Oh my giddy Aunt! It’s now 50 years since Patrick Troughton made his full debut as the Second Doctor, and to celebrate, the BBC has animated his first serial, The Power of the Daleks. You might’ve heard a bit about that.
This new version of the classic (but missing) tale – which finds the Doctor, Ben, and Polly on Vulcan, trying to convince human colonists that the Daleks they’ve uncovered aren’t their servants; they’re capable of the destruction of the entire planet and more – premiered on the BBC Store Twitter account, via Periscope. And yep, you can see those first three minutes now!
https://twitter.com/BBCStore/status/794960053375639552
It attracted over 7,300 views live, but there were various glitches, including skipping and audio synch issues… In fact, it’s really annoying. So much publicity and it all goes wrong. It’s like Doctor Who Live – only animated.
AND BBC Store crashed, not coping with the increased strain o their servers. So no, you can’t watch it just yet.
Still, here’s a bonus trailer with further clips.
https://twitter.com/BBCStore/status/794841702917771264
I’ve got to say, those Daleks look gorgeous!
The DWC’s very own James Lomond went to a screening of the first two episodes and concluded:
“The animation is as close to a recreation as it can be – camera scripts, surviving clips, and telesnaps have been referenced wherever possible. The animators studied hours of footage of the same actors from contemporary shows like The Avengers to get the facial movements and speech as accurate as possible. It isn’t a Disney extravaganza (though an ex-Disney animator was called in for some more complex scenes) but it works perfectly for a 1960s teleplay… I had completely forgotten I wasn’t watching the original – it was just very good Doctor Who.”
The first episode of The Power of the Daleks is available right now from the BBC Store; its subsequent five parts go online on consecutive days until 10th November; after that, all six episodes will be available to stream in black and white. The first 1000 customers to buy the series from BBC Store will also get a set of 6 limited edition art cards, completely free, featuring animation sketches, imagery, and the DVD cover artwork.
That DVD will be released on 21st November, followed by an unprecedented colour version of the serial from BBC Store in December then as a Blu-ray in February 2017!
50 years of the Second Doctor. And isn’t he just superb?
