Two episodes from the classic series, previously lost, have been returned to the BBC Archive & Restoration team.
These are Episode 3 of the Hartnell adventure Galaxy Four.
And Episode 2 of Troughton's The Underwater Menace.
Restoration Team Member Ralph Montagu told the Radio Times:
I occasionally meet up with a group of film collectors and retired TV engineers at a cafĂ© in Hampshire. A few months ago I spoke to Terry Burnett, who used to be an engineer at TVS [the former ITV franchise based in Southampton]. Somehow Doctor Who was mentioned in passing, and Terry said, ‘Oh, actually I think I’ve got an old episode. I thought it was bound to be something we’ve got already,” says Ralph. “I tried not to get too excited, but he came back the next day and brought this spool with him.
It had no label, so I had a look at the film leader and it said ‘Air Lock’. I thought, ‘What’s that?’ I checked online and saw that Air Lock was an episode of Galaxy 4 - a missing Hartnell serial. So then I got very excited.(meeting with Terry a couple of weeks later) And he said, ‘Guess what I’ve got.’ It was another episode of Doctor Who! Again not labelled on the can, but it turned out to be The Underwater Menace part two.”
You can read the article here.
A list of remaining missing episodes can be found here.