Doctor Who: 10 Things Fans Want From Series 9 (But Won't Get)

8. Clues To More Missing Episode Recoveries

With the omnirumour in full swing, the return of the Yeti-controlling Great Intelligence and a reference to the London Underground in The Snowmen led to claims that members of the production team were clearly in the know about the recovery of the Patrick Troughton classic, The Web Of Fear. Since then optimistic fans, expecting a larger haul of episodes from the Indiana Jones of Doctor Who, Philip Morris, have read all kinds of oblique clues into Series' Seven and Eight stories. It sounds a little far fetched, but the editors of the official Doctor Who Magazine allegedly encouraged such a way of thinking by printing clues onto the spines of previous editions. Yet as Russell T Davies' Gridlock demonstrates, even an obscure monster from the archives can be unashamedly brought back from the dead in a fairly arbitrary manner (in this case the crab-like Macra from The Macra Terror). Nobody was thinking back then that The Macra Terror must have been found. There is a deafening wall of silence surrounding the ongoing work of Philip Morris' company TIEA, which can either mean there's nothing more to report or that complex negotiations and Non Disclosure Acts are still in play. Either way, unless Steven Moffat wants to prank us, references to missing episodes will be coincidental or unintended because he's either sworn to secrecy or out of the loop. What's to say that like many of us the producers have had enough of all the nonsense surrounding these alleged returns? It's not in the show's interests to add fuel to the fire.