Classic lost Doctor Who story's animated restoration finally released on BBC iPlayer

While new episodes of Doctor Who are still quite some time away, a new release has officially arrived on iPlayer - the animated version of missing story The Savages.

Due to the BBC's historic policy of wiping content after transmission, the original master recordings of The Savages were lost.

Thankfully, BBC Studios was able to use the original audio from all four episodes, plus new animation to bring this story back to life. The animation was first released on Blu-ray in March 2025, and is freely available on BBC iPlayer from today (3 October).

With William Hartnell's First Doctor at the helm, the story sees him joined by companions Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane), who arrive on an unnamed planet.

When there, they realise that there are two distinct groups of inhabitants, the Elders and the Savages - however, they soon discover that the Elders are evil and are actually draining the Savages of their power in a bid to remain young.

It's been an exciting year for Doctor Who's missing episodes, with two episodes from The Daleks' Master Plan being recovered by charitable trust Film is Fabulous!.

At the time, Sue Malden, who was the BBC's first archive selector, and has been working on the recovery of missing Doctor Who episodes and other vintage television for decades, told Radio Times that she's optimistic that more episodes will be found.

She said: "It fills me with optimism that there is the possibility now of finding more, maybe not just Doctor Who, but other great television programmes that are missing."

Patrick Troughton's son Michael recently also reflected on the missing episodes, telling Radio Times: "No one's to blame. In those days, tape was so expensive.

"We all did it with VHS – we recorded over the top of it, and that's what happened. But I suppose I would like to see that first one [The Power of the Daleks], the first ever performance.

"I remember his feedback from that – he phoned up afterwards to tell us how it went and everything. He was really nervous about the first studio [record], with Michael and Anneke. I'd probably love if they found that one single episode, but the whole lot would be brilliant."

Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iplayer.

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Authors

Louise Griffin is the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Editor for Radio Times, covering everything from Doctor Who, Star Wars and Marvel to House of the Dragon and Good Omens. She previously worked at Metro as a Senior Entertainment Reporter and has a degree in English Literature.