re: Lost Old Dr. Who Discovered!

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The BBC destroyed almost the entire 2nd Doctor's episodes and most of the first doctor's episodes. They needed the space so they blanked the tapes and destroyed the film.

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Monty Python's Flying Circus only survives b/c the Pythons got a BBC engineer to secretly make copies of all the episodes. Otherwise the entire series would have been "wiped".

Some shows weren't so lucky. Many episodes of the Python precursor At Last The 1948 Show (1967, starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Marty Feldman) were erased, as were most episodes of Not Only But Also (1965-6), starring the most important figure in British comedy, the brilliant Peter Cook (his straight man was a little fellow named Dudley Moore).

Supposedly when Cook heard the NOBA series was to be erased he went to the BBC and offered to pay e costs to have it copied. His offer was turned down.