#1-b: The Power of the Daleks Missing Episode Notes

The Doctor vows to stop the Daleks.

As the first Troughton serial, and as a very fine story in its own right, it can't help but be disappointing that The Power of the Daleks is among Doctor Who's missing stories. Still, if there absolutely must be a certain number of missing stories, then there are some positives to this being one of them.

The main factor in this story's success is the well-paced and well-structured script. The effectiveness of the writing is not particularly blunted by its missing status, and it remains enthralling in all available forms: as a still reconstruction, as a narrated audio, or - more recently - as a (somewhat limited) animation.

When I initially wrote this review, the BBC were only tentatively creating animated versions of stories with small numbers of missing episodes.  I have reviewed a few of these, most recently William Hartnell's final story, and have found that while the animations are for the most part severely limited by low budgets, they nevertheless bring missing stories to life more thoroughly than even the best still reconstructions can manage.

In 2016, BBC Worldwide finally took the plunge and commissioned a full animation of all six episodes.  The result is highly enjoyable, and - as was true of past animations - does a far better job of bringing the story to life than still reconstructions or audio releases have done.  Still, it must be acknowledged that it's not as good as it could be.  Some movements are blocky, and some bits appear to be animated with a priority to filling the seconds cheaply rather than convincingly or dramatically.

A notable example is an early conversation the Doctor has with Hensell and Bragen.  Audio and reconstruction releases have indicated that the Doctor runs through some amusing bits of business during this encounter.  The animation... Has the Doctor stand an inch away from Bragen, staring at him uncomfortably.  It conveys the general idea that the Doctor's behavior is odd, while still being targeted toward a goal - But the result just doesn't get the most out of the moment, even within the limits of this animation style.

A special edition has been announced for later this year. As much as I generally dislike double-dipping, I can't fault the decision to give this a touch-up. By reputation (and I will see for myself soon enough), the recreations of The Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones saw the animation team hitting their stride, striking a better balance between recreating the lost episode while at the same time creating a viable product for modern audiences. With the benefit of lessons learned, I suspect the re-release will be far less blocky, and will have fewer inexplicable moments (see also: the bit in Episode Six in which a random guy calmly wanders down the hall during a Dalek massacre, only to - surprise! - get massacred.  They might as well have put up a title card reading, "We aren't quite sure how to fill this bit").

I should stress that even in its current form, the animation does a fine job of making this story not only accessible, but enjoyable, to a far wider audience than would ever consume a still reconstruction or narrated audio.  Regardless of improvements made in the upcoming edition, the animation team deserve nothing but praise for their efforts - nor should it be forgotten that without the genuine success of this release, the now ongoing process of animating missing stories would never have gathered steam in the first place.


THE RECONSTRUCTION AND THE AUDIO

Though the animated release to an extent renders previous reconstructions moot, I will biefly mention the Loose Cannon reconstruction and the narrated audio.  The Loose Cannon recon of was one of their early efforts, which means that it's fairly basic: telesnaps, existing footage (whose placement is in some cases guessed at and, in at least one brief instance, appears to have been wrongly guessed), and explanatory text scrolls in which grammar was clearly not a priority.  Still, as mentioned, this is an "audio-friendly" story, so the lack of visual flourishes do not particularly interfere with enjoyment... Although a distracting "stop-and-start" audio track does annoy somewhat.


The official BBC audio is more enjoyable than the reconstruction, featuring a clearer (and uninterrupted) soundtrack and well-used narration by Anneke Wills.  As noted in my review, this is not a story that is propelled by its visuals, but rather by its dialogue and story structure.  As such, it works rather well as a radio play.



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