The Myth Makers

Back in the late nineties, I'd seen every existing episode of Doctor Who, mostly courtesy of UK Gold, who dished up weekly servings of a new adventure in bastardised, logo bedecked, cliffhanger-less compilation editions. My Granddad had, by some serendipitous twist of fate, acquired Sky the very week they showed the "Edge of Destruction"/"Aztecs" omnibus and agreed to record it every Sunday for me from then on. It was the beginning of my journey to having seen everything.

Once you've got to that esteemed place, Doctor Who is effectively demystified. There was no other way of course, as I couldn't have passed up the chance to drop him off a blank tape every week knowing that a mysterious black and white episode or, even more knee-tremblingly thrillingly, a rare Tom like "The Sunmakers" or "Horror of Fang Rock", was playing away on the opposite channel while my Granddad watched the football highlights. And to complain because every magical cliffhanger moment (later restored by the slow trickle of official video releases) was lost would be to undermine the pleasure of my own, special journey through Doctor Who's past. For the next few years, my Sunday nights were as wonderful as the equivalent Saturday evening thrills of any child growing up in the seventies, in their own way.

We got through them all with only a couple of slip-ups. A power-cut gave me only the first half of "Inferno", so I had to wait until the repeats rolled right the way round again to see how this brilliant looking story finished. And Granddad taped an edition of "Sunday Worship" where "Full Circle" should have been recorded, so that became the final complete adventure I saw. But of course, and uniquely with Doctor Who, that still didn't mean I'd seen everything. There was still the matter of the 110 missing episodes that were beyond the means of even the most well-stocked fans televisual larder.

Hankering after missing episodes was nothing new to me. I'd spent most of my University years discussing wild rumours with Internet fans like the possible existence of "Evil of the Daleks" on a battered VHS at a car boot sale (he had an eye witness account and everything) and trading for scraps like the missing story audios and rare clips. At that time the BBC weren't exploiting the lost episodes as much as they are now (telesnaps on BBCi, every lost story released on CD etc) so the material was more freely and more exclusively in the hands of the fan domain. I found I could acquire just about anything in return for little more than goodwill, my collection suddenly being bolstered with editions of "C for Computer", long lost audiovisuals cassette recordings, enough miles of convention footage to loop twice round the M25 and existing episodes like Part 4 and 5 of "The Reign of Terror" (including the unreleased Carole-Ann Ford video narration!). It was like being given the keys to a goldmine.

By far the most exciting treasure, however, were the bits and bobs of missing material that seemed to float my way every so often. Don't misunderstand me, everything I currently own has been lovingly re-instated at the same BBC archives that unwelcomly toasted its demise in the early seventies. But back then, I would frequently seem to stumble across nuggets that to my knowledge, nobody else owned. I once checked my e-mail to find a tip-off to a web site, which had suddenly appeared leaking a whole page of off-screen stills from a completely missing part of "Galaxy 4". The clip would be returned shortly afterwards by a certain collector fan. "The time was right" for its return apparently. So nothing to do with the web site leak then.

And then one day I was sent a tape. I won't pretend I didn't know what was on it, thus perhaps giving this story an even more mythical gravitas, but knowing didn't quell my awestruck surprise as I pressed play and a murky sequence of cini-footage extracts began. And there it was - a small window into Doctor Who's lost past. Patrick Troughton grabbed his freshly regenerated face beneath stovepipe hat before my eyes! Steven waved a final goodbye to the Doctor as I watched! Vicki cut Steven's hair in some lost Hartnell opening TARDIS scene! The blue-tinged, cut-to-shreds lurch between episodes only enhanced the feeling of wonder. Suddenly Doctor Who was a mysterious stranger again. It was like being a child once more and seeing old clips where (remember this?) you didn't have a clue which story they came from. But for some reason the clip that thrilled me most was a short two-second snippet from "The Myth Makers". Somehow the excitement at being able to take a glimpse into the lost, forbidden world was summed up by the sight of Vicki slipping out of the TARDIS in her plaits and off the shoulder Troy garb. It was unmistakably from a Doctor Who I had never seen before.

"The Myth Makers" frustratingly remains almost completely missing. Along with a few other Season 3 stable mates like "The Massacre", it sits as one of the most mysterious and forgotten Doctor Who stories of all, a status that only seems to enhance its reputation. Lost, untouchable and unable to really be criticised, it thwarts our attempts to see and know everything, acting as an heir to the legacy of Doctor Who's mystery and ensuring that there will probably always be a little bit left for us to see. But thanks to a network of enthusiasm propelled tape swappers, just once I was able to dip into that world and glimpse what we lost. A long-vanished mysterious Doctor Who adventure from another time. Just like it always used to be.