Reconstruction of the Daleks

I have to admit, the BBC's record of commissioning animated reconstructions for Doctor Who is mixed, to say the least. Unpopular opinion time: I actually think The Reign of Terror had the best animation of the bunch. Yes, the ultra-modern editing style with its jump cuts and changes in camera angle stood out like a sore thumb against the surviving episodes but the basic style was solid.

Judging by the two released screenshots, though, Power of the Daleks will probably have a simpler style more like The Ice Warriors. Which, you know, makes sense from a cost point of view, there are six whole episodes to animate.

Plus, I don't want to prejudge it too hard on the basis of two screenshots. For one thing, stills of animation never look as good as they do in motion. For another, I am not going to look a gift horse like this in the mouth. I love the Loose Cannon photo recons but there is something a little off-putting about watching a two and a half hour slideshow and anything that gets more Troughton on my DVD shelf gets the benefit of the doubt from me.

Even if their version of Troughton looks a bit creepy its not like its the worst artistic representation of the Second Doctor ever...

… as you can see.

Marco Polo found!... ish... maybe

Whilst looking up the time The Day Of The Doctor was going to be broadcast I stumbled across this article on The Mirror's website, a rumour sobizarre it might actually be true.

The basic gist is that in 1964 a guy used a cine film camera to record all seven episodes of Marco Polo, the fourth Doctor Who serial. Yes, “serial”, The Mirror, not “series”, bloody tabloid research. Normally I'd read something like “Marco Polo found!” and drop straight into reliable fan cynicism because it's one of the wish list ones, one of the ones everyone wants to see. It's the first proper historical (no, cavemen do not count), the surviving set photos are lavish and the plot is actually pretty good even if seven episodes seems over long.

I also want to see if there's as much lesbian subtext between Susan and Ping-Cho as the Loose Canon reconstruction leads me to believe. Seriously, every surviving photo of them used in that recon either has them hugging, holding hands, leading towards each other to whisper conspiratorially or lying in bed together! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Ship that sails itself and I'm surprised there's sop little Susan'Ping-Cho slash fic out in the wild.

Two things make me half believe this rumour.

One: The Enemy Of The World and The Web Of Fear are both pretty high on the wish list and we've got those back, minus one episode.

Two: the bloody odd way these episodes have apparently been restored to the BBC. Not original film cans from some Commonwealth country but some guy who in 1964 decided to record the whole serial using his cine film camera. This is weird enough to believe. Why he wanted three hours of silent Doctor Who is beyond mebut apparently it's good enough quality it can be married up with the surviving audio to make a marketable DVD.

I kind of feel sorry for Moffat, actually. I mean he spends all this time writing and filming an 80-minute special for the fiftieth anniversary and keeps being gazumped by decades old stories surfacing and stealing his thunder.