"Power of the Daleks" to air on BBC America

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Wed, 09/07/2016 - 08:38

Saw some exciting news from BBC America this morning! If you are a Doctor Who fan, you know that many of the earliest episodes of the show from 1963 to 1970 were lost to history. BBC had a policy of deleting their tapes (remember this was long before home VCR's or DVD players), and many of the older episodes only aired once. Soundtracks and production stills of every episode exist but there are still 97 episodes missing.

One of the most important serials that was lost was "Power of the Daleks," which was the first serial to feature the second incarnation of The Doctor, Patrick Troughton. BBC has done animations of some of the missing episodes, but never a complete serial before. In November, BBC America will be airing a completely animated version of Power of the Daleks!

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks premieres Saturday, November 12 on BBC AMERICA and will be available the following day to stream right here on BBCAmerica.com and the BBC AMERICA app.

The six-part adventure features the regeneration, or as it was then called “renewal,” of first Doctor, William Hartnell into second Doctor, 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.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks is produced and directed by Charles Norton, with character designs from acclaimed comic book artists Martin Geraghty and Adrian Salmon.

Norton says, “The Power of the Daleks animation is the most ambitious Doctor Who archive restoration ever attempted and we’re all very honored to be a part of such an exciting project. Intelligent, suspenseful and magnificently staged, The Power of the Daleks is one of the great lost classics of 1960s television and a superb example of the black and white era at its finest.”

The article doesn't specifically say this, but in the other animations, they used the soundtracks to keep the original voices and music in place, so I assume that is what they will be doing here as well.

Hopefully, BBC and BBC America will continue to do this to fill in the gaps! It definitely helps, especially with the long waits between seasons of Doctor Who!

Source: BBC America