Anneke Wills, who played First and Second Doctor companion, Polly, says she’d like to see her favourite Doctor Who story, The Smugglers, to be animated.
The four-part First Doctor story is missing, believed completely wiped, from the BBC archives after the corporation’s policy of junking episodes to free up reels. But many lost classics have been animated, including The Evil of the Daleks, The Underwater Menace, and The Invasion, so rumours abound that more are coming very soon.
On her Facebook page, one of Wills’ representatives makes it clear that she’s heard nothing about which story is next, but that she wishes it were The Smugglers:
“Anneke has heard on the grapevine that there are rumours that she said that Doctor Who – The Smugglers was being animated. Anneke says that is not what she said; The Smugglers is her favourite story and she hopes it will be animated but has no idea if it will be! So don’t believe everything you read on the internet!”
The serial originally aired between 10th September and 1st October 1966, opening season 4 of the programme, the last series with William Hartnell as the First Doctor and the first with Patrick Troughton as the Second.
The Smugglers is the second story with Polly and Ben Jackson (Michael Craze), the pair having joined in the previous tale, The War Machines, which fortunately exists in its entirety. In some ways, it’s a sequel to Eleventh Doctor story, The Curse of the Black Spot, seeing as The Smugglers involves the search for Captain Henry Avery’s treasure — the pirate who we meet and whose destiny is revealed in Black Spot.
And I’d love to see The Smugglers: it’s a rare historical and filmed partly on location in Cornwall, giving audiences that glorious windswept atmosphere. Fingers crossed!