David Farnor | On 25, Nov 2021

Two classic missing Doctor Who serials are set to stream on BritBox UK this December.

The streaming service has become a go-to destination for fans of the Time Lord, with 627 pieces of Doctor Who Classic material available on the platform, including episodes, spin-offs, documentaries, telesnaps and more plus many rarely-seen treasures. 129 complete stories, which total 558 episodes, span the first eight Doctors from William Hartnell to Paul McGann. Even Peter Cushing’s Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150AD are among the collection.

Now, two more serials are joining the line-up, after they were long thought to be lost.

Doctor Who: The Faceless Ones is the eighth incomplete Doctor Who serial to receive full-length animated reconstructions of its missing episodes. First broadcast in 1967, it sees the Doctor and his companions arrive at Gatwick Airport and discover strange identity-stealing aliens called Chameleons.

Also arriving will be Doctor Who: Fury from the Deep. First broadcast in 1968, it follows the Doctor and his companions as they find themselves at a gas refinery where a dangerous plant is infecting everyone and controlling their minds.

The Faceless Ones stars Patrick Troughton and only two of its six episodes are held in the BBC film archives, with snippets of footage and still images existing from the other four. The animation uses off-air recordings of the soundtrack to tie it all together.

Fury from the Deep also stars Patrick Troughton, with no full episodes of the story existing at all in the BBC archives. Instead, animation is based on the off-air soundtrack recording and some snippets of footage and still images.

Both reconstructions were previously released in 2020 on Blu-ray. They will stream on BritBox UK from 23rd December.

They follow other Troughton classics that have been restored in recent years, including The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World, which are also available on BritBox.

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