Macra Terror!
Dec. 6th, 2018 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auroracloudSometimes I like it that websites remember what I like. YouTube just shoved this at me this morning (when I went looking for a morning yoga):
There's going to be an animated release of The Macra Terror next year! Aaaaaaahhh! Wheeeee!!!
For those not in the know, getting into Classic Who and in particular 1960s Who means I've also joined the shared fandom experience/trauma of 'oh gods why did all those episodes from the 1960s get wiped and why haven't they all been recovered??' The short version: Macra Terror is a story from the early Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) era that has been completely missing until now, only the audio of the serial and a few short clips existing (and scripts, telesnaps, fan-made reconstructions etc.). And now they've created an animated version to the audio, and it will be released in March 2019! It's one of the stories long-term fans constantly keep wishing would be found, so I'm pretty darn excited about an animation!
The long version, ie. more background to those not in the Classic Who fandom but curious to know more about this whole thing. Basically, in the early days of TV, the BBC didn't think that anyone would need the old Doctor Who episodes once they'd been shown, because VHS players didn't exist yet and also, the actors' unions didn't believe in reruns because that would mean fewer new acting jobs. So a whole lot of TV shows were wiped from existence, including many serials from the First and Second Doctor eras (William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton). Until, you know, a few years later things changed and reruns and video releases became possible. Since then, they've been trying to recover all the episodes they could find from whatever archives, boxes lying around in basements, old TV stations from countries that the serials were exported to which didn't return the tapes as they were meant to, etc.
They've also been creating official animated episodes to fill in stories where most of the episodes exist - for example, The Invasion, a legendary Cybermen episode from Troughton's last era and one of my personal favourites, has 6 out of 8 episodes existing, so the missing two have been animated to make a complete DVD release possible. The Ice Warriors also has two animated episodes, as does The Moonbase, another early Troughton story that aired just before The Macra Terror. The Underwater Menace was released on DVD with the two missing episodes reconstructed from audio and telesnaps - I think they reckoned that it wasn't good enough to warrant the trouble and expense of being animated, because well, to be honest, it isn't. Recently, Troughton's whole first story, The Power of the Daleks, was animated and released on DVD (I've yet to see it, actually, because when I was gathering myself Troughton DVDVs, I focused on those that had at least some of the actual original episodes existing. It is on my shopping list, because OMG Troughton and OMG Ben and Polly).
Seems they're following it up with The Macra Terror, one of the other completely missing stories and a pretty legendary one from what I've been able to tell. If you remember the Tenth Doctor and Martha episode Gridlock and those crab-like beasties that lived down in the exhaust fumes of the fast lane and attacked the car Martha was in - they originated in The Macra Terror and have only ever been back in Gridlock.
Most of you might remember that this summer, when Twitch did the Classic Who Marathon where they showed most of the existing Classic Who during about two months, I watched as much as I could, fell head over heels in love with Classic Who (I should still post about why I love it!) and most of all I fell in love with the Second Doctor era. I still should post why that, too - briefly, though, Troughton is a fabulous actor, I really love his interpretation of the Doctor, and he has a wonderful camaraderie with his companions. Two's companions are among my all-time favourites, too, and I enjoy the old-time adventurous charm of the era combined with the fact that they've already figured out how to do TV drama and sci-fi TV. I also love the warm-heartedness and fun, and I feel the era it's quite progressive for its time in many of its values. (Not so much in terms of race, alas. If you watch The Tomb of the Cybermen, please watch something else as well. It has a racism problem and is only a middling story despite being often recommended; there are much better ones in existence. I'll try to write a proper Second Doctor era recs post when I'm done watching all of it. But meanwhile, you can start with the Enemy of the World, it's fab, and even has a really interesting woman of colour among the guest characters.)
In the past months I've been cursing my luck at managing to fall in love exactly with the era that has the most missing stories! The Troughton era was disproportionally affected by the episode wipes, especially the two first series, probably because regeneration was a new weird idea at a time so fewer foreign TV stations were on board for an entirely new chap playing the Doctor, even if he was actually The Best Doctor Ever (My Subjective Opinion That Is Objective Truth, y'know). So it's super exciting to get news that another completely missing episode will be available on proper DVD!
Still, I shouldn't complain, because this seems to be the best time since 1966-1969 to be a fan of the Troughton era. They've been finding more episodes in the recent years - before 2013 I wouldn't have been able to watch The Enemy Of the World or The Web of Fear, which are both wonderful, especially the former. There are all these partially or even completely animated stories that have been released on DVD. And Big Finish keeps churning out audios as long as some of the actors playing the companions still live, and it turns out Frazer Hines (Jamie) is uncannily good at channeling the Second Doctor as well.
I haven't yet watched any reconstruction of The Macra Terror or read a novelization or anything - I figured that when I started watching properly through the Second Doctor era, I'd start with stories that do exist mostly in moving pictures form. So with this news, I'm going to wait until I can watch the animation on DVD!
I'm also being hopeful about The Wheel in Space, the first adventure with Zoe Heriot, because recently a 10-minute animation condensing the first episode has been created, and I assume they didn't really do it for just one screening at a conference about missing BBC episodes. I recently watched the two existing episodes of The Wheel in Space, and they're fantastic - I was riveted despite not even having watched any reconstruction of the missing episodes! Say if they've found even one more episode and then just make an animation or reconstruction of the remaining ones... In fact, there apparently is an official telesnap reconstruction already available on Britbox. We'll see if anything comes out of this later...
There's going to be an animated release of The Macra Terror next year! Aaaaaaahhh! Wheeeee!!!
For those not in the know, getting into Classic Who and in particular 1960s Who means I've also joined the shared fandom experience/trauma of 'oh gods why did all those episodes from the 1960s get wiped and why haven't they all been recovered??' The short version: Macra Terror is a story from the early Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) era that has been completely missing until now, only the audio of the serial and a few short clips existing (and scripts, telesnaps, fan-made reconstructions etc.). And now they've created an animated version to the audio, and it will be released in March 2019! It's one of the stories long-term fans constantly keep wishing would be found, so I'm pretty darn excited about an animation!
The long version, ie. more background to those not in the Classic Who fandom but curious to know more about this whole thing. Basically, in the early days of TV, the BBC didn't think that anyone would need the old Doctor Who episodes once they'd been shown, because VHS players didn't exist yet and also, the actors' unions didn't believe in reruns because that would mean fewer new acting jobs. So a whole lot of TV shows were wiped from existence, including many serials from the First and Second Doctor eras (William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton). Until, you know, a few years later things changed and reruns and video releases became possible. Since then, they've been trying to recover all the episodes they could find from whatever archives, boxes lying around in basements, old TV stations from countries that the serials were exported to which didn't return the tapes as they were meant to, etc.
They've also been creating official animated episodes to fill in stories where most of the episodes exist - for example, The Invasion, a legendary Cybermen episode from Troughton's last era and one of my personal favourites, has 6 out of 8 episodes existing, so the missing two have been animated to make a complete DVD release possible. The Ice Warriors also has two animated episodes, as does The Moonbase, another early Troughton story that aired just before The Macra Terror. The Underwater Menace was released on DVD with the two missing episodes reconstructed from audio and telesnaps - I think they reckoned that it wasn't good enough to warrant the trouble and expense of being animated, because well, to be honest, it isn't. Recently, Troughton's whole first story, The Power of the Daleks, was animated and released on DVD (I've yet to see it, actually, because when I was gathering myself Troughton DVDVs, I focused on those that had at least some of the actual original episodes existing. It is on my shopping list, because OMG Troughton and OMG Ben and Polly).
Seems they're following it up with The Macra Terror, one of the other completely missing stories and a pretty legendary one from what I've been able to tell. If you remember the Tenth Doctor and Martha episode Gridlock and those crab-like beasties that lived down in the exhaust fumes of the fast lane and attacked the car Martha was in - they originated in The Macra Terror and have only ever been back in Gridlock.
Most of you might remember that this summer, when Twitch did the Classic Who Marathon where they showed most of the existing Classic Who during about two months, I watched as much as I could, fell head over heels in love with Classic Who (I should still post about why I love it!) and most of all I fell in love with the Second Doctor era. I still should post why that, too - briefly, though, Troughton is a fabulous actor, I really love his interpretation of the Doctor, and he has a wonderful camaraderie with his companions. Two's companions are among my all-time favourites, too, and I enjoy the old-time adventurous charm of the era combined with the fact that they've already figured out how to do TV drama and sci-fi TV. I also love the warm-heartedness and fun, and I feel the era it's quite progressive for its time in many of its values. (Not so much in terms of race, alas. If you watch The Tomb of the Cybermen, please watch something else as well. It has a racism problem and is only a middling story despite being often recommended; there are much better ones in existence. I'll try to write a proper Second Doctor era recs post when I'm done watching all of it. But meanwhile, you can start with the Enemy of the World, it's fab, and even has a really interesting woman of colour among the guest characters.)
In the past months I've been cursing my luck at managing to fall in love exactly with the era that has the most missing stories! The Troughton era was disproportionally affected by the episode wipes, especially the two first series, probably because regeneration was a new weird idea at a time so fewer foreign TV stations were on board for an entirely new chap playing the Doctor, even if he was actually The Best Doctor Ever (My Subjective Opinion That Is Objective Truth, y'know). So it's super exciting to get news that another completely missing episode will be available on proper DVD!
Still, I shouldn't complain, because this seems to be the best time since 1966-1969 to be a fan of the Troughton era. They've been finding more episodes in the recent years - before 2013 I wouldn't have been able to watch The Enemy Of the World or The Web of Fear, which are both wonderful, especially the former. There are all these partially or even completely animated stories that have been released on DVD. And Big Finish keeps churning out audios as long as some of the actors playing the companions still live, and it turns out Frazer Hines (Jamie) is uncannily good at channeling the Second Doctor as well.
I haven't yet watched any reconstruction of The Macra Terror or read a novelization or anything - I figured that when I started watching properly through the Second Doctor era, I'd start with stories that do exist mostly in moving pictures form. So with this news, I'm going to wait until I can watch the animation on DVD!
I'm also being hopeful about The Wheel in Space, the first adventure with Zoe Heriot, because recently a 10-minute animation condensing the first episode has been created, and I assume they didn't really do it for just one screening at a conference about missing BBC episodes. I recently watched the two existing episodes of The Wheel in Space, and they're fantastic - I was riveted despite not even having watched any reconstruction of the missing episodes! Say if they've found even one more episode and then just make an animation or reconstruction of the remaining ones... In fact, there apparently is an official telesnap reconstruction already available on Britbox. We'll see if anything comes out of this later...
no subject
Date: 2018-12-11 09:52 am (UTC)Yeah, if they don't find The Highlanders then I want them to make an animation of it! Jamie's first story and the last pure historical, it needs to be available in some watchable form!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-12 08:25 pm (UTC)