In 2013 — perfectly timed for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary — nine previously missing episodes found their way back to the BBC archive. The episodes were part of two Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton) stories: “The Enemy of the World” and “The Web of Fear,” which aired between 1967 and 1968.

While “The Enemy of the World” was completed, “The Web of Fear” still has one episode missing. With the U.K. release of a special DVD edition of “The Enemy of the World” out this week, a new documentary included as an extra hints that there may be more missing Doctor Who episodes coming our way.

In “Recovering the Past – The Search for ‘The Enemy of the World,’” television archive specialist Philip Morris explained how he tracked down missing film copies of Doctor Who episodes in Africa. In all, 12 episodes and two complete stories have been found, but one of those lost episodes happened to go missing again when the third installment of “The Web of Fear,” featuring classic Who monsters the Yeti and the Great Intelligence, was “lost en route.”

In the immortal words of former Doctor Who companion Donna Noble: "Well, isn’t that wizard."

Now, the fact that the episode was lost again after it had been found may be even more maddening for Whovians desperate to complete their Doctor Who collection (even though there is a grand total of 97 episodes that are still MIA), but Morris did offer a glimmer of hope.

“The book’s not closed on that one,” Morris said. “We’re pretty close, I think, to finding the last resting place of ‘The Web of Fear’ Episode 3. The job of recovering Doctor Who, I’m not finished. I think the door is open for future recoveries of Doctor Who. I don’t think that number will stay at 97. I feel confident that there’s more material to come forward.”

While it’s great to hear that the hunt for the last remaining missing episode for “The Web of Fear” may soon be at an end, let’s start a prayer circle that the timey wimey find will happen sooner rather than later.

(via Digital Spy)