Six long-lost Doctor Who episodes, featuring the show’s first regeneration, are reportedly being brought back as cartoons 50 years after they first aired.
The Power Of The Daleks, a six-part story from 1966 featuring Patrick Troughton’s first outing as the Doctor, was thrown out of the BBC archives during the early 1970s.
Patrick Troughton as the second Doctor (BBC/PA)
BBC Worldwide have now commissioned a company to revive the episodes using “state-of-the art animation based on off-screen photos taken at the time”, according to the Mirror.
Patrick’s first adventure after taking over from William Hartnell is noteworthy for fans as it was only shown once on UK television and only sold overseas to Australia and New Zealand.
Only a handful of clips, photos and audio recordings of the story from the show’s fourth series survive thanks to eager viewers.
A rehearsal shot from The Power Of The Daleks showing Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) trying to cope with a newly-rejuvenated Doctor (Patrick Troughton) (BBC/PA)
In the serial, Patrick’s Doctor regenerates in the Tardis, but his companions Polly and Ben (Anneke Wills and Michael Craze) remain sceptical of his identity.
Nevertheless, the trio set off for the planet of Vulcan where the Doctor comes face to face with his deadly foes, the Daleks.
The BBC remains tight-lipped about the episodes.
A spokesman said: “As soon as we have any news for Doctor Who fans we’ll let them know.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here