Missing Doctor Who episodes brought back to life with animation
The four missing programmes were originally broadcast in 1967.
Animators have brought four missing Doctor Who episodes back to life more than 50 years after they were screened.
The four programmes were originally part of the sci-fi show’s fourth series, broadcast in 1967.
They starred Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, as well as Anneke Wills, Michael Craze and Frazer Hines.
The Macra Terror has been resurrected – this time through animation – with a fan’s recording of the series providing the original voices.
The episodes see the Doctor and his companions arrive on a human colony, set in the future, which has been infiltrated and brainwashed by the Macra, a race of giant, parasitic crab creatures.
Animation director and producer Charles Norton said: “The BBC wasn’t terribly good at archiving in the Sixties. They didn’t bother to keep a copy.
“The audio recordings do exist of the series because dedicated fans waved microphones at television sets and so we’ve been able to use their audio recordings, which have been cleaned up, as a basis for the animation.
“One fan put a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the back of his TV set and recorded the series.”
The episodes are being released after Doctor Who star Tom Baker reprised his role as the Time Lord to re-shoot part of a story which was halted in the 1970s due to strike action.
It combined original live-action footage with new animation as well as Baker’s cameo.
Troughton, the second Doctor, died in 1987.
The Macra Terror is out on DVD and Blu-ray on March 25.
