergency Ward 10, together with star
Annette Andre. The episodes feature a storyline in which Annette is
prominent.
FIF doesn’t
currently know of any similar organisations that do the kind of work
that FIF does. FIF have been contacted for advice in
setting up local equivalents, and John has been invited to the USA
and Australia to speak but John’s on the ground work in the UK
prevents this. John encourages anyone who has the energy,
determination and enthusiasm to start something themselves.
When deciding what
to save, FIF separate out any films that are in poor condition and
take them back to their storage facilities, where a decision is made
whether it can be salvaged.
24 - On their YT, FIF post a notification that the first part of their webinar Q&A will be available to view on YouTube on Thursday, 29 October at 9:30am UK time.
