User:Bongolium500/The Faceless Ones (TV story)/Missing status

, episodes 2, 4, 5 and 6 of The Faceless Ones are among the 97 missing episodes of Doctor Who.

Episode junking
The master tapes for episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 were errased on 21 July 1969 with episode 5 following on 22 September. However, episode 1 continued to exist in the BBC Archives in a different format, presumably after having been returned from overseas.

Certainly, the NZBC in New Zealand returned their (unaired and hence uncensored) 16mm copies of each episode back to the BBC in 3 July 1970. 1974 then saw BBC Enterprises at Villiers House junk The Faceless Ones film prints as part of their routine junking of episodes returned from overseas. 4 June 1975 saw the return of each episode from the ABC in Australia which were later scheduled for destruction as was routine. It is possible that episode 3 escaped being junked here, hence its eventual discovery.

Soundtrack recording and recovery
Soundtracks for all 6 episodes survive, the best quality copies being recorded off-air by Graham Strong. These were recorded directly off the TV and so are of very high quality.

more to be added

Episode recovery
Episode 1 was always in the BBC Archives. The episode was included in a list of surviving episodes created in November 1976 in order to assertain which episodes could be used to source clips for a docummentary in the Lively Arts series. It was later included in the list produced by an audit in 1977. An edited copy of the episode was also found in the collection of David Gee in 1978.

Episode 3 was found in a film fair in Buckingham by the new film collector Gordon Hendry in 1982, alongside episode 2 of The Evil of the Daleks. These films were attempted to be screened at a cinema in 1985 and an associate of Hendry, Saied Marham, attempted to publicise the event at that year's PanoptiCon convention. However, the event was branded a hoax. Paul Vanezis then spent the next 15 months attempting to convince Marham to return the prints. On 18 April 1987, a tribute was held for Patrick Troughton who had died recently and, after some uncertainty, The Faceless Ones episode 3 was provided by Marham in time to be shown at the convention. In the following weeks, Ian Levine was able to make duplicate prints of both films in return for providing Hendry and Marham with a number of other films. Steve Bryant (BBC Archive Selector) was also able to make duplicates after being given the films by Hendry. Both films were later borrowed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team to be telecined (transferred to video), The Evil of the Daleks episode 2 for archival reasons but The Faceless Ones episode 3 to be included on the 2003 The Reign of Terror VHS set. The episode was found to be badly damaged with over 20 seconds of footage missing. Hence, the episode went through heavy restoration.

Pottential leads
The Faceless Ones was broadcast in 5 countries other than the UK: Australia, Uganda, Singapore, Hong Kong and Zambia. The episodes were also sent to New Zealand but were not broadcast due to being deemed unsuitable by censors.

Australia's prints were sent back to the BBC on 4 June 1975 and subsequently scheduled for destruction. An edited copy of episode 1 from Australia was found in 1978, but no further episodes have been found from this.

New Zealand's prints were sent back to the BBC on 3 July 1970. They were then junked in 1974.

Philip Morris visited ZTV in Zambia in 2008 and was able to confirm that they no longer hold any BBC episodes. As such, the fate of these prints are unkown.

The fate of Uganda, Singapore and Hong Kong's prints are unkown.

Telesnaps
Telesnaps are known to exist for all 6 episodes. These are summarised as follows: more to be added

Other surviving material
to be added

Alternate ways to experience the story
A number alternate ways to experience this story in fullen released over the years. These range in completeness/comprehensiveness and accuracy to the original broadcast.