STACK December 2016 Issue No. 146

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To date, 97
episodes of Doctor
Who remain missing from
the BBC archives and the search
continues to reduce this number.
There’s always the possibility that
The Power of the Daleks is still out
there somewhere, gathering dust
in the basement of an overseas
television station.
“We can hope,” says Ayres. “We
were very lucky a few years ago
when The Web of Fear and The
Enemy of the World turned up – it
was delightful to see those again. In
the meantime, we’ve done the next
best thing. This is missing, we don’t
think we’ll get it back, so let’s do
something exciting and innovative
with it.”
So, does this mean that other
lost stories will return in animated
form sometime in the future?
“It’s a commercial world and we
can only make this stuff if people
buy it,” he offers.
That’s a big incentive for all
Whovians to add The Power of
the Daleks to their DVD collection
this Christmas. Not that they need
one.
visit
42 DECEMBER 2016
DVD&BD
FEATURE
L ongtime Doctor Who fans did a
major double take when it was
announced that The Power of
the Daleks was coming to DVD in
December. All six episodes of this
classic adventure no longer exist –
the master negatives having been
destroyed in a short-sighted purging
of the BBC archives between 1967
and 1978.
But thanks to the efforts of
producer Charles Norton, comic
book artists Martin Geraghty and
Adrian Salmon, and original audio
restoration by Mark Ayres, The
Power of the Daleks has been
resurrected through the art of
animation. And the end result is
the next best thing to seeing the
original serial.
“It looks incredible. I defy
anybody not to be absolutely
gobsmacked,” says Anneke Wills,
who played the Doctor’s companion
Polly in the story. “What I like is
it has a very sixties’ quality. The
drawings are very artistic and I love
that it’s black and white – it fits it
perfectly.”
Mark Ayres agrees: “The
animators were very keen on
getting a sixties’ comic book look
– it feels instantly familiar and you
feel at home with it.”
The Power of the Daleks is a
pivotal story in the Whoniverse,
being the very first appearance of
Patrick Troughton as the Doctor,
following the risky decision to
replace the show’s lead actor when
William Hartnell departed the role.
“Patrick set the mould for
regeneration and proved you could
change the lead actor – and here
we are 50 years later and the show
is still doing it,” Ayres notes.
“He was an inspiration to the
last four Doctors,” adds Wills. “Each
one of them has said openly that
Patrick’s performance was the
template.”
It’s also one of the best
Dalek stories, with the Doctor
encountering his old enemies on
the planet Vulcan, where they have
been revived by a naïve scientist
and set about surreptitiously
creating an army to do what Daleks
do best: “Exterminate all humans.”
Bringing The Power of the Daleks
back to life involved “a lot of work”
for Ayres and the animation team.
Missing episodes of Doctor Who
had been animated previously for
DVD releases, but The Power of
the Daleks is the first time that an
entire story has been recreated in
this medium.
“We start with the soundtrack,
which is obviously an off-air
recording made in 1966 by a chap
named Graham Strong,” Ayres
explains. “I digitize the quarter-inch
tape and make a reference copy
running at the right speed, but not
restored. That becomes our working
master, which is sent to the
animators so they can start work.
As I get each episode in better
shape, I send them a copy. The final
soundtracks [on the DVD] are the
original restored mono, a stereo
version and a surround version and
the mixed commentaries. These are
supplied as audio files to be married
to the animation and off it goes.”
In recreating the six episodes
as close as possible to the original
broadcast versions, the animators
referenced the original camera
script, as well as off-air ‘tele-snap’
photographs and the only surviving
snippets of footage.
REANIMATING
THE DALEKS
The classic Doctor Who story The Power of
the Daleks returns this month as a new BBC
animated production. Scott Hocking spoke
to audio engineer Mark Ayres and TARDIS
travelling companion Anneke Wills about
bringing this lost story back to the screen. • Doctor Who:
The Power of
the Daleks
is out on Dec 14
If you could choose another classic Doctor Whostory to be animated, which one would it be?
Anneke Wills: “I’d likeThe Smugglers. That’s just personal because it was my favourite story – down on the beach in Cornwall. As a
Who fan, I’d also like The Crusade andFury from the Deep.
Mark Ayres: “From a technical point of view, not all the soundtracks are the same usable quality as Power of the Daleks. So if it’s
going to be very commercial like we’ve done here, and get shown in cinemas as well, we really do need to think about the best
quality ones. So I think Fury from the Deep would be very good. Again, it’s a cracking story and it’s Patrick."