There are many mysterious missing Doctor Who scenes that fans would love to get their hands on. But do they even exist…?
The thing is, some of these missing Doctor Who scenes are only rumoured; we can’t be sure that they were ever filmed. Take, for example, the purported ‘original ending’ to ‘The Reality War.’ Many people have reported that this story didn’t conclude with the Fifteenth Doctor’s regeneration, but with a party in a nightclub, with the Vlinx manning the turntables.
Furthermore, the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan was also rumoured to show up, watching the Time Lord from afar with a young Poppy in her arms (Poppy was the child that the Doctor and Belinda conceived in an alternate reality.)
And as unlikely as these missing Doctor Who scenes may sound, we do have evidence to suggest they were filmed. Disney itself posted a photo of the Doctor and Belinda in a nightclub which doesn’t seem to belong to any episode from Series Two. And then there is the random (but welcome) appearance of Susan just a few episodes before in ‘The Interstellar Song Contest,’ calling out to her grandfather from the TARDIS. Did the actor Carole Ann Ford really travel all the way to Cardiff just to film a short cameo?
Apparently not. Here’s what Ford herself said about these missing Doctor Who scenes: “You didn’t see the episode, which was to sort of introduce my coming back, where I was holding hands with a… beautiful little tiny Black child, three years old. And we were watching through the window somewhere where the audience wasn’t supposed to know where we were supposed to be.
“And we were watching my newly embodied grandfather, who was now Ncuti, and watching him have a wonderful time singing and dancing in a party in a shop opposite where we were. And obviously I, my character Susan, was longing to just go there and fling her arms around her grandfather and say, ‘Grandfather, how lovely to see you after all this time and how did you survive your floating about in space… and why have you changed?'”
Intriguing. So there is indeed a good possibility that these missing Doctor Who scenes exist somewhere, but the chances of them ever being released are slim, as they would raise too many questions.
Or perhaps this is a plot arc that the producers will pick up at some point in the future. Maybe these missing Doctor Who scenes could be included in some kind of alternate reality story, where the Fifteenth Doctor never regenerated? The fan theories start here.
And speaking of regenerations, there is a question mark over the true ending of Series One (that is, the Series One from 2005, just to confuse you.) Are there are handful of missing Doctor Who scenes from the end of ‘The Parting of the Ways,’ where the Ninth Doctor doesn’t regenerate, and continues his travels through time and space with Rose Tyler?
It’s possible. After all, judging by Christopher Eccleston’s own accounts over the years, it sounds as if his decision to leave the show came about during the filming of Series One, rather than before. But it’s unclear how late in the day this decision was reached. Did Russell T Davies write ‘The Parting of the Ways’ before Eccleston confirmed his departure? And if so, how did it end? And was this ending ever filmed?
Again, we may never know the answers to these questions. If the BBC were to release an alternate cut of ‘The Parting of the Ways,’ it would raise a lot of questions, and could lead to an unhelpful level of scrutiny about the off-screen machinations. Perhaps it’s better to leave some questions unanswered, and consign these missing Doctor Who scenes to the same film vault as Eric Stoltz’s Back to the Future, and the original cut of The Wicker Man.
However, there are some missing Doctor Who scenes that could resurface at any time. One sequence that many Doctor Who fans would love to see is the regeneration from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton in part four of ‘The Tenth Planet.’ Now, we do already have several versions of this: There is the animated rendition from the official DVD release, and then there is the full-blown recreation from the 2017 episode ‘Twice Upon a Time.’ These are great (albeit very different) alternatives.
And it’s worth remembering that we do actually have the critical moment, as the clip of the regeneration itself was used in an episode of Blue Peter. But the shots leading up to it are shrouded in mystery, save for a low quality ‘off air’ recording made at the time of the original transmission, where a fan pointed an 8mm film camera at their TV set and pressed record.
It’s better than nothing, but there’s no denying that these would be some wonderful missing Doctor Who scenes to watch in their original, unadulterated form. And with the recent missing episode discoveries from Film is Fabulous, ‘The Tenth Planet’ episode four is certainly on the table. After all, if ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ can come back, why not this one?
Finally, we have to mention the missing Doctor Who scenes from ‘The Power of the Daleks,’ specifically the TARDIS scenes from episode one. These follow on immediately from the end of ‘The Tenth Planet’ and see the Doctor and his companions trying to come to terms with his unexpected change. This is Patrick Troughton’s proper Doctor Who debut, and arguably one of the most important moments in the series’ history.
And as with ‘The Tenth Planet’ episode four, we are lucky to have a couple of versions that we can already enjoy. There is the BBC’s animation of the story, and there are the ‘off air’ film recordings captured during the original transmission. But these are fleeting and fragmented; what we really want is the entire scene, where the Doctor rifles through the TARDIS chest and pulls out a mirror, which mysteriously morphs into the face of his predecessor. Heck, give us the whole episode – stovepipe hat and all. Start searching your lofts.
So tell us, reader: how many of these missing Doctor Who scenes do you think exist? And will we ever get to see them? Let us know in the comments below.
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