Stop Press: The BBC’s Entertainment Correspondent, Lizo Mzimba has confirmed that “a number of early episodes have been returned to the BBC”.

Speculation has been rampant over the last few months about the recovery of a “horde” of missing Doctor Who episodes, with different sources telling Sci-Fi Bulletin about the existence of all of the first historical story, Marco Polo, as well as many others.

The story has always been refuted by the Restoration Team, who have carried out the work bringing the recovered material – including the episodes of Galaxy 4 and The Underwater Menace, first revealed in 2011 – to saleable standard. However, a newspaper report in the Sunday People, suggesting that all 106 missing episodes had been found, and a comment by the Radio Times that two episodes would be released on iTunes on Wednesday, seems to have prompted the BBC into action.

According to reports in Monday’s papers, BBC Worldwide called a press conference and screening in a London hotel for October 8. The Daily Mirror noted that “the event details [were] written inside the screen of a old-fashioned sixties style  television set, complete with a dial to tune in the channels, seeming to hint at  the type of news to come.” The ubiquitous “BBC source” claimed that “there will be big news” regarding the lost episodes.

Update 11 a.m. Monday: Bleeding Cool are now suggesting that “there [will] be a digital release of Enemy Of The World and Web Of Fear, though Web episode three is still a “reconstructed” version using stills and audio. That still makes up four recovered episodes of the six-parter Web Of Fear and five of Enemy Of The World (one episode of each was already in the BBC archives).”

Update 4 p.m. Monday: The Mirror is now stating that the press conference will be on Thursday, October 10, but “the BBC has asked the Mirror not to reveal the new details”. The BBC insider now says that “a couple of days shouldn’t make any difference.”

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