The 1966 lost classic Power of the Daleks is to be released this coming November in fully animated form the BBC has revealed.
“Landing on the planet Vulcan in 2020AD the Doctor, Polly and Ben are horrified to find two inanimate Daleks. They are even more alarmed when they discover that the colonists plan to reactivate the Daleks and use them as their slaves…”
The six part Power of the Daleks, the first to feature Patrick Troughton in the role of the Doctor, has long been considered one of the lost gems of the 1960s and while audio recordings, still photographs, telesnaps and clips of the story still exist, no episodes of the serial are known to have survived. The master tapes of all six episodes of Power were junked in the late ’60s and the BBC Enterprise copies, kept for foreign sales were destroyed in 1974.
Charles Norton, producer and director of the new animation, said:
“[It’s] 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.”
Produced by the same team behind the animated lost Dad’s Army episode A Stripe For Frazer, the newly reconstructed episodes feature character designs from respected Doctor Who Magazine artists Martin Geraghty and Adrian Salmon.
The animation, lovingly recreated from surviving images and audio, will be released digitally on November 5, 50 years to the day since the serial’s initial airing on the BBC - even going live on the store at 5:50pm! A DVD release is scheduled for Monday 21st November (available to preorder now) and is a sure-fire Christmas winner!
Alongside the digital and DVD releases of the episodes, BFI Southbank will screen the first three episodes in a special showing on November 5, Anneke Wills, Charles Norton and Frazer Hines providing a Q&A session after the presentation. Please see bfi.org.uk for further information after September 19.
Power of the Daleks will be released digitally at 5:50pm on November 5 via the BBC store, with a DVD release following on November 21, preorders are available now via the Amazon link below.
