Middle-Aged Doctor in Love Broadcast to Nation--Shock!

Rumours had buzzed like vibrators dancing on white goods for a week before News Corporation publications carried a syndicated story one sleepy Tuesday in August, 2003:

Dr Who returns for 40th

05aug03

"The ABC said it planned to screen all 700 episodes." ended the piece.

How many?

Presumably the figure of 700 was a rounded one, as it doesn't seem justifiable otherwise.

The original ABC press (dated August 3rd, but embargoed until the 4th) quoted Head of ABC TV Programming, Ms Marena Manzou as saying "... ABC TV ... decided to re-screen the entire series from episode one". The source of the figure of 700 is unknown.

So, how many?

The first problem is that are phantom episodes.

Phantom episodes?

Ignoring never transmitted oddities such as the pilot, 1964's "The Urge to Live" (edited out of existence to make Planet of the Giants faster) and 1980's Shada (abandoned due to strike action), and forgetting spin off K9 and Company, there is still the problem of double length episodes. The first story with these was Resurrection of the Daleks, a template for the format of the following year (if not also tone). The entire Season Twenty-Two was composed of these 45-minute beauties. Still, these were intended to be dividable to traditional episode length, and this is likely the format which will screen.

Then there is The Five Doctors. This 20th anniversary adventure was screened as one 90-minute special, but was also intended to be dividable into four regular episodes.

Assuming the greatest number from these, we arrive at 713 episodes.

The second problem is there are missing episodes. A lot of them.

There are currently 109* episodes listed as missing by the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt**. This brings the greatest number down to 604.

The third factor is orphaned episodes. The fourth story, Marco Polo, is missing in its entirety. The eighth story, The Reign of Terror is missing two episodes, and it is unlikely ABC will screen the remaining four. There are a further 29 such orphaned episodes, bringing the highest possible number of screenable episodes to 571. Still, ignoring interruptions for sport, holidays and breaking news, and presuming the four episode weeks continue without other interruption, this will be enough to keep The Show on our screens 'till April 2006***.

All of this is at the mercy of what the ABC receives. When ABC premiered The Tomorrow People (second series) in mid-1997, they screened only 24 of the 25 episodes. Anecdotaly, this was because they purchased the series on two cassettes of 12 each, not realising the middle episode of the run (Monsoon Man episode three) was not present. By the time this became apparent they elected not to screen it out of order, leaving that episode to premiere when the series was repeated.

Program information will be posted at SFSA as it becomes available.

* This was correct at the time of writing (August 2003), but in January 2004 Day of Armageddon (AKA The Daleks Masterplan episode 2) was returned to the BBC.

** BBC Archive Treasure Hunt form.

*** While this document bore out well over two years, ABC informed me on the second of November 2005 that they would go to ten episodes per week from the 28th. This knocked over a month off the repeats, which ended on the third of February, 2006.