A spokesman for film specialists, Film is Fabulous!, has reiterated that an announcement about missing episodes of Doctor Who being found could be made within a matter of weeks.

Nonetheless, Mark Stuckey has urged us to be patient as the process is a long and difficult one.

Film is Fabulous!’s Stuckey told Doctor Who Magazine:

“We believe that TV shows are made to entertain and be seen. We want them to be seen. But to do that we need to look at the film and look after the film, and this can take time. Remember it has been years since the last discoveries of missing Who came to light. We need to do this correctly for all concerned and a few months more is not going to hurt anybody. But I feel, timeline-wise, we will have a very exciting announcement to make in a matter of what could be weeks, rather than months. Rest assured, we’re doing all we can to ensure that these finds will get into the public domain as quickly as possible, so that we can all sit down and enjoy what we thought we had lost forever.”

This does confirm that the total of missing episodes of Who will come down from 97, a tally that’s remained for over a decade now.

Stuckey has again said that the Film is Fabulous! team has been receiving death threats and similar threats of violence over returning missing episodes, which is insane. Get some perspective, people — those individuals doing that are a disgrace.

Our own Ian Ritchie covered a podcast with Film is Fabulous! and noted:

“They even mention that, by necessity, they’re directing their limited resources towards preserving the most vulnerable collections, i.e. those where an imminent house clearance would likely see the films thrown in a skip. They have been contacted regarding collections which are safe and secure and which contain rare and missing material (though it’s not stated whether any of this is Doctor Who), but have had to put thoughts of cataloguing those to the side for the moment.”

That’s entirely understandable — we have a biased position, being Who fans, but these are film collectors and fans who care about preserving historical reels of all productions.

Nonetheless, it’s great to hear we have more missing Doctor Who stories coming back to the archives sometime soon…