A Lost Classic, Back From The Dead – Doctor Who: The Power Of The Daleks – The Animated Version Reviewed
Within sci-fi fandom few pieces of
media are as legendary as the lost episodes of Doctor Who.
Talked about like mythical artifacts – sometimes as lost
masterpieces we'll never get to see, and sometimes as tantalizing
what-ifs – they will forever be a source of speculation and
frustration for fans of the long-running series. They are the 97
episodes from the first six seasons of the original Doctor
Who (just over a third of the
episodes from those years) that were destroyed by a tragically
short-sighted decision by the BBC, and have not been seen since their
original mid-1960s broadcasts. Of these lost episodes, none are more
mourned than The Power of the Daleks:
the 1966 (season four) story arc which introduced the world to Second
Doctor Patrick Troughton, and with him the concept of The Doctor's
ability to regenerate. Not only was this six-episode saga a pivotal
moment in the series' mythos and overarching narrative, it is also
commonly regarded as one of the best of all the story arcs featuring
those fan-favorite villains, the Daleks. The story has been kept
alive in other mediums over the years, but since the late-60s no one
has been able to actually watch it as the piece of television it was
intended to be... until now. Just in time for the story arc's 50th
birthday, the BBC has done something pretty amazing to right the
wrong of the episodes' destruction as best they can: they have
rebuilt The Power of the Daleks
in animated form. The full six-episode series showed in theaters
across the country Monday night as a one-night-only premiere, and
will air on BBC America on Saturday, November 19th
before debuting on-demand the next day, and on various disc releases
over the next couple months.
First,
some background on how so much of such a well-loved show came to be
lost in the first place. It was the late-1960s and early-1970s: home
video wasn't even an idea on the distant horizon yet, two-inch
videotape (on which Doctor Who
and most other shows were shot) was extremely expensive, space was at
a premium, and archiving old shows wasn't considered important. Once
an episode of a series was old enough that it was unlikely to be
re-broadcast again anywhere in the world, BBC management considered
it expired: they had no plans to show it again, and thus they thought
it had outlived its usefulness. The way TV was thought of by its
creators and the population at large was very different from how we
consider it today: TV episodes were one-time-only events that you had
to catch on their first airing, because you wouldn't get another
chance. For lack of a better term, TV was disposable. It was standard
practice for the two-inch tape on which an episode was shot to be
wiped and recycled – I can't overstate how expensive the stuff was
– but all episodes of Doctor Who were
made into 16mm prints for global distribution and syndication, so
they easily could have been archived, if the network cared to do so.
But when their shelf space filled up, and BBC staff was faced with
the choice to either build bigger archives or clear out the shelves,
they made the incredibly short-sighted decision to purge the
collection – literally throwing every print of every episode of the
first six seasons of Doctor Who into
the trash. Yes, originally it wasn't just 97 episodes that were lost,
but all 253 from the series' first six years.
Outcry
by fans made the network realize their mistake, and the destruction
of episodes halted after season six. Over the years, the majority of
the episodes that had been destroyed were recovered, some from
private collectors, some from locations in the BBC itself where the
prints had been misplaced, and some from overseas TV stations that
syndicated the show, and kept their copies. Lost episodes have
continued to be recovered as recently as 2013, when the six-episode
arcs The Web of Fear and
The Enemy of the World were
found in Nigeria. But 50 years later, it seems likely that most of
the 97 episodes that remain lost are gone forever. Well, almost: the
audio tracks from every single one of the missing episodes survived,
in a most unlikely and ironic way. They were saved by piracy, and the
bootlegging community within the fandom. Since each episode was
usually only aired once, right from the beginning serious fans would
use reel-to-reel audio tape recorders to record each episode off-air
for their personal collections, and would make copies to trade with
other fans. These audio-only bootlegs were traded at conventions long
before the days of home video, and once the episodes themselves were
destroyed, they became the only surviving copies of them. Eventually
the BBC actually bought these bootlegs off the fans who originally
made them, remastered the audio to bring it as close as possible to
its original broadcast quality, and released the audio versions on
CD. Whenever at least half of a serial has been recovered, but some
episodes are still missing, they have used these audio recordings to
complete the serials using Ken-Burns-style montages of stills, and
more recently using animation. But never before have they animated
from scratch an entire story arc that was lost. With The
Power of the Daleks we are
seeing a first: either a one-off treat to give fans the most
sought-after of all lost stories, or the start of a new era of
bringing those stories back to life.
 |
| Much like the Daleks themselves, the lost episodes refuse to stay dead! |
The Power of the Daleks
begins as The Doctor (the original, William Hartnell) has just died,
following a devastating first encounter with the Cybermen in The
Tenth Planet (the last episode
of which was also lost, and recently resurrected using animation). As
he regenerates into a new form (Patrick Troughton) his companions,
Ben and Polly, are left appropriately disoriented, confused, and
skeptical. But they don't have much time to acclimate themselves to
The Doctor's new face and personality: The TARDIS has taken them to a
remote deep-space colony, where they immediately get caught up in
both political turmoil and an invasion by a group of especially cagey
and manipulative Daleks. This story arc shows us a very different
side of the Daleks: they aren't just ruthless killing machines here,
but cunning political manipulators, entrapping the humans in a plot
with a more elaborate endgame than mere extermination. At the
beginning of the story they are without either power or weapons, and
they have to do something that they have never before need to do on
the series: use their wits. This change in characterization elevates
the Daleks from great enemies to brilliant ones, and makes this one
of The Doctor's most memorable encounters with them.
At a script and story level, The Power of the Daleks is Doctor Who
at its
absolute best: it really shows just how well-written and compelling
the series can be. With the central conceit that the Daleks are
unarmed, the focus is much less on sci-fi action and much more on a
web of mystery, suspense, and political intrigue. Between the iconic
alien villains and the various human factions involved in the
colony's political turmoil, The Doctor, Ben, and Polly have a pretty
complicated maze of motivations and double-crosses to navigate. Even
removing the sci-fi elements, it all works very well as a thriller.
And it is even better as a sci-fi story because it takes these
familiar villains and does something dramatically different with
them. With all these plot threads being juggled, it genuinely earns
its long running time of six half-hour episodes: it never feels
padded, and moves with a solid momentum and sense of suspense.
Then, of course, there is the matter of it being Second Doctor Patrick Troughton's first story, and the one that introduces the concept of regeneration. We are now so used to the idea of regeneration as an integral part of the Doctor Who canon, but when watching this one must remember that at the time this was an incredibly bold move, which must have disoriented viewers just as much as it disorients the bewildered Polly and Ben within the story. To the BBC's credit, they don't hedge their bets and ease viewers into it: also like Polly and Ben, we are just thrown into the thick of it, as Troughton immediately makes the role his own, and goes all-in with an unpredictable, irreverent, and very funny vision of the character which could not be more different from William Hartnell. This is ultimately what sells the concept of regeneration, and probably what saved the show when the gamble could have easily backfired: Troughton is so fun and charming and kind of ridiculous that it's impossible not to be won over. This is also where the animation does a crucial job of helping the story to work: so much of the way Troughton asserts himself into the role and establishes his Doctor's personality is through the physicality of his acting, and that physicality is obviously totally missing from the audio-only presentation of the story. Once he's thoroughly established in episode 2, the audio version worked quite well, but in the first episode it was always painfully obvious that a huge part of the storytelling was missing. Now, thanks to the BBC's ambitious reconstruction effort, it is more or less restored.
I have to
say more or less because, sadly, there is no getting around the fact
that the animation just isn't quite as good as the real thing. It
approximates the physicality of Troughton's performance very well,
and does a solid job of bringing the story back to life, but it has
its shortcomings too. The animation is clearly of a fairly low-budget
variety, very reminiscent in style and level of polish to that of
Archer. On its own
terms, it's pretty good, but it struggles to capture really realistic
character movements – and especially the movements of facial
features. The likenesses of the actors are pretty effective: in
particular The Doctor and Polly are very accurate representations of
Patrick Troughton and Anneke Wills. The issue is that the way they
move isn't always convincing, and the character models don't have a
ton of depth. Perhaps the issue is that this type of animation is
more suited to comedy like Archer
than more dramatic material like this, or perhaps the issue is that
it's very, very hard to watch this and not compare it to the
real-life actors. I'm not trying to be overly critical: the animation
is by no means bad, and the art style is quite cool, it just isn't
quite there. However, the animation of everything involving the
Daleks is absolutely great. The faceless cyborgs are quite a bit
easier to animate on a budget than the human faces of actors we know
so well, and they are beautifully realized. In fact, the visuals of
the Daleks and the internal workings of their ship show major
improvements over their real-life counterparts. It is no secret that
vintage Doctor Who was
a low-budget show, with sets and special effects that were often
hindered by financial constraints. That is not true here, and while
the visuals are accurate to what was actually produced in 1966, they
are quite a bit more polished, with some awesome added design
flourishes.
At a script and story level, The Power of the Daleks is Doctor Who
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| "For our next journey, let's go back in time and teach the BBC about proper archiving!" |
Then, of course, there is the matter of it being Second Doctor Patrick Troughton's first story, and the one that introduces the concept of regeneration. We are now so used to the idea of regeneration as an integral part of the Doctor Who canon, but when watching this one must remember that at the time this was an incredibly bold move, which must have disoriented viewers just as much as it disorients the bewildered Polly and Ben within the story. To the BBC's credit, they don't hedge their bets and ease viewers into it: also like Polly and Ben, we are just thrown into the thick of it, as Troughton immediately makes the role his own, and goes all-in with an unpredictable, irreverent, and very funny vision of the character which could not be more different from William Hartnell. This is ultimately what sells the concept of regeneration, and probably what saved the show when the gamble could have easily backfired: Troughton is so fun and charming and kind of ridiculous that it's impossible not to be won over. This is also where the animation does a crucial job of helping the story to work: so much of the way Troughton asserts himself into the role and establishes his Doctor's personality is through the physicality of his acting, and that physicality is obviously totally missing from the audio-only presentation of the story. Once he's thoroughly established in episode 2, the audio version worked quite well, but in the first episode it was always painfully obvious that a huge part of the storytelling was missing. Now, thanks to the BBC's ambitious reconstruction effort, it is more or less restored.
 |
| The patient before (below) and after (above) his appointment with Dr. Herbert West. (...because, re-animated... get it?) |
The
animation ends up being a bit of a mixed bag, but the good certainly
outweighs the bad, and given the budgetary and time constraints that
the BBC animation team had to work with, they did some great stuff
here. Sure, nothing will ever be as good as if the original video had
never been destroyed, but this ambitious animation is a more than
good enough consolation prize. The story, script, and acting are all
so strong that they easily sell even the visually weaker moments. The
remastering of the audio, meanwhile, is absolutely wonderful. You
would never know it from hearing the soundtrack, but this is a
fan-made bootleg recording, recorded on a consumer reel-to-reel tape
deck with the microphone sitting next to the TV speakers. They have
cleaned up that audio with mind-blowing precision and care, and have
brought it back up to what honestly sounds like professional
broadcast quality. The dialogue is clear and understandable, and the
only rough-around-the-edges moments sound like they were probably not
from the recording, but the result of the production itself (I'm sure
all the dialogue was recorded on-set with a shotgun mic during the
filming, and they didn't have the time or money to re-record any
lines in post-production). They did, however, remix the soundtrack
with music and sound-effects from purer sources, and the mix sounds
very good. This is easily the best The Power of the Daleks
has ever sounded, and in a way that is just as much an accomplishment
as the animation.
 |
| Having only one hand-ish appendage, it is notoriously hard for Daleks to do the dishes. |
While
the animation has its low-budget flaws, it is nonetheless a dream
come true to be able to finally see The Power of the Daleks
in something pretty closely approximating its intended form. It is a
fantastic introduction to Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor, and a
wonderfully unique take on the series' most iconic villains. It
definitely lives up to its reputation as one of the finest of all
Dalek stories – now more than ever that the visual element and
physicality of the production is more or less restored. This is a
story arc that I have always wanted to highly recommend to anyone who
wants to experience the Troughton era at its best, but I found it
difficult to recommend six audio-only episodes to anyone but the most
hardcore fans. With this animated reconstruction, the BBC has made
The Power of the Daleks
accessible again, to casual fans as well as those who already love
the show. We can only hope that this is successful enough that they
decide to animate more of the lost stories. But even if they don't,
this is one awesome surprise for the fans.
Score
for The Power of the Daleks
itself:
Score
for the animation:
- Christopher S. Jordan