The episodes were discovered and restored after the BBC wiped the tapes post-broadcast, believing viewers no longer wanted black and white programmes. Over the years, a handful of recordings of the missing instalments have been found, with two more episodes—number one and number three—recently discovered in a cardboard box in a collection of vintage films. They will be broadcast on BBC iPlayer 61 years after their original airing.
Peter Purves, who played Tardis companion Steven Taylor in Doctor Who and later became a household name as a presenter on Blue Peter, is now 87 years old. He has praised the classic series over the modern reboot, which launched in 1963. According to Daily Mirror - Main, Peter Purves described the 1960s as the show's golden era, claiming it was far better than the rebooted modernised version. He maintains that the early stories were more 'intelligent' than those since the 21st century reboot and that the show was in its prime in the 1960s, despite basic technology.
It was the golden era. I don’t think the show is a patch on what it was.
I was in it at a time when I think the show, technically, wasn’t very clever. The limitations were in the technology of the time. We didn't do great sweeping magnificent film sequences. They were very short - we recorded as if it was live. We didn't stop the tape even if a mistake was made.
It was a very different show, but it was led by extremely good scripts. There are intelligent scripts. They worked on all sorts of levels. And I mean for me, that was the golden age.