Before the 1980s, our broadcasters had a terrible habit of throwing their own recordings away to save storage space. Videotapes were simply wiped and reused.

Every single episode of Doctor Who from the 1960s met this fate, but because the BBC sold the series around the world on film copies about two thirds have survived. Now, two more lost episodes from November 1965 – ‘The Nightmare Begins’ and ‘Devil’s Planet’, from an epic story featuring the Daleks – have been found in a private film collection, spruced up, and are available to watch on the iPlayer, 60 years on.

Writer Terry Nation and director Douglas Camfield were both unusually politically conservative, even for the BBC of the day

Writer Terry Nation and director Douglas Camfield were both unusually politically conservative, even for the BBC of the day

As nothing exists in a vacuum, even this amiable children’s teatime entertainment has some interesting undertows. Writer Terry Nation and director Douglas Camfield were both unusually politically conservative, even for the BBC of that day.

Nation, who created the Daleks, had a bracing attitude to war and peace. His writing is often of the two-fisted war story kind, often featuring – as here – desperate commando missions in jungle terrain. There is absolutely no moral or cultural relativism in his work. This is one of the reasons it connected so well with children, who have an unsophisticated attitude to justice and fairness........

© The Spectator