Crossroads - The Lost Episode

Exclusive: See Crossroads lost episode 126

Here's your chance to see the earliest surviving episode of Crossroads, unearthed just a few weeks ago having lain hidden since it was first broadcast 40 years ago! It's being released to buy as a web-exclusive DVD on Monday, but you can watch it right now!

Crossroads ran from 1964 until 1988, notching up 4,510 episodes along the way. Sadly less than half of these survive - like much of Britain's TV heritage, it was deemed to have little commercial value for the future and the (then rather expensive) videotape on which it was made was simply re-used.

Network, who have an exclusive deal with ITV to release archive programmes like Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Where the Heart Is, have been issuing Crossroads episodes on DVD for several months - and they've been selling like hot cakes. At the height of its popularity in the 1970s the programme commanded audiences of up to 16 million viewers, and all these years later it still has a loyal fan base.

The DVD issues began with episodes selected from across the years, but the demand was such that Network have now begun issuing DVDs containing all the surviving episodes, in order.

Many episodes are still missing

With so many episodes missing, there are big gaps in the storyline, but this doesn't seem to deter fans who have been eagerly awaiting the monthly releases. And lost episodes are still turning up - whether recorded by viewers on video recorders in the seventies, or even languishing in ITV's own archive undiscovered, as in the case of the latest find.

The episode in question was in an incorrectly labelled film can, and it was only when the ageing film print was laced up and viewed that its significance became clear. The discovery has wowed fans of classic British television, as it's by far the earliest surviving example. It dates from April 1965, just months into the series' run, when the show was broadcast five nights a week. While the newly-found epiosde is not comparable with - say - today's Emmerdale, which also broadcasts five nights a week, it was of course made in a different era with more complicated processes - and vastly less resources!