Doctor Who - Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years

18 Rare Episodes of Doctor Who!
What a thrill this DVD boxset is! EIGHTEEN rarely-seen episodes from the Hartnell and Troughton eras of Doctor Who, contained on three DVDs. These episodes have never been aired on US television. The sad reality about Doctor Who, is that a fair number of the earliest episodes of the program have not survived, so we are left with certain early stories which only have the occasional episode in existence.

As for the goodies inside:

THE CRUSADE 1 & 3 - A historical story in which the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki encounter the era of King Richard the Lionhearted, (played by Julian Glover), and his sister Joanna (played by Jean Marsh). A four-part story originally, the second and fourth parts are included on the DVD in audio-only format, so you can experience the complete story as much as is humanly possible. Also, as a bonus, there is a commentary track for the third episode.

THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN 2, 5 & 10 - These three episodes are all that remain...

A treat for devoted fans
Quite frankly, there should be two ratings for this collection. If you've never seen Doctor Who before, this collection is not for you, so don't bother buying it. On the other hand, if you're a serious fan of the classic BBC science-fiction series, this is a rare gem of a collection, well worth the expense.

It's a bit unusual in that, although more of the Second Doctor's (Patrick Troughton) stories are forever lost, the Troughton collection takes up two DVDs, while the First Doctor (William Hartnell) has only one DVD.

Nevertheless, the BBC is to be commended for the production values they've put into this collection. On some stories (The Moonbase, eg.), they've included the entire story, even though only two of the four episodes still exist. For the other two episodes, the BBC have included the original audio soundtrack, so it is possible to at least listen to the entire story. Audio and video quality is surprisingly good. (It's often interesting to compare the sharpness of 1960s...

Although it makes you crave for more, still worth the wait
The Lost In Time set is something hardcore Doctor Who fans, including me, have been looking forward to for a long time. For those who aren't familiar with the history of this show, back in the 70's, a bunch of BBC executives decided they wanted to save money in storage space by destroying a bunch of tapes containing episodes of many of their old shows. This was a time before there was a market for video compilations, and they figured no one would want to see these again. Also responsible were some of the short-sighted agreements the actors/musician unions had with the BBC which limited how many times one could rerun programs. But before they destroyed their copies, they transferred many of them onto film for exporting to other TV stations around the world. By the time they saw the error of their ways, it was too late, and the search was on for the stories they exported which continue to this day. Although I heard that the number of Dr. Who episodes destroyed pales in comparison...

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