Talk:Lost episode

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As I recall, the first time this term was used promotionally was when a "lost episode" of The Honeymooners, never having been part of the syndicated collection, was being advertised directly to viewers for purchase on videocassette. For shows earlier than, say, 1975 it seems the term refers to episodes that were truly believed to have been lost forever during purges of tape libraries. These it would be more appropriate to call "rediscovered" episodes. Lost episodes from later than 1975 tend to be episodes that were unseen by the public for one reason or another (e.g., early cancellation of a series, not airing a potentially controversial episode, or even a script that was never even filmed). Hopefully the era of genuinely lost TV has gone the way of the Library at Alexandria.