Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks [DVD]

Before this animated story, the only way I got a glimpse into this incredible story was through fan videos combining telesnaps with the original audio.I currently have the animated version through Amazon Prime. I enjoy it, am glad I have it, but it gets 4 stars instead of 5 for a few things.1. The animation is very low budget. I think much better animation was done with the missing episodes from the Cybermen story 'The Invasion.'2. There are a few mistakes in the animation. Ben, Polly, and the Doctor are in their quarters. Polly asks the Doctor a series of questions. The Doctor answers the questions by blowing in a positive/negative fashion on his recorder. In the story, Ben gets so frustrated at the Doctor's lack of communication regarding his regeneration that he grabs the Recorder away from the Doctor and blows into it hard, very frustrated. A few moments later, the Doctor recovers the Recorder and begins playing it again. Ben angrily looks at him and asks, 'How did he get that back?' In the animation you never see Ben grab the recorder away from the Doctor. So when Ben asks how the Doctor reclaimed the Recorder, the scene doesn't make sense.3. Janley and Valmar are running from the daleks. Quinn suddenly appears and grabs Valmar by the arm pulling him away from Janley right before a dalek kills Janley. Valmar yells out in protest as Quinn pulls him away. In the animation you never see Quinn grab Valmar. You just start hearing Valmar yell in protest as he stands next to Janley, but again the scene doesn't make sense because you don't know why Valmar is yelling. But you do hear Quinn's voice. Suddenly, Quinn has Valmar. You never see it happen. It's like all the sudden there are shouts all over the place for no reason and then a dalek is killing Janley. You're sitting there like, 'what the hell?'If I hadn't seen the fan telesnap videos, I wouldn't know the whole story and wouldn't know how the scenes were supposed to be set up.

This is Patric Troughton's first appearance as The Doctor. Truly a landmark serial. No one was sure the program would survive the change in casting of the main figure.I have every Doctor Who DVD released in Region 1 format. They've all been watched several times. I am especially drawn to the dialog driven stories of the classic Doctors. This is a very strong story for a 6 episode serial that doesn't come across well as audio only, which up until now was the only non-print way to enjoy it. The color animation provided in this DVD really ties it all together.Even though I am not a fan of the primitive looking style of animation that the BBC has chosen for these reconstructions, I eagerly await the announcement of more of them. I'll be one of the first to preorder.The bonus features are extensive, and very informative.it even includes the earlier telesnap reconstruction read by Annake Wills. The "Making of" feature is also very good. There are episode commentaries for each episode that cover both the creation of the original serial and the creation of the reconstruction.If you are a fan of the classic Doctors, this is a must. If you're not a fan of the classic Doctors, this probably not the place to start. But start somewhere.Hey, BBC! Please continue with these recreations. Your Doctor fans eagerly await.

While not completely animated as one would expect, it never failed to fill me with the wonder that is Doctor Who. Aside from my biased opinion of who is the best actor for Doctor Who, everyone's performance was spectacular... even the Daleks! With the old video lost, the animators had to rely on still shots and broke them apart to create composites and characters to operate in the re-created environments. The quality for the mouth movements was very nice to see that it could be doneNow, for the down side: It was in flash animation. I was jerky and motion was like watching someone operate cut out figures glued onto tongue depressors. Sometimes, when they did a walking motion, the knees bent backwards. It was almost like watching an episode of Clutch Cargo. Great stories, yet the animation failed. Power of the Daleks was not that bad and was reasonably tolerable. Just the sake of watching it thrilled my beyond my distaste for the style of animation. With the wonderful effects that can be done today with even low budget animation software, I was surprised that it wasn't of a different class of animation.Power of the Daleks is well written and performed by the original production crew and cast. I found that that sustained me and I actually enjoyed the production. If this is the only way to get the older missing episodes back in circulation, I'll take it in a heartbeat.

Power of The Daleks was one of the four stories I bought on cassette back in 1993, and always loved to listen to, not least because back then there was very little on video from the early part of Troughton's period. I have also not listened to it for quite some time, since my last functioning cassette player died, so it was both a well-loved and only dimly-remembered personal classic for me going into this animated version.In terms of story, plot, etc six episodes does not feel at all long-winded. There is sufficient action, twists and layers to keep the story moving, and the characters are well-realised, from the idealistic scientific rationalist Lesterson, to the harder Janley, to the well-meaning Hensell, and the vilainous Bragen. That is even before we get to look at Troughton's new Doctor and his companions, or the daleks themselves.It seems a good idea to look at those two aspects in tandem with the animation, since it is the core team and the villains who really decide whether a story stands or falls, and in this animated version that is inherently tied up with the animation.The set design, and most of the daleks themselves are exceptionally well-animated, and often it is hard to remember it is an animation, not 3-D, especially in and around the capsule. The daleks have a type of movement ideally suited to this style of animation and glide around menacingly, whereas their manic voices and war cries chill the viewer, just as they did the listener on the audio reconstruction.The human characters however are treated differently by the animation. What most came to mind was Supermarionation and Thunderbirds, not so much in the movement of the characters, but in their frequent non-movement. Whilst they move more or less as one might expect in a cartoon, they frequently seem to be standing there, wiggling slightly, whilst delivering dialogue. No doubt this is because there are no surviving clips of humans from any but the first two episodes, and that the animation team were frequently uncertain as to what the characters were often doing when talking, and plumped for nothing, just having them stand there, occasionally wiggling.It does take a while to get used to the caricature-style drawing of the human characters, I will say that, but eventually Bragen, Janley, Quinn, Valmar etc begin to feel like real people from their animations, as well as from the audio track. You also get a definite feeling of Troughton's Doctor, but I don't feel the same can be said for Ben and Polly. I've seen them in surviving episodes of other stories, and in this one they seem more one-dimensional (pun intended). It seems almost as if their animation has been based on stills footage, or telesnaps alone, rather than a reimagining of what actions they would have been taking, and realistic facial expressions.The DVD box comes with 2 discs, the second of which has some very interesting extras. The interview with people such as director Christopher Barry and Bernard Archard, who played Bragen, is very interesting as to the creation of the original TV story, and the surviving clips montage is fascinating, as it includes the 8mm off-screen recordings of tiny clips from episodes 1 and 2. What there didn't seem to be is the story of the animation itself, unless that is a documentary being saved for a future DVD?Overall, the plot of the story holds up well, and the animation realises the sets and daleks very well indeed. It does feel like it only gives a caricature of the human characters, and the lack of true depth there is felt most deeply with the TARDIS crew. But I watched it from start to finish, and watched the extras, so even with a few faults I'd rate this a 5-star product.

Sadly the bbc cull of video tape led to the loss of many Doctor Who episodes. William Hartnell episodes were lost and so much of Patrick Trougtons too. Everything after survived. Rather strangely some key stories were lost ‘the Daleks Masterplan’ ‘Evil of the daleks (intended as the last Dalek story as the Bbc were selling them to the Americans)’ the ‘Wheel in Space’ (currently the only Cyberman story not available original or restored) and this one being Patrick’s first tale. In his new body he falls upon a Dalek plot to manufacture more daleks, whilst persuading the humans that they will be servants to them. A really good story and a very well put together animation for the whole story. It’s a true classic and leaves me to hope that the other 3 adventures that I mentioned will also get this treatment.

It’s a shame that the BBC destroyed their past programs. In fairness though, they didn’t expect that years into the future people would have more interest than back in the 60’s. Neither did anyone realise that we, nowadays, would be having the option of having programs and films to keep.While it is great that people are gradually restricting the missing episodes of Doctor Who, mainly animated, I felt that this animation could have been more correct in its shadings. The shadowing around the eyes seemed too heavy, as if the animated characters had overcastted eye shadow. However, with this complete six missing episodes reconstructed into a cartoon version, it falls into the Patrick Troughton collection well.Keeping it black and white was the correct choice in correspondence to the actual programmes from William Hartnell through to Jon Pertwee’s first episode.

I must agree with other reviewers that this is an excellent and comprehensive set. I do have one pet peeve, however. The enclosed booklet will not fit inside the steelbook case. If you carefully trim it with scissors or an exacto knife it will fit and you will not lose any printed text, but surely the BBC could have taken a measurement or two before having the booklet printed? Steelbooks are hardly a new idea.

It's probably heresy to say this, but I love the colour version. The extras are fun, too, as is the telesnaps reconstruction using the Anneke Wills-narrated soundtrack. The steelbook arrived at just the right point in my Doctor Who marathon. I couldn't be happier, and look forward to listening to the commentaries.