Smashing news for any who mourn the loss of various episodes from the 60s era of Doctor Who – The Reign of Terror, the final story of Season 1 (and the second story chronologically to have long-gone components after Marco Polo 100% of which is missing in action) is to have its two departed sections animated!
Respectively titled The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity, Parts 4 and 5 of The Reign of Terror contribute to the story that saw the first use of location shooting in our favorite show and originated the concept of the Doctor in a “cool” hat that puts the fez to shame, and were previously only available in audio form with the option of an accompanying photo reconstruction.
2|Entertain announced the animation would be included in the upcoming DVD release of the story, scheduled for sometime next year, on their Twitter page, while further commenting on who else is involved:
“Animation partners on REIGN OF TERROR are @bigfinish and @Thetamation. Excited to have such a talented bunch on board!”
Big Finish is, of course, the well-known team behind countless Doctor Who audio adventures, while Theta-Sigma, the real name behind the “Thetamation” Twitter account, is run by Austen Atkinson, who seems to have a background with all the major UK TV networks and several US cable ones.
This is a particularly welcome development not only for those members of our forums who were only just recently discussing how wonderful it would be if stories like The Reign of Terror was brought back to life in such a manner, but for anyone in favor of a complete visual experience of Doctor Who. Do join us now in the act of shouting, “We can’t wait for 2012!”
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This is excellent news. One of the more puzzling things I’ve encountered in fandom is what I consider the very negative attitude expressed by some towards the animated reconstructions used to complete The Invasion for its DVD release a few years ago. Not so much negative in terms of the final product (though there were mixed reviews of that) but the fact people were saying “it was too expensive – why should 2 Entertain ever do it again?” – some people were saying it was impossible for the company to repeat the experiment due to either (depending who you listened to) lack of money – with the implication being that 2 Entertain can barely afford to produce DVDs (in which case why are we still getting releases jam-packed with extras? And they’re now revisiting previous releases, to boot); or lack of interest (implying no one in a decision-making capacity liked the animated reconstructions, which I doubt was the case); or – and I loved this one – the lack of any available animator willing to do the work!
Yet go on YouTube and you’ll find amateurs doing high-quality work: the anime Doctor Who short, the incredible CG reconstruction of the Web of Fear trailer. Imagine if they were given resources, even modest ones.
Now that 2 Entertain has signed up Theta-Sigma, and Big Finish, I hope these sorts of debates have been put to rest. There’s now no reason (nor excuse) for us not to see reconstructions of the other missing episodes down the line. At the very least I bet we’ll see The Tenth Planet completed; that’s a no-brainer.
To be honest, I’d have liked to have seen Tenth Planet animated and brought forward first but this is definitely a good development. I thoroughly enjoyed what they did with the Invasion and I’ll have to check out what this new place has already done. I think this also means that in addition to Tenth Planet, they’ll probably animate the missing episodes of the Ice Warriors as well since that material hasn’t come out on DVD either.
They do have a test shot when you go to the twitter feed. Looks great!
I still want to see 8th doctor animations. I have purchased so many Big Finish Audios and they are FANTASTIC.
Also, Someone should contact that dude that did the Doctor Who anime reported here. That’s some amazing stuff as well.