Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks

The animated The Power of the Daleks features a first. The post regenerative Doctor played by Patrick Troughton interacting with his companions Ben and Polly. Both of them are confused and so is the Doctor. He refers to himself in the third person, unsure if he is the Doctor and so are Ben and Polly. I actually found Ben to be rather aggressive in much of the story here.

What is rather refreshing is that the second Doctor might be in a post regenerative fog but at least he is not out of action and confined to a bed for long periods which seems to affect the subsequent Doctors.

The Tardis lands on the planet Vulcan where a human colony is having to deal with a rebel faction. The Governor of the colony seems to be an affable sort but some of his men are plotting, there is an Iago among the ranks.

An examiner has been sent by Planet Earth to investigate the colony and is murdered. The Doctor takes his place by taking his badge. Chief scientist Lesterson has found a crashed capsule which contains a few dormant Daleks, despite the Doctor's protestations, he wants to power them up. At first the humans find the Daleks to be subservient and helpful, they are just here to serve mankind.

The Doctor knows better though and the Daleks are playing a long game.

The helpful Daleks trope was revisited in the Matt Smith era; Victory of the Daleks. The Daleks were shown to with more nuance here, cunning and duplicitous.

As for the colonist. A part of me thought that when these humans were sent from Earth to Vulcan, the average IQ of both planets went up!

There was a lot of stupidity in display here. The Governor putting his trust in one person who was influential with the security force, humans trusting the Daleks repeatedly.

For a story of its time, this six part moves along at a nice pace, although I did think this could had easily been done in four parts.

As for the animation. It certainly is low budget in places, some of the movements reminded me of Captain Pugwash. At other times the producers break free to make good use of animation sequences such as the overhead shot of the Daleks.

However we finally get to see Patrick Troughton's first full story as the Doctor.

Back in the 1960s the BBC erased many of their tapes, never thinking that their programs would be of any interest for future generations. Taking the surviving audio and a few stills from one of these purged shows, this animated version recreates the lost video. But the animators admit that it is only about 50% shot for shot, so we still don't have the true original. But for Doctor Who fans, that might be enough; at least it's more than the nothing they had before.

The animation is very limited - reminiscent of the "motion comics" that were not very successful about 10 years ago. They also chose to do it in black and white instead of color. The original was certainly in black and white, but as long as you're changing things, why not use color (or give the DVD viewer the choice)? The picture sometimes does not sync with the audio, and there is background sound in a number of places that isn't captured by the animation.

The story itself unfolds at a leisurely pace, typical for that era. Modern audiences may not have the patience to sit through the slow parts.

It's nice to have these episodes made more accessible for historical reasons, but I doubt anyone other than older Whovians will get much out of it.

I'd not heard of this animated serial until I was browsing the user comments of Theo Robertson and saw he had seen it. It attracted my attention because I recognized the title as being one of the wholly lost serials, and that it had annoyed me when I was watching through that stage of Dr Who, because of it being a change in Doctors, and of course because of the Daleks returning. Despite their name being in the title the Daleks do not show up much at first. The focus of a lot of the first episode is mostly on the change to the Doctor, and what happened with him. This material works, but perhaps goes on a bit long for viewers now, for whom the regeneration process is quite normal.

This establishment of the new situation within the TARDIS is followed by the establishment of the human colony outside of it. The murder of the Examiner is sudden and lacks a base, and is a bit convenient in terms of kicking off the narrative, but it is dramatic and does gt things going. The introduction of the Daleks is very well done, as they are threatening but yet seemingly neutered – but not in a way the viewer accepts. This neutered state gives way to a very enjoyable aspect of the Daleks – which is their manipulative scheming evil. I'm so used to them just storming round the place yelling, that it is nice to see them playing a longer game around the edges. The human cast react well to this, as some of them convince with a gut feeling of being watched by these machines – but it is the despair of Lesterson that is the most convincing and impacting. The serial runs to 6 parts but unlike many that do, this uses the time very well. It doesn't feel artificial and it produces a nice slow burn tension and drama across the various threads it has running.

The recreation here is mostly very good; I cannot comment on how close it is to the fragments remaining of the original, but the use of recorded audio does add a lot. The animation is a mixed bag. When characters are in motion then it looks clunky and a bit cheap, but when they are more static images then it looks fine. The animators also take some liberties which add value – for instance I doubt the original show did an overhead shot of the three Daleks, or did as good a job of selling the army being created. It isn't amazing animation perhaps, but again this is testament to the narrative because I was held by it sufficiently not to be too bothered.

A very strong serial which strong characters, performances, and writing. A reminder that one of the things that made the Daleks stick as characters is that they were in some very good serials.

I'll admit I bought it when it first hit the shelves, and it's sat there unloved since, until now, where I find myself drawn to it, and hooked. It gives a great insight into the magic of what sadly remains hidden.

I'll admit the animation isn't as good as it should be, not the standard of Invasion, but it still allows you to bring the characters to life. Having read the text and listened to the audio on numerous occasions I found myself muddling some of the characters, Resno and Valmar, what this animation does is bring them to life and reinforce just who they are.

You can see that plenty of care and attention was taken to create the scene where Lesterson witnesses in horror the Dalek production line, and it's perhaps the best scene on the disc, somehow a little more work went into that one, as it is key to the plot.

I invested in the colour version, but I do prefer the black and white version. I'm so glad to have it on my shelf, and the fan in me wishes that they'd release the lot, but I understand that's not viable, surely time though to put Fury from the Deep or Evil of the Daleks to the same treatment?

These stories are out there, and one day will be found, it will be interesting to look back at these and compare, or see a different interpretation.

Don't look at it with an overcritical eye, see it from the view point of those wanting to give us fans something that tantalisingly remains absent.

Loved it, 10/10

Sometime in the future, the newly regenerated Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) land on Vulcan, one of Earth's mining colonies only to discover that one of the Doctor's most dreaded enemies is also on the planet. As the Second Doctor's first outing, this serial is a must see for Who-fans and the animated recreation is most welcome. Troughton does a good job of 'rebranding' the 'regenerated' Time-lord and manages to lighten up the tetchiness and stilted-formality of the original Doctor (William Hartnell) without completely breaking with the entertaining and popular character Hartnell (and his writers) had created. While it takes a bit of time to get moving, the complicated storyline is good: full of double-dealing and deceit as corrupt internal politics wrack the station's crew while the resurrected Daleks deceive everyone about their true aims (other than the Doctor of course). One episode features dead bodies littering the floor following a major extermination event, a surprisingly brutal scene considering that at the time Doctor Who was seen by the BBC as kid-targeted programming. As with the other recreations of missing episodes, the animation is not particularly sophisticated but serves to add visuals to the original audio, giving fans a chance to see at least an approximation of this pivotal episode of the BBC's beloved sci-fi series.