Doctor Who To Recreate Destroyed Episodes With The Power Of The Daleks Special

Since its debut in 1963, Doctor Who has had numerous actors play The Doctor. The British sci-fi series follows the character, a wayward time-traveling alien, as he goes through space and time with various companions. Today, the show focuses on the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi), but the character first belonged to William Hartnell. However, a series of rather unfortunate events have kept Doctor Who fans from seeing the 1st Doctor regenerate into the 2nd Doctor (Patrick Troughton). That is, until now.

Earlier today, BBC America confirmed a new animation is in the works that’ll depict the show’s first regeneration. Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks will premiere on BBC America on November 12 and then become available on the network’s website to stream. The six-part series will show William Hartnell’s regeneration – or, rather, renewal – into Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. The animation will also feature the new Doctor’s companions Polly and Ben as they prepare to battle Daleks on the planet Vulcan.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks will be directed and produced by Charles Norton. Character designs will be overseen by Martin Geraghty and Adrian Salmon, two well-known comic book artists. In a recent statement, Norton told fans who excited he was to bring this series to long-time fans of Doctor Who.

“The Power of the Daleks animation is the most ambitious Doctor Who archive restoration ever attempted and we’re all very honored to be a part of such an exciting project,” he said. “Intelligent, suspenseful and magnificently staged, The Power of the Daleks is one of the great lost classics of 1960s television and a superb example of the black and white era at its finest.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Doctor Who or The Power of the Daleks, then you should know the serial sits as one of the show’s most popular. However, there are actually no intact episode recordings of story arc have survived. The six-episode saga aired in 1966, and the BBC destroyed its master negatives during an archive cleaning in 1974. Some short clips and audio recordings of the saga have been preserved, but the whole story has been missing for nearly fifty years now. In August, a brief animated clip of The Power of the Daleks found its way to the Internet before BBC pulled the footage, leading fans to believe a recreation was imminent.

With the new animation debuting in November, the series will hype up Doctor Who fans for this year’s Christmas Special. The 12th Doctor and his new companion Bill will star in the holiday episode before Season Ten airs in its entirety in 2017.

[H/T] BBC America