Missing Episode/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

** Averted by [[Dark Shadows]]. The show aired from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971. In all, it aired 1,225 episodes, all but one of which survived. However, a home audio recording of the one episode that did not survive still exists, and was used to construct a sort of mash-up episode.

* Puttnam's Prairie Emporium has not been rebroadcast since its national run on YTV in the early 90s, and the master tapes have been long since destroyed.

** The missing episodes (currently standing at 106) are all from the first six seasons from 1963-69, the eras of William Hartnell as the First Doctor and Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. Of the first six seasons, the hardest hit by the mass erasure were the third (28/45 missing), fourth (33/43 missing), and fifth (27/40 missing) seasons (by contrast, the first is missing 9/42 episodes, the second 2/39 episodes, and the sixth 7/44 episodes). There are no complete serials from the fourth season, while the fifth season has only one complete serial, ''The Tomb of the Cybermen'' - and that was lost until the 1990s. The missing episodes from this era include some significant firsts for the series:

*** The final episode of ''The Tenth Planet'', the only missing episode from the serial, features the Doctor's first ever regeneration scene, from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton. Famously, a few seconds' footage of the regeneration exists because it was broadcast during an edition of the BBC children's show ''[[Blue Peter]]'' (at a time when one of its presenters was Peter Purves, who had played First Doctor companion Steven). <ref> The reason why the episode was "supposedly" lost was because ''Blue Peter'' wanted to use a clip from it for a TV Special and never gave it back, even though the BBC archives didn't suggest there being a copy there at that time. ''The Daleks' Master Plan was'' never given back, however, suggesting this episode's absence.</ref>

** Also of note is the Fourth Doctor serial ''Shada'', written by [[Douglas Adams]], which was abandoned when filming was 2/3 complete due to industrial action at the BBC. It was later shown with Tom Baker filling in the missing gaps, which are sadly significant - especially towards the end. It was later re-made in animated format, but starred [[The Nth Doctor|the Eighth Doctor]]. (This is available for viewing on the BBC ''Doctor Who'' website.) Later still, an official novelisation by Gareth Roberts, working from Adams' scripts, was published. Adams himself, meanwhile, [[Recycled Script|largely recycled the plot of Shada]] for ''[[Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency (Literature)|Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency]]'' in 1987.

** The losses ''almost'' didn't end there, either. In one of the Doctor Who retrospective specials, one of the crewmen related a story about a time he was in a BBC warehouse and happened to pass a cart containing master tapes due for erasure. Among these tapes was the second ever ''Doctor Who'' serial ''The Daleks'', meaning the introductory story of one of the most iconic British sci-fi monsters was very nearly lost forever.

** One episode, however, is usually only rebroadcast in graveyard slots, since one of the jokes concludes the with the line 'be quiet, you silly old fakir.' You can probably guess how Jonesy pronounces 'fakir.'

** Another ''Dad's Army'' episode that is now not re-broadcast is "Absent Friends", which centers around Mainwaring, Pike, Jones and Godfrey attempting to capture an IRA suspect. It was initially pulled from schedules in the 1980s because of [[The Troubles]]; twenty years on it still can't be shown because of its potentially offensive portrayal of the Irish.

* British television featured two long-running police dramas in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s - ''[[Dixon of Dock Green]]'' (1955-76) and ''Z Cars'' (1962-78). The vast majority of episodes of both have been wiped (''Dixon'' was hit hardest - out of 430-odd episodes only ''30'' still survive - while around two-fifths of the 800-odd episodes of ''Z Cars'' still exist in some form), which, among other things, means the loss of early television appearances by the likes of Sean Connery and Michael Caine (both of whom appeared in guest roles in (different) episodes of ''Dixon of Dock Green'' in the 1950s before finding fame as film actors).

* Another prominent victim of the BBC's practice of tape-wiping was ''[[Top of the Pops]]''. Most early episodes of TOTP were wiped by the BBC; only four complete episodes exist from the 1960s (one and most of another with the presenter's links mute), and the show's archive only exists in full from 1977 onwards.

* Among the many other mostly lost pop music showcases on 1960s British television is ''Juke Box Jury'', which aired from 1959 to 1967 and featured a panel of guests, often from the pop world themselves, voting on which of a series of new singles would be a "Hit" or a "Miss". One 1963 episode featured all four Beatles on the panel; another from 1964 featured all five members of the Rolling Stones. These episodes were among those lost in the purges, and are high on the BBC's recovery wish list for the programme.

* BBC Television's commercial rival, ITV, did its own (less well-known) archives purge at roughly the same time as the BBC. The most notable victim of that purge was ''[[The Avengers (TV)|The Avengers]]'', which is missing a good portion of its first series.

* Cook and Moore's ''Beyond the Fringe'' castmate Alan Bennett appeared in an acclaimed sketch variety series called ''On the Margin'', which ran for six episodes in 1966 and featured future political commentator John Sergeant alongside Bennett, as well as guest appearances from ''Fringe'' cast member Jonathan Miller, readings by poets John Betjeman and Philip Larkin, and clips of old music hall routines by such performers as Arthur Askey and Max Miller. The tapes were wiped in the 1970s, although the music hall clips survive (in their original contexts), as do the scripts. Audio clips exist of some episodes, and an audio compilation was released by the BBC in 2009.

* The British series ''Adam Adamant Lives!'', about an adventurer in Edwardian England who is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the 1960s, ran for 29 episodes across two seasons in 1966-67 and was one of the inspirations for the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' movies. Only 17 episodes survive, all but two from the first season. The scripts of the missing episodes have survived, however, and were included as a bonus on the DVD release along with a four-minute audio clip of the first episode from the second season.

* The BBC were still conducting purges as recently as 1993, when then Archive Selector Adam Lee ordered the wiping of numerous videotaped children's series from the 1970s and 1980s, believing they were of no further use and not bothering to consult the Children's Television division first. Series thus affected included ''Play School'' and its sister show ''Play Away'', storytelling showcase ''Jackanory'', and art programme ''Vision On'' (specifically geared toward deaf or hard of hearing audiences).

** Supernatural sitcom ''Rentaghost'' was another victim of the 1993 purge, but as the series had been sold for re-broadcast on UK Gold, copies of the missing episodes were later returned to the BBC. However, it has not been re-run in many years and, apart from the first season, is unlikely to see a DVD release any time soon due to contractual disputes with the surviving cast members and rights problems with music clips used in the programme.

** It probably had more to do with the episode having high school students {{spoiler|rig their school with explosives and blow it up}}.

** ''Once More with Feeling'' was not aired in syndication (e.g. on FX) for a while because of its longer than usual run-time. A trimmed down version of the episode is sometimes shown (indeed, many episodes are trimmed down slightly for time).

** Also, the episode "Top Hat and Tails" wasn't aired in the US for years simply because it had been misplaced.

* This concept is played with a little bit in the ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' special "Back to Earth" by {{spoiler|explicitly stating that there are two more seasons to the show, and that the special takes place after 'series 10', while we have no episodes of those seasons whatsoever}}. Perhaps this is more [[Lampshade Hanging]] in that more shows could have been made had the creator not been trying so hard for [[The Movie]], but it's an interesting twist.

* ''[[Tru Calling]]'s'' final episode wasn't aired on the original broadcast, but it was shown when the series was being rebroadcast on The Sci-Fi Channel.

* ''[[JAG]]'' has a unique example of this in "Skeleton Crew", the last episode produced for the show's first season and a [[Cliff Hanger]]. While the episode was completed, NBC didn't air it and ultimately cancelled the series. CBS [[Un Cancelled|picked it up again]], but opted not to finish the story out. What sets it apart is that the episode eventually did air via syndication on USA, was included in the DVD release, and was re-edited into an episode from the series' third season, "Death Watch".

** ''Ford'' (alternate title ''The Fords'') -- last seen on ITV 7 January 2002 but never aired since then.

** ''Police in Pursuit'' from 2007 series with Adrian Simpson - '''never aired on [[ITV 4]], and not even on [[ITV 1]]''', so a literal [[Missing Episode]].

** Given the show's high levels of [[Fandom]], which is on a par with ''[[Twilight (Literature)|Twilight]]'' - albeit in a more subtle way - it's surprising that the missing episodes were not lost.

* ''The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong'', the first TV series to star an Asian-American actress (Anna May Wong, who, incidentally, was also the first Asian-American film actress), is lost because the master tapes were dumped into Upper New York Bay back in the 1970s along with the rest of [[Du Mont|Dumont Network]]'s tapes because nobody wanted to keep them. A few publicity shots did survive, but that's it.

* Much of the early material from ''[[The Guiding Light]]'' has been lost, particularly serials from the radio years and the early television era. Since GL has roughly 18 solid months of material, this is not surprising.

* The last four (of six) parts of ''The [[Quatermass]] Experiment'' are missing because technology to record TV programmes for posterity was in its infancy at the time and the results for the first two episodes were so bad they gave up. Many TV shows from before the 1960s don't exist nowadays for this reason.

* TBS stopped airing the ''[[Mamas Family]]'' episode "Gert Rides Again" sometime in the early 2000's, apparently because their master tape of it was somehow destroyed. Fans were able to see the episode again when ION began airing the show in 2006.

* The ''[[Alfred Hitchcock Presents]]'' episode "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (featuring a mentally disabled man who believes himself to have the power of the magician he works for, who ends up cutting a woman in half during a poorly prepared trick) was skipped during its original run, the result of the sponsor feeling it was too dark. It was later seen unedited in syndication.

* For almost forever, fans of the 1966 ''[[Batman (TV)|Batman]]'' TV series have been waiting for a proper DVD release. Much of the reason for the wait is a countless amount of disputes between Fox (the producers and copyright holders for the show), DC Comics (owners of the Batman comic book character), and probably co-producer Greenway Productions. Other issues may include clearances for the many celebrity cameos, music, or even the unique design of the show's Batmobile. The above issues mainly seem to affect "new media," as the show is still available for traditional syndication, and currently shown on cable's ''The Hub''.

* When Japan aired ''[[The Monkees]]'' TV show, they made two additional special episodes appropriately titled "The Monkees In Japan" (parts 1 and 2), which highlighted the Monkees' visit and concert in their country. The episodes aired only in Japan, and were shown only once, on October 11 and 18, 1968 respectively. The episodes have not been aired, in Japan or anywhere else, since. The video footage from both parts is thought to be lost, however a low-quality recorded audio track from portions of the episodes still survive, and is known among fans as the bootleg CD ''Made In Japan''.

* When [[Nickelodeon]] in the UK screened ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', they were happy not only to cut episodes in its 6pm Sunday slot but also to drop the odd episode, most notably "The Big One" (in which Paris loses her virginity, fails to get into Harvard, and has a meltdown live on C-SPAN as a result of the latter). Unsurprisingly the channel dropped the show itself after the first three seasons.

* Due to its 6pm Wednesday slot, [[Channel Four]] screened all but one episode of ''[[My So-Called Life]]'' ("Weekend," in which Rayanne handcuffs herself to the Chases' bed). The series was only repeated once (in an even ''earlier'' slot) and has never been shown on British television since.

* Much like the ''Buffy'' example above, an episode of ''[[Bones]]'' was pulled because the plot included a boy being killed on a college campus, and it was set to air right after a similar, high-profile event in real life. It was eventually aired later in the season, but some of the side plots, such as Hodgins {{spoiler|proposing to Angela and being rejected}}, were cut because they didn't fit the show's established timeline.

* Similarly, ''[[Leverage]]'' pulled ''The Mile High Job'', which was set on a plane and devoted much of its comedy to making fun or water landings after the Miracle on the Hudson. The episode was later aired in its original form after the media frenzy had died down.

* The ''[[Law and Order]]'' franchise had some type of instance with this. Based on news reports, rumours were going on that some episodes from the franchise's incarnations were destroyed by the 2008 Universal Studios fire. This has been dismissed as speculation, as (according to Universal) the original copies may have been saved in another vault.

** "Sunday In The Park With Jorge", from the 11th Season, was never reran on NBC since its initial airing after complaints about the very negative portrayal of the Puerto Rican community, though it was later shown on TNT.