Being a Doctor Who fan has many frustrations. We have to deal with the neutering of the show by Mary Whitehouse and her ilk. We have to deal with certain stories being, how shall I put this... less than fantastic. In fact some of them are downright awful. We have to deal with continuity being an old rag to be beaten up, dirtied, abused, then torn to shreds, and the very word "canon" to be meaningless.
But perhaps most frustratingly, we have to deal with missing episodes.
There are a number of early Doctor Who episodes that were destroyed by the BBC during regular purges of old material. Of these, some of them have been recovered thanks to copies that were sold to foreign television stations, copies made by private enthusiasts, and other such discoveries. However, many First and Second Doctor stories remain missing, and as time goes on the chance of more being found diminishes.
The very first Doctor Who serial with currently missing parts is missing in its entirety. It was also perhaps the greatest First Doctor story ever produced. The serial is known by the name "Marco Polo".
