You might recall that last week I posted news from the DVD panel from this year’s Gallifrey One convention in which Supervising Editor Dan Hall said that they were looking at ways to reconstruct the two missing episodes (2 and 3) of the Patrick Troughton story “The Ice Warriors” from 1967, and that it might be animation but it also might not. Well, news from official Doctor Who 50th Anniversary website doctorwho.tv reports that the two eps will be animated after all!
From the press release:
Lost episodes of Second Doctor adventure The Ice Warriors are being animated for DVD release, doctorwho.tv can exclusively announce. Animation studio Qurios have been commissioned to recreate the missing episodes two and three, which see Ice Warrior leader Varga revive, kidnap Victoria and defrost his glacier-bound army.
“We’ve been discussing the various ways Qurios could reconstruct these episodes for over three years,†said Dan Hall, Managing Director of Pup Ltd Media Consultancy, producer of the DVD. “So it’s really, really satisfying to finally see them animated. Qurios have a great track record in excellent and innovative animations.”
When asked about using a different animation studio to previous releases, Hall replied, “Doctor Who has had many different visual styles thanks to changing directors, designers and production methods. We wanted to mirror this in our choice of animation partners.”
“The Ice Warriors” was the first appearance of the eponymous foes, who are reptiles from Mars, and appeared in four stories in the classic series. It was also announced recently that Mark Gatiss is writing the return of the Ice Warriors for an episode in the upcoming second half of Series 7.
Previous animated episodes were produced by Cosgrove Hall for “The Invasion” and just recently by Theta Sigma for “The Reign of Terror” and the just-announced fourth episode of “The Tenth Planet,” which will be due out later this year.
Below is a “work in progress” scene test for the animation featuring an animated Patrick Troughton. Looks a bit like the animation on Archer, don’t you agree?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HICrwM89caY&w=615&h=461]
Personally, I’m very happy that the mostly-complete stories will all have animated episodes by the end of the year. Very pleased indeed. What do you think of this news and of the animation style? Post comments below!
Fantastic animation! I’m hoping they make one of the “Underwater Menace” next. Actually, scratch that; I hope the BBC pays them billions of pounds to re-animate ALL the missing episodes. I only started watching in 2005, and have recently started going back to Classic Who, and need to see what happens in such episodes as The Faceless Ones, and The Dalek’s Master Plan, etcetera.
great news, i can’t wait till we get complete animated versions of lost troughton stories ( powe and evil of the daleks )- with the lack of original fotage the animators could do some really cool stuff !
Great! I haven’t seen the Reign of Terror animation yet, however, I hope they don’t make such a simple mistake a Zoe’s costume in the Invasion first episode recreation.
I like a simple animation style like this, it fits the era of the show better and won’t look as outdated as CGI would years down the line.
Awesome. The animation style is very Archer-esque. I love the Patrick Troughton Doctor, so the more we get, the better!
This is great news. I was very pleased with the animated missing episodes of “The Invasion.” I think it’s just a step away from having the original. Perhaps they will, soon, incorporate CGI or video game-level animation into future releases. When will “The Ice Warriors” be available to purchase?