Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

It's being released first on the BBC Store, not DVD. And it's not the BBC's own impetus releasing it in cinemas, it's independent distributors in the US (Fathom Events) and Australia (Sharmill) who've arranged it. Fathom have been behind the Day Of The Doctor and Dark Water/Death In Heaven US cinema events before, but it was BBC Worldwide that instigated the Asylum Of The Daleks / Angels Take Manhattan and Day Of The Daleks* and Day Of The Doctor and Deep Breath and.... whatever the other twofer was - Pandorica / Big Bang? - in Australian cinemas. AFAIK, the only UK screening of Power is a one-off at the BFI.

*this may have only been in Sydney, not nationally

Also, it's an especially good and much-loved story, Troughton in top form

xp

yes, lots of people have heard about the animated reconstruction of Power Of The Daleks. Have you heard about the animated reconstruction of The Invasion? Or the animated reconstruction of The Reign Of Terror? Or the animated reconstruction of The Moonbase? Or the animated reconstruction of The Tenth Planet? Or the animated reconstruction of The Ice Warriors?

― sad, hombres (sic)

yes, i've heard/seen of all those other ones (all of which were lone one/two episode runs from otherwise existing stories, unlike power). just didn't know there was one of power. thought they were having trouble getting the finances together or something.

I think they went with the PPV/theater distribution for the Power of the Daleks animation because it will probably make more money than just releasing it on DVD like they did the previous animations of lost stories... which are quite good!

― erry red flag (f. hazel)

well i will certainly pay up because god damn do i want a reconstruction of evil of the daleks (and just go ahead and animate episode 2 as well, going into live-action for one episode of a 7-episode story is kind of tough to sell).

JUst saw a clip of Power Of The daleks on Newsnight as part of a piece on restoring old BBC material. It looked pretty great, so hope they get to restore more of the missing episodes taht way.

look forward to finding a digital copy of that. don't knwo if I have the patience for that in a theater though

depends on your tolerance for '60s who, i think, although it's definitely one of the best episodes of the b&w era. have you seen "enemy of the world"?

I haven't seen that yet either. I haven't watched any 60s who since the late 80's, honestly.

xp oh i found this: http://www.doctorwholocations.net/stories/classic

time and the rani used 3 different quarries for some reason. i thought quarries might be used because they look ok on video, but general cheapness is the more likely reason.

Was it Enemy Of The World that apparently had an episode nicked after the whole series was discovered in Nigeria. Or Web of Fear?

Was it Enemy Of The World that apparently had an episode nicked after the whole series was discovered in Nigeria. Or Web of Fear?

― Stevolende

web of fear. lethbridge-stewart's first episode. fortunately enemy of the world had a fairly shit reputation before it was recovered, so nobody went out of their way to try and hoard any of its episodes.

thought they were having trouble getting the finances together or something.

Generally when anyone, oneself included, uses the term "they", it's worth stopping and asking who is actually being represented by that pronoun. It was Dan Hall who managed to fund one- or two- ep animated reconstructions, but that was by amortising costs across an entire year's budget for DVD extras, and hiring start-ups.

The Underwater Menace would have been the last one he got together, but (eg) the NSW Central Coast company he'd engaged used their Who reconstructions as a demo reel to sell their own in-house kids production, and thus were a) too busy and b) wouldn't work that cheaply anymore.

Then Pup Ltd.'s contract ran out, which by this time, as an external contractor, had been the only point of continuity in the range for some time. Thus we then get the examples of the Enemy Of The World and Web Of Fear DVDs coming out without any VAM at all - no docos, no production documents, no commentaries* - and then after that, the people setting up the first draft of the BBC Store literally asking the editor of a fan magazine published by an Italian company that makes collectible sticker sets if there's any old Dr Who that might be good to put on the Store, as they'd seen something in the news about those stories being recovered.

(*the bloke who used to moderate about half the commentaries on the old DVDs has since been hired by more nerds to get the actors and crew and such into a studio and record commentaries that you can buy, download, and sync up with your DVD or iTunes purchase.)

Still after that, the next batch of people at the Flogging DVDs Department Of BBCW responded to years of enquiries by announcing that The Underwater Menace would not be released on DVD.

The year after that, the NEXT next batch of people at the Flogging DVDs Department Of BBCW run out of petitions demanding the release of The Underwater Menace to write on the back of, and decide to put it out, BUT specifically demand of the bloke of the RT that they get to make a recon, that he make it as shit as possible. Like, he was ordered in writing just to link the telesnaps in order - no crossfading, no returning to earlier shots to show who's speaking, no cropping or closeups, regardless of what's happening on the soundtrack.

Then after that, some bloke pitches that some niche of the Beeb scrapes together some pennies to animate a missing Dad's Army episode as a trial for the website or the Store or something. Not unlike the way the Invasion reconstruction was done with some spare budget from the REG Ninth Doctor series after that got derailed by the RTD / Eccleston Ninth Doctor series getting secretly commissioned.

The Dad's Army ep gets received well enough that he's invited to pitch again, points out that it's the 50th Anniversary of the first Troughton story, and gets some money out of a promotional budget from the BBC Store. Halfway through production, they get another influx of budget from BBC America, pre-buying TX rights to the animation.

If you can work out which person or department is "they" in there, you're welcome to 'em!

and I would loooooove an Evil Of The Daleks recon too, but with much greater production values than this Power one, which is unlikely if they try and crack it out for the 50th anniversary. The first episode, being more or less 20 minutes of Troughton and Jamie going antiquing on a date, is basically my missing episode holy grail.

and I would loooooove an Evil Of The Daleks recon too, but with much greater production values than this Power one, which is unlikely if they try and crack it out for the 50th anniversary. The first episode, being more or less 20 minutes of Troughton and Jamie going antiquing on a date, is basically my missing episode holy grail.

― sad, hombres (sic)

not sure which would cost more, animating that episode or clearing the rights to "paperback writer"

If you can work out which person or department is "they" in there, you're welcome to 'em!

― sad, hombres (sic)

so who needs to get paid in order to animate jodorowsky's dune

xp oh i found this: http://www.doctorwholocations.net/stories/classic

lol one single shot in Battlefield from a quarry! :D

I'm fine with mixing animation and existing footage btw - I'd even be pleased with alt versions of Power or say Tenth Planet ep 4 that cross to surviving clips whenever they exist

you can see why I said "they"

POTD premiers on BBC America next Saturday:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2016/09/bbc-america-brings-destroyed-doctor-who-episodes-back-to-life

BBC America Brings Destroyed ‘Doctor Who’ Episodes Back to Life

no

the master negatives

no

were destroyed in an archive purge in 1974.

no

BBC America and BBC Worldwide have commissioned a brand new animation

no

based on the program’s original audio recordings

no

that will be released 50 years

yes, but not on you

after its only UK broadcast on BBC One.

no

The six-part adventure features the regeneration, or as it was then called “renewal,”

not really

of first Doctor, William Hartnell into second Doctor

no

Patrick Troughton, as the Time Lord and his companions Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben (Michael Craze) do battle with the Daleks on the planet Vulcan.

not technically

Here’s your first look at the transformation:

no

Saw the whole thing in the cinema this afternoon. I DO NOT RECOMMEND seeing it in the cinema - the picture quality is so crappy that every line is jagged as if it's been faxed, and with every second of soundtrack left in, but without the budget or reference to animate it, long stretches of almost every minute are basically 2-D puppets standing still and blinking. This will be bearable watching an episode at a time as the most convenient way to experience this lost-ish story, but all at one go, sitting still for 2 hrs 45, it is VERY TEDIOUS. The animation is very cheap and patchy - you'd expect that, but it's probably shoddier than you're expecting.

yeah none of these things are superb animations, I'm shocked they're banking on a cinema experince for this. why?

Sharmill are a film distributor. Cinema experience is the entirety of their business.

ah well, I'll save my money and pop Stones of Blood or Battlefield in the DVD player then.

Class is actively terrible.

The completist in me wants me to watch the rest, having only seen ep 1 so far, but am having trouble summoning the enthusiasm

The first two were OK in a kind of Torchwood-lite way.
The third was a Season 3 mid-season-lull episode which would only work if you're invested in the characters (but who we hardly knew).
Ep 4&5 two-parter was INTERMINABLE.

i'll skip it then

too bad because it seemed like not a completely awful idea for a spin off

Class is actively terrible.

yeah, I said that after 1 & 2 (obv) but then tried 3 and tapped out hard. It's still for 15-yr-olds though, not 35-55yo man-nerds, so nbd.

if only the bbc had a family-friendly science fiction show that didn't talk down to kids and teenagers or insult their intelligence

watched "power" in the cinema and i liked it better than sic did. the animation was a cheap rush job, i'm not a fan of showing stories in omnibus format, and i'm not exactly sure the theater showed it in the right aspect ratio, but god it's such a good story for that era. great whitaker script, really well constructed, great tristram cary soundtrack. troughton lays the recorder thing on a little thick for my liking and episodes 4 and 5 suffer from the era's typical mid-story drag, but the way the story just keeps ratcheting up the tension until finally all hell breaks loose... it reminds me of king crimson's "starless", if that's not too off-the-wall a comparison. i see why the fans love it so much. before watching the animation i'd always preferred _evil of the daleks_ but i'm sold on this one now.

great tristram cary soundtrack

it's just reused sound from the first Daleks story (again!). not that it's not great, of course, and Mark Ayres audio restoration overall is the best thing about this new version.

British DVD release is a fiasco, they've partially announced a BR version in February which will have a colourised version on it as well and there will be a second release into the BBC store just before Christmas of the colourised episodes for download with an unspecified discount for people that have already bought the b&w download.

I'm really not sure what it's for at all, particularly if the animation is as shoddy as it looks.

Colourised version is commissioned by BBC America after the fact, being done by a Canadian company. BBC don't have the freedom to stop it being done, and if they didn't make it available for sale, they'd be in for a shitstorm of complaints from entitled dickheads.

it's just reused sound from the first Daleks story (again!). not that it's not great, of course, and Mark Ayres audio restoration overall is the best thing about this new version.

― sad, hombres (sic)

the audio restoration was nice - ayres always does a good job - but i have to admit the fake stereo weirded me out a little bit.

god we're going to wind up with twelve different animated reconstructions of all the episodes, aren't we, each of them commissioned by a different department and all of them dodgy. this is our post-apocalyptic future: arguing about which reconstruction of "the space pirates" is the least worst.

I watched the telesnaps version of Power of the Daleks today. First episode's extremely weak, trying to rely on the actor change instead of doing anything interesting -- I had no interest in Vulcan or examiners. The denouement in the final episode is boring too.

I noticed that the Doctor's music-playing as a distraction was reused to better effect in Four to Doomsday, and the servile Daleks got reused in the execrable Victory of the Daleks.

The actor change is pretty bloody interesting tbf! Whitaker blends that into the examiner plot once that starts, with Polly's initial doubtful will to trust that this is the Doctor being strengthened - despite Ben continuing to disbelieve - by the way he snaps into focus when faced with a mystery and a threat. But once they're alone again, he stays as opaque to the companions as initially.

Yeah, the denouement has always been "pull the End-Of-Story lever," without being able to see if anything interesting was done with it, and the animated version utterly fails to repair the confusion too.

i liked the first episode and the last episode.

for me the weakest part of classic who has always been the lives and conflicts of the people the doctor interrupts. they're grey, boring people in grey, boring costumes played, for the most part, by grey, boring actors. they have to literally wear nametags for me to tell them apart. that moment in episode one when you cut from the doctor in the tardis to two anonymous mooks talking about grain requisitions or something is the toughest part of a story for me.

but troughton's performance in that first episode was him bringing his a game from day one. (unlike later actors, where they'd usually start out a new doctor with the second story of the season to let them get their feet, troughton's first recorded episode was the first episode of power of the daleks, no?) he really leans into the uncertainty and confusion. i think it was right of whitaker to not have anything else going on, even if as a result we do get one of the many, many dalek episodes where the episode 1 cliffhanger reveal is... gasp... DALEKS! (having the doctor called "the examiner" by most of the characters is a clever conceit on whitaker's part. there's no real reason the examiner wouldn't have a name, of course.)

i also found the sixth episode more satisfying than i thought i would. watching contemporary who, or contemporary television in general, i tend to want to watch something where the ending makes some sort of sense and/or has a satisfying denouement. maybe i am projecting my own fears too much onto what was always just a piece of throwaway pop culture, but i was struck by the psychological realism of the way it portrayed war, the chaos, confusion, the way nothing makes sense. one gets the sense that the doctor, clever as he is, was not quite sure what he did to win. maybe i give whitaker too much credit here.

one can, if one tries hard enough, find the sort of ironic justice for which the doctor would become notorious. in "evil of the daleks", the daleks isolate the human factor in order to remove it from humans- instead the doctor adds it to the daleks, thus causing them to destroy themselves. (v. cynical on whitaker's part, really.) so likewise, in power of the daleks, the daleks spend the entire story seeking power, and in the end the doctor gives them more than they want, thereby destroying them. but mostly, if we're to be honest, he just blows them up.

The double-meaning of the title is very thoroughly laid into the story, which I hadn't appreciated watching a recon. Harder to miss when you've got the same 1.5 seconds of characters and telephone cords power cables looping over and over.

unlike later actors, where they'd usually start out a new doctor with the second story of the season to let them get their feet, troughton's first recorded episode was the first episode of power of the daleks, no?)

No, this was never a thing:
Pertwee's first is obviously his first shot, because it's all on 16mm OB due to a studio strike and them having to get something ready to air.
Tom's was his first, and shows it, because it was made by Letts and Dicks as the last story in the production block of Pertwee's final season, UNIT, terrible CSO and all. (To repeat myself, Tom's real first season - and Hinchcliffe/Holmes' - runs from Ark In Space to Terror Of The Zygons. In that case, they shot the second story first, but because it was all OB, not for getting-the-character-down reasons; and it was months after his own first story.)

Colin's obviously couldn't be the second story of the season, as his first story had already aired ten months before, at the end of S21.
Sylvester's couldn't be, because Cartmel hadn't been hired and been able to commission scripts for the second, third and fourth stories of the season until months after JNT had commissioned and approved Pip & Jane's script into pre-production.
McGann's couldn't be bcz etc etc...

Davison's first story to air was shot FIVE MONTHS after his first episode shot, but also - JNT propaganda aside - not for any sensible "getting to grips" reasons. With no script editors and no plan on how to follow up the events of Tom's last season, AND limited availability of Davison between seasons of sitcoms, the office simply had to start commissioning and shooting scripts that had been tentatively developed so far. So his second story was shot, then his fourth, then he went off to shoot an entire season of Sink Or Swim, then Dr Who resumed and he shot his third story, and then they shot his first.

Eventually JNT appointed a script editor and they commissioned the guy that had written Tom's last story to write the story that immediately followed it. But Kinda, the last story shot before Castrovalva, was commissioned on September 25th, and Castrovalva, the first story to air, was commissioned on April 8th. Four To Doomsday started shooting on April 13th.

(Just checked and the time crunch on S24 was such that Cartmel was hired a month after JNT commissioned the Bakers, and he commissioned the other three stories within 10 weeks, with trial scripts from two weeks after he started. But looool forever at JNT and Pip & Jane: Time And The Rani, in 1987, was based on one of their terrible Dr Who Choose Your Own Adventure books from 1986, which itself had been adapted from pitches they'd had rejected from telly Who in 1984. Yes, after he'd had the entire program cancelled under him, salvaged it only by whipping up press fervour, lasted one year before being forced to fire his star personally or be axed again, JNT decided to debut a new Doctor, with his best chance of getting publicity and drawing new or returning viewers, by commissioning something that had been too shit to make three years earlier.)

i had that choose your own adventure book. it was at least better than the other one i had, which was by william emms.

but yeah, the whole jnt era was one long car crash. it's a miracle that anything good at all came out of that period.

thanks for the correction re: production order! i knew the chaos bidmead went through with "project zeta sigma" falling apart and all, but didn't realize that filming episodes out of intended broadcast order to accommodate cast changes was never a deliberate policy on classic who.

i think i'm more forgiving of you on the animation because when it comes to classic who i sort of expect it to be a cheaply done rush job. obviously the restoration team and their dvds do not fit that mold- with them it was cheaply done brilliant work- and if those were my expectations i'd probably be a lot more disappointed. but when i think of "power of the daleks" i don't think of the dvd line but of the surviving clips of the original broadcast- patrick troughton looking in the mirror at a still photo of william hartnell, a "dalek army" made up of extremely obvious cardboard cutouts, a dalek running smack into the camera (i laughed when they actually animated this last; my wife had to elbow me in the ribs). the brass may not have cared, but the people who did the work did, and that's really all i can hope to ask for.

I had two of the Find Your Fate books - a David Martin which was very bad, and the Michael Holt, which was kinda competent. I may have tried to read the P&J one borrowed off someone at school, and tapped out bcz the Rani is terrible.

My local library has a bunch of the Big Finish stories that I borrow in digital format, and I'm going through the McGanns right now ("Chimes of Midnight" easily my favorite so far, and just finished "Minuet in Hell"). Any other notable ones from other Doctors I should check out?

as well as Chimes of Midnight, Robert Shearman wrote two Colin Baker stories called The Holy Terror and Jubilee, they're two of my favourites of the Big Finish plays I've heard.

(he wrote another two Colin Baker stories as well, and one with Derek Jacobi playing the doctor, but I haven't heard them)

Sea Devils And Die: GeroniMoffat's Doctor Who In The 2010s

After the new show started the audio series started getting a little too "trad" for me, but I do recommend the "companion chronicle" Peri and the Piscon Paradox in the strongest possible terms.

^ absolutely, that's another Nev Fountain and one of the best