Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
Coming in the footsteps of the 2006 DVD of The Invasion (1968), The Reign of Terror, only the second serial with ‘lost’ episodes to be released in full, will be on shelves at the end of January 2013.
The missing episodes, parts four and five of the six-part tale, have been animated, coupled with original, restored audio, and teased for quite some time. The story – which stars the First Doctor with his granddaughter, Susan, and original companions, Ian and Barbara – last appeared in shops in 2003, the last VHS issued in the BBC’s Doctor Who line, and coupled with the surviving episodes of The Faceless Ones and episode one of The Web of Fear.
While that release narrowed the gap created by the two missing episodes with stills and surviving clips (with linking narration by Susan herself, Carole Ann Ford), this new DVD release falls back on the brilliant animation first glimpsed in The Invasion DVD.
Carole Ann Ford is back on commentary in The Reign of Terror, and she’s joined by an interesting lot, including Caroline Hunt (Danielle); Production Assistant, Timothy Combe; and Paul Vanezes and Philip Morris, two people on a quest to find more missing archive footage.
Robespierre’s Domain Set Tour looks at the animated backdrops of the piece, while Don’t Lose Your Head is a ‘making of’ documentary, which again sees Ford and Combe return, alongside William Russell (Ian Chesterton). Then there’s the usual Photo Gallery, paired with an Animation Gallery; PDF material from the Radio Times; and Information Subtitles.
Apparently, any serials with only two episodes missing might be given the animation treatment, so we could be looking at The Ice Warriors and The Tenth Planet on the horizon too. This is, of course, wonderful – a chance to open up that era of Doctor Who to any put off by the vast amount lost – but let’s not think the rest are unrecoverable.
They must be somewhere. Surely…?
The Reign of Terror is released on 28th January 2013, with an RRP of £20.42. You might prefer the price at Amazon, however, where you can pick it up for £14.99!
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