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BBC to animate “lost” Doctor Who episode

Master tapes wiped during the 1970s, but BBC will do its bit to bring 'Power of the Daleks' to life for Whovians.

A “lost” Doctor Who episode is to be released in animated form.

“The Power of the Daleks” from 1966 sadly had its original master tapes wiped during the 1970s. The six-part story was the first full outing of Patrick Troughton’s Doctor.

The animated makeover will be based on film clips, surviving photographs and audio recordings featuring the original cast.

The adventure sees the newly regenerated time-traveller battling the evil Daleks with his companions Polly and Ben.

Charles Norton, producer and director said it was “the most ambitious Doctor Who archive restoration ever attempted”.

“Intelligent, suspenseful and magnificently staged, ‘Power of the Daleks’ is one of the great lost classics of 1960s television.”

The BBC has announced it will be available on 5 November at 17:50 GMT on BBC Store, 50 years to the minute after its broadcast, with a DVD release to follow on 21 November.

Updated: BBC Worldwide ANZ and Sharmill Films today announced a limited-run theatrical screening of Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks animated series from Saturday 12 November for one week only, ahead of its release on DVD. The cinema event will also feature exclusive bonus content including interviews with members of the original cast.

12 Responses

  1. The very concept of wiping things is so incongruous to us now isn’t it? But it was such common practice.

    As another poster has pointed out, very few episodes of Countdown pre 1979 remain and some of them were only because the Executive Producer kept shifting tapes around the office so they wouldn’t be found. It’s a similar case with Young Talent Time and Sounds.

    Doctor Who is one of the worse off, but episodes of Til Death us Do Part, Steptoe and Son, Dad’s Army, Z Cars and the like are also gone.

    In Australia, some catalogues of 1970s dramas are incomplete, whether it’s Homicide, Number 96, Bellbird.

    A shame, but a sign of the times.

  2. The ABC wiped all episodes of Countdown in 1981 at the behest of the Fraser government’s razor gang. Only the 1977 100th show and the Christmas show from 1976 were spared. In the 1970s the ABC had a local soap opera called Certain Women and in 1984 the ABC took episodes of it to the MIPCOM TV industry conference and sold the series to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Back in Sydney ABC staff were compiling the tapes to send to the CBC and found that all the episodes between Episode 40 and near the final episode had been wiped. They had to inform the CBC that they couldn’t supply the program because the soap opera with an ongoing storyline was incomplete.

    1. The previous “lost episodes” have been animated, now imagine the costs if the BBC CGI’d this episode, every fan would be demanding that the previous episodes be CGI.

  3. I’m still dumbfounded that BBC would ever have considered just “wiping” tapes indiscriminately. Sure, I can understand why they would wipe out once-off broadcasts (news segments, talk shows, music video shows, even soap operas etc.), but scripted drama/comedy that can be repeated ad infinitum? Were the costs of the tape worth more than the thousands that it would have cost to actually produce the programme?

    Incidentally, BBC was going to wipe the tapes for Monty Python’s Flying Circus (while the show was still running!) until Terry Gilliam received a tip-off (BBC themselves didn’t think to inform them!) and offered to buy the tapes.

    1. You have to remember it was a different time, the BBC didn’t have an archiving policy till the late 70s, there were issues such as actors and writers rights and of course recycling. It’s easy to blindly condemn the BBC nowadays but it was a different time.

  4. It happens here as well. Most of the black and white episodes of Number 96 are gone.
    It’s heartbreaking that all this classic drama is no longer availability give that with streaming there is now a way for all of us to enjoy these old shows.

    1. huh?

      you make it out like they decided to delete them yesterday.

      in an era of extremely high prices for storage space of film, its pretty obviously why they deleted it…

      yes easy to look back and say it was dumb but have an understanding why it was done first

      remember the price’s blank VHS tapes used to go for in the day?

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