Doctor Who: The Macra Terror

The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben find themselves in a remote space-colony inhabited by a cult-like group of 'gas miners' who take their orders from an unseen controller and are afraid to go out at night. The special effects seem ambitious (by Whovian standards) but, as all of the original episodes are lost, it is difficult to evaluate how well they were executed (the surviving still-images look interesting). I like Troughton's incarnation of the iconic Timelord and he seems to be having fun with the role in this somewhat silly tale. As usual, Jamie is an entertaining companion and Ben was central to the plot but Polly didn't add much to the story. All in all, the plot didn't make much sense and its hard to imagine a plausible back-story that could have set up the scenario in which the time-travellers find themselves. Even at only 4 parts, the story is a bit stretched and the big 'reveal' at the end of episode 3 isn't much of a surprise. The animation isn't great but serves its purpose. Essential viewing for completist-fans and well-worth the effort of making an animated recreation to replace the lost original, but overall a lesser entry in Troughton's Timelord tenure.

It may be my first introduction to animated Doctor Who reconstructions but The Macra Terror is a really campy and fun serial. It's also very creepy, upsetting and disconcerting story which makes viewing this serial in black and white even better.

The animation seems incredibly perfect and flawless, there's a nice charm to it. The remastered audio recordings are absolutely flawless considering they were recorded in the late 1960s.

The story is a tad silly for the second doctor's era but it does work well enough. A four parter is also the perfect length of a Doctor Who serial so I have no complaints.

Comparing the Macra to their original design... it's a good improvement.

Animation is just ok. Dialog doesn't flow well, like the editing was done hastily. The story is typical Dr. Who stuff. The sound effects in some scenes are quite annoying. If all the other Dr Who animated features are like this then i will be sticking to the regular tv shows.

The colour episodes are a nice touch, and the animation is ok, as a story it's pretty good. I wish there was a bit more pace in getting these animations released. The disc has some nice features, including the audio, narrated by Colin Baker, that takes me back.

I totally enjoyed sitting down to watch the Macra Terror, animated for blu ray and dvd. It doesn't surprise me to learn that many fans are critical of the animation, at times we can be tough fans to please. However I really liked the animation, I thought it was better then the one for Power of the Daleks.

I have no idea if we'll get more missing episodes back, so I'm happy to see these animations, they're a nice animation to the texts and audio versions.

I'm sure a few scenes were cut, there's one notable scene where The Doctor is tidied up by a machine, then instantly messes himself up again.

So it's not perfect, but I loved it. Please can we have Fury from the Deep and Dalek Masterplan.

Great. 9/10