Yesterday a video appeared on YouTube which then quickly vanished, blocked by BBC Worldwide on copyright grounds… it was a two minute clip of scenes from Power of the Daleks which had been animated to a very professional standard. I managed to grab the video before it vanished and it looks fantastic! Check out these screengrabs!
Given that the Beeb have blocked the video, is this a leak from an upcoming DVD release? Are the Beeb really going to put out Power of the Daleks on DVD with all six episodes fully animated? It certainly looks like it, which begs the question of why did The Underwater Menace get the Loose Cannon treatment instead?
This year is the 50th Anniversary of Power of the Daleks in 1966, so perhaps a DVD is on its way? Given the troubled history of Dr Who animation to date, you would imagine that the Daleks would be the obvious one to start with if you’re going to invest the time and money for full motion animation since its a release that will appeal to a wider audience than the fans. The animation is much better than that Planet 55 pseudo-magna shite and is about as close to Cosgrove Hall’s work on The Invasion as we’re likely to get. The Daleks are 3D models animated in a 2D landscape and look brilliant. Here’s hoping this isn’t just another leaked animation test but a promise of more to come.
But before we all get carried away into omnirumour territory, thinking that this means every missing story will be animated, let’s remember that we’ve been here before. But it certainly looks like the Beeb are involved with this so let’s just stay mildly excited instead of going for the full squee!
It’s in widescreen 16:9 compared to the 4:3 of the original and is coloured blue but it certainly seems to be the most faithful recreation of a missing episode yet. Perhaps the best thing about this video is that for once someone seems to have taken the time to make sure the animation matches the existing footage and telesnaps something that hasn’t always been the case, like on The Reign of Terror. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of animating a missing episode then you should at least make the effort to make sure it looks like the version that’s missing. It seems at last somebody has:
Is it just me, or do Lesterson and the Doctor look like the work of Mike Collins, the current Dr Who storyboarder and DWM artist? And of course, if they’ve gone to all the trouble of creating the Dalek models for this, if indeed this is an upcoming BBC DVD leak, then you would imagine that there’s a good chance we’d get Evil of the Daleks as well…
The most likely release date for a DVD would be October 30th as that’s the closest Monday prior to the anniversary of the original transmission of part one on November 5th 1966, which this year falls on a Sunday. I can’t see the Beeb putting out the DVD, if there is one, the day after the 50th anniversary of part one!
We could possibly, hopefully, maybe be only 10 weeks away from what would be the most anticipated release since The Web of Fear…
