An Experiment in Space and Time: Remaking the Missing Doctor Who Episode ‘Mission to the Unknown’.

Abstract

In the 1960s, the majority of Doctor Who (1963-89; 1996; 2005-present) episodes were wiped or lost. Students and staff at the University of Central Lancashire recently took on the challenge of remaking the missing Doctor Who episode ‘Mission to the Unknown’ (1965). The goal was to faithfully re-create the episode in a way that lays a claim to authenticity. This article examines the process and product, and asks, with reference to television historiography, whether it achieves its goal of authenticity, and what ‘authenticity’ might mean in this context. Ellis (2007) and others discuss the estrangement felt when viewing television from earlier decades. This article discusses the ‘feedback loop’ involved in knowing that the episode was made recently, whilst assessing it as if it had been made in the past. The estrangement the viewer feels is therefore a sign that the episode is succeeding in its task of staying authentic to its era. But is it possible to completely abandon the knowledge of its contemporary production and lose oneself to the experience of viewing?