Doctor Who episode featuring disgraced presenter purged from streaming

In 2023, the BBC housed the entire, comprehensive Doctor Who archives in BBC iPlayer for the first time, including all the classic and modern episodes. iPlayer is now the one-stop location for all things Whoniverse, but now, one episode from David Tennant's run featuring disgraced BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has been purged indefinitely.

Last month, Huw Edwards pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children. Edwards was long admired for his work as a news anchor; he was the presenter who announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. His long-running journalism career made him one of the most recognizable figures on British TV, so much that he even made a cameo in Doctor Who episode "Fear Her" alongside David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose. That episode has now been purged from the BBC following Huw Edwards' conviction.

Airing in 2006, "Fear Her" saw the Doctor take Rose Tyler forward six years into the future to experience the London Olympics. There, in a housing estate, they meet a girl terrorized by demonic visions of her father; in her trauma, she makes crowds of people disappear. In the episode, Huw Edwards covers the news for the BBC. The episode includes one of the show's funniest-ever moments, when the Doctor lands the TARDIS and can't get out because the door is blocked:

The episode won't be permanently scrubbed from the BBC. Instead, the scene will be dubbed over, removing Huw Edwards completely. We don't know how long the process will take before it's ready for streaming again. “An episode ofDoctor Who has been temporarily removed from BBC iPlayer to be re-dubbed,” a BBC spokesperson said, per Deadline.

"As you would expect we are actively considering the availability of our archive. While we don’t routinely delete content from the BBC archive as it is a matter of historical record, we do consider the continued use and re-use of material on a case-by-case basis."

Huw Edwards has made cameos in other media too. He appeared in James Bond movie Skyfall, and people are now rightfully calling for his image to be removed from that film. Interestingly, "Fear Her" is still streaming on Max in the US. WIll the US end up getting the dubbed version? Only time will tell, let's hope so!

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