#7-b: The Evil of the Daleks Missing Episode Notes.

Six of the seven episodes of The Evil of the Daleks are gone, with only some model footage of the Dalek battle from Episode Seven surviving. 

Fortunately, Episode Two exists in its entirety, presented (along with the model footage) on the Lost in Time dvd set. This episode gives a wonderful glimpse at the serial. It's a good episode in its own right, though the same could be said of any of the story's parts. It also neatly bridges the contemporary setting of the story's start and the Victorian setting that occupies the central portion. It introduces Victoria and Maxtible, and sees the Doctor's wonderful reaction to realizing that the Daleks are at the heart of his TARDIS' theft. If only one episode could survive, this isn't a bad one to choose.

Below is a quick run-down of the ways in which viewers/listeners might choose to enjoy the rest of the story:


1. The BBC Audio: BBC Audio does its job to its usual standard, with the narration by Frazer Hines nicely livening up the extended action scenes during the attempted rescue of Victoria - even more than the Loose Cannon reconstruction does, in my opinion, though I accept that others may differ from me on that.

2. The Loose Cannon Reconstruction: Dalek stories provide Loose Cannon an advantage in reconstructing, as scenes of Daleks interacting are easily recreated with models and/or CGI. Both are employed in this story, and when they are just used for Dalek interactions, these touches greatly enhance the watchability of the recon. Less effective are the scenes in which live action stand-ins are used for the characters. We see the backs of stand-ins' heads or large chunks of action in which a stand-in's face is carefully avoided while hearing the soundtrack - an experiment which I just found distracting, as it really drew attention to the lack of the actual actors. The bulk of the reconstruction is excellent - but I would have preferred the elimination of bits using "doubles" for the cast.


Once again, either option provides a fine way to enjoy the full story - A story so good that it grips in any form, watched or listened.


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#6-b: The Faceless Ones Missing Episode Notes.

              The Chameleons in their true form...

The Faceless Ones is another partially complete story from Season Four. Like The Moonbase and The Underwater Menace, two episodes exist in their entirety.  This provides a strong feel for the story's visual element, showing off the Gatwick Airport locations in the surviving episodes (One and Three).

Serious applause should be given to the Restoration Team, by the way, for their efforts on Episode Three. The existing print of Episode Three is scratchy and jumpy from damage over time. For the DVD release, a combination of clean-up, digital sampling, and zooms to undamaged portions of frames allows the episode to play without a visible skip or jump. Some of the zoomed-in shots jump out, I'll admit - but given the state of the print, the improvement is nothing short of remarkable.

The story was fully animated for release in 2020, coming on the heels of the highly acclaimed animated release of The Macra Terror.  The animation is very much in the same style, respecting the original episodes without feeling utterly bound to attempt to recreate them as they would have looked; a disintegration effect in the final two episodes, for example, is almost certainly more effective than its live action counterpart would have been.  Less effective are a couple of physical scuffles, however, with a fight scene in Episode SIx showing that even though the animations have greatly improved, budget and schedule remain limited.

The DVD release's bonus disc includes the existing episodes and a still reconstruction of the missing ones.  As with the unofficial Loose Cannon reconstruction that preceded it, the story is easy to follow for the most part, with clear still frames showing off the well-designed sets.  However, the static images do not play well during action scenes.  The DVD release has an option to play the reconstruction with the narration Frazer Hines recorded for the audio release, which helps - but given that the animation is a generally good one, the reconstruction is little more than a welcome curio.

The BBC Audio release is up to the usual strong standards of that range, with Hines' narration blended effectively with a clean soundtrack. Track listings make the missing episodes easy to find, which makes it nearly seamless to go from the existing episodes to the audio ones quickly.  Again, though, given the strength of the animation, this is mainly an alternative for those who need something to listen to on a long drive.

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#5-b: The Macra Terror Missing Episode Notes

Jamie comes face to face with The Macra...

After a couple serials that benefited from existing episodes, The Macra Terror returns us to the "fully missing" story. Save for a few censor clips (including the particularly memorable Episode 2 cliffhanger) and some brief 8 mm clips, no substantial footage from this serial exists. 

After the success of the animated release of The Power of the Daleks, The Macra Terror was selected as a follow-up.  It was a good choice.  As my review observes, The Macra Terror is an excellent story that, to all appearances, suffered from lackluster production and a particularly poor monster.  This new format affords the animators to fix those problems - which they do.

The Macra themselves are the biggest beneficiaries here.  Censor clips reveal the original Macra to be ludicrously fake, even by standards of the time, and all but immobile.  The animated Macra look good.  They are creepy and genuinely alien, blending the script cues of being like both insects and germs.  They move, sometimes quite quickly, and to good effect in scenes that see the creatures menacing Polly and Jamie.  All told, this may be the one time a Doctor Who story is actively improved by virtue of being missing!

My readers may recall that I had significant issues with the initial animation of Power of the Daleks.  This is from the same animation team... but by the time they tackled The Macra Terror, they appear to have worked out the bugs (along with actually being given enough time to do the job properly).  While there is still the occasional moment whose realization doesn't quite work - such as the Doctor and Polly straining to close a door that security guards are trying to force open - these moments are few in number.  Movement is smoother, faces are more expressive, and the result is a product that is not merely "better than a still reconstruction," but that is actually engrossing in its own right.

My review mentions a couple of minor trims.  I genuinely regret these, particularly as the scene in which the Doctor is cleaned up, only to immediately rumple himself again, significantly parallels the story as a whole.  Still, the omissions are understandable; they were not plot-critical, and were difficult to animate.  If the price of quality is the loss of a brief aside here and there, it is one I can readily accept.  

It wasn't long ago that the prospect of fully-animated releases of missing stories was dismissed as a commercially unviable pipe dream.  To see that dream achieved as well as has been done here, and with such a good overall story at that, is pure pleasure.


Previous Releases:

For those who do not enjoy animation, the story's soundtrack was previously given a quite good BBC Audio release.  Unlike most stories, narrated by companion actors, this story was narrated by Colin Baker (originally recorded for an audio cassette release in the 1990s).  There are a few uninentional sniggers within the narration, some double-entendres slipping through. Still, the typical clarity of the BBC audio combines with the ability of the listener to summon up an atmospheric setting and a scary monster to make this a viable way to enjoy this story.

The story was also reconstructed by Loose Cannon.  Their original version was also their first-ever reconstruction, and the image quality was quite blurry. It was later redone with better audio and crystal-clear images... Though the very clarity of the images reinforced the weakness of the story's visual elements, making the story less effective than the audio release was.


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#4-b: The Moonbase Missing Episode Notes

The Cybermen receive a slight visual upgrade...

The Moonbase is really only a semi-missing story. Episodes 1 and 3 are lost, but 2 and 4 exist in their entirety. The existing episodes were presented in generally excellent quality on the Lost in Time dvd set, which also includes the soundtracks to the two missing episodes.  The story was later given its own individual DVD release, with the missing episodes presented in animated form.

With so much of the story existing, it's a rare and welcome opportunity to truly enjoy an early Troughton story - a key story in his Doctor's development, at that.  The subtleties of his performance come across much more strongly in existing episodes than even in the best of the animated ones, and I am particularly grateful that his delivery of the famous "They must be fought" speech exists.

The animated episodes do a genuinely fine job of bringing the missing episodes to life,  Episode Three, the serial's best episode, is particularly good - In fact, the animated Episode Three is visually stronger than the existing Episode Four, to such an extent that I found the first few minutes of Episode Four slightly jarring by comparison.

Obviously, the animated episodes are the best way to experience the missing segments of the story.  But for the sake of completeness, I will briefly mention the other options:

1. Lost in Time audio tracks are presented without narration over a single still frame, which... is not ideal. Episode 1 particularly suffers, as the regulars' exploration of the moon would likely be very confusing to try to follow with neither visuals no narration.  Still, those who perservere will find all the exposition they need delivered by Hobson after the first ten minutes, while the more dialogue-driven Episode 3 should present no challenge at all. I would still consider this the least of the main ways to enjoy the missing episodes.

2. The BBC Audio benefits from the restored soundtrack, with the more visual moments effectively brought to life by Frazer Hines' narration. Though the narration doesn't fully convey certain visual moments (notably the glimpses of the Cybermen's shadows in Episode 1), it is easy to follow at all times. This was the first way I experienced the missing episodes, back before the Lost in Time set had been released, and I still find it an enjoyable audio story.

3. The Loose Cannon Reconstruction has been superseded by the animation.  Still, for those with an aversion to seeing the regulars in cartoon form, this is one of the group's stronger efforts. Clever editing and brief bits of basic CGI bring the "space plague" to life in Episode 1, while the choice to take time to edit the Cybermen's mouthplates into opening and closing when they speak makes Episode 3's reconstruction vastly more dynamic than average.  I still prefer the official release, with its full animation, but the recon stands as a fine effort.


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#3-b: The Underwater Menace Missing Episode Notes

Episodes Two and Three of The Underwater Menace survive, making them the earliest Troughton episodes known to exist. I'm sure we'd all rather have two episodes of The Power of the Daleks instead. Even two of the parts of The Highlanders would be preferable.  Still, existing episodes are inherently better than missing ones, and there is something oddly fitting about this serial having both it best (Episode Two) and worst (Episode Three) parts intact.

The recovery of Episode Two in 2011 paved the way for a home video release of this story.  However, unlike other missing stories that are 50% or more complete, the BBC opted not to animate the missing parts of this one - almost certainly a response to its poor reputation.  Instead, the missing episodes are represented via still reconstruction.  It's perfectly acceptable as a way to experience the story - But in an age where the audience has come to expect animations of missing episodes, it feels like what it is: a cheap copout.  The saddest thing about it?  Given the overall tone of the piece, this is a story that would probably work better in animation than in live action.

For those who prefer to experience non-animated missing episodes through audio, there was a release of the full surviving soundtrack, cleaned up with some linking narration by Anneke Wills. As with most early Who serials, the story is very dialogue-driven. Part One even sees Polly telling the audience that she's tied up, then telling us that they are going down in the elevator. The same dialogue in a Big Finish audio would earn complaints about "overly descriptive dialogue."

Whichever method is chosen, however, the weak story and hammy performances are tough to get past. Unless you want something campy to laugh at, I'd tend to label The Underwater Menace as one for completists only.


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#3 (4.19 - 4.22): The Underwater Menace.

A fish person, on strike.

4 episodes. Approx. 97 minutes. Written by: Geoffrey Orme. Directed by: Julia Smith. Produced by: Innes Lloyd.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS lands on a deserted volcanic island. The Doctor and his companions explore, and promptly get themselves kidnapped. They are whisked down a vast elevator, blacking out from the pressure of their rapid descent. When they wake up, they find themselves in the fabled city of Atlantis!

Though they are intended for a sacrifice to the Atlantean gods, the Doctor is able to sneak a peek at the script and determines that the long-lost Professor Zaroff (Joseph Furst) is in the city. He rescues his friends and himself by arranging an audience with Zaroff, who appreciates the chance to speak with a fellow scientist. But it is soon apparent that Zaroff has gone mad. His promise to raise Atlantis from the sea has proved too much for him, and his mind has cracked into an obsessive focus on a more workable Plan B: Drill through the Earth's crust and drain the surrounding water directly into the Earth's molten core... with the minor side effect of destroying the planet in the process!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: More disguises, as the Doctor dresses up as a priest in Episode Two and hides in a crowd by dressing as a beatnik in Episode Three. Still, the wackiness is already toned down, and there are some pretty good 2nd Doctor bits in here. I liked Troughton's delivery of the Doctor's interrogation of Zaroff in Episode Two, gently asking, "Why do you want to blow up the world," in a tone that suggests a very nice teacher having a patient discussion with a recalcitrant child. His explanation to the priest Ramo (Tom Watson) of the destructiveness of Zaroff's plan is another good moment. Troughton's Doctor may still be slightly unformed, but he's getting there.

Ben/Polly/Jamie: The companions are reduced to the level of character sketches. Polly, clever and plucky in earlier stories, spends a ridiculous amount of this story blubbering and crying - the very thing in the previous story that she criticized Kirsty for! Jamie gets a few decent moments, particularly at the end when he expresses his appreciation for the TARDIS as a place of safety. Ben gets to play the primary support for the Doctor, helping him to bluff his way past Zaroff's (typically idiotic) guards.

Professor Zaroff: Joseph Furst, a highly successful television actor with a long string of credits, was an actor well capable of subtlety. Cast here as a one-dimensional lunatic, he makes the only reasonable acting choice available: He goes for it. Furst zips through The Underwater Menace in a whirlwind, chomping scenery with hungry abandon. The surviving episodes let us see him add wild eyes and facial expressions to the high-pitched ranting, all of which combine to make his work the story's one consistently fun element.

Contrary to fan myth, he actually does stay on the right side of the line from self-parody, and his delivery of the infamous, "Nothing in the world can stop me now!" is far more reasonable than its reputation. Among other things, he clearly does NOT say "Nuzzink in ze vorld can shtop me now" - His actual delivery features all the words pronounced correctly, in his normal (and far from thick) accent. Far more risible is his transparent ruse to escape from Polly and Ramo the random priest. "Help me to stand at your side, so I may feel the aura of your goodness," he gasps while feigning a heart attack. Polly, having lost all her previous intelligence, instantly falls for it. It would have been more believable if he had escaped while his two captors fell all over themselves laughing at the line.


THOUGHTS

What is there to say about a story like The Underwater Menace? Certainly, it's cheap and silly. But so what? "Cheap and silly" describes a large percentage of Doctor Who, after all, even extending into the modern series. So what if Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Michael Craze run about a very small soundstage doing bad silent comedy to entice Joseph Furst into fake-chasing them? So what if we see multiple scenes of the characters hiding behind a ledge from a bad recording of repetitive chanting? The villain's motivation begins and ends with "He's crazy," with no real ambition or focus beyond simple insanity. But again, so what? In Doctor Who, any of these are forgivable sins. Even, potentially, all of them.

Unfortunately, The Underwater Menace is guilty of something far worse: It's boring.

Part One would barely cut it as a 3-minute teaser to a modern episode. Part Two, the best episode (and now, thankfully, one of the two surviving ones) has good scenes with the Doctor indulging Zaroff's insanity, then proving himself to Ramo. But even this episode also features multiple scenes of Ben and Jamie wandering around generic mines with a pair of one note guest characters, padding out the running time without doing anything amusing or interesting.

Part Three, which prior to 2011 was the sole existing episode, is also the serial's worst. The entire 25 minutes sees Thous, the ruler of Atlantis, turn the Doctor and Ramo over to Zaroff. They escape, then capture Zaroff. Then Zaroff escapes, returns to Thous, and shoots him. It would be the work of about ten minutes (if that) to rewrite the serial to eliminate this episode entirely.  Part Four at least has a bit of action to it and an enjoyable (if silly) Doctor/Zaroff confrontation... But it remains a bit leaden.

Thank God for Patrick Troughton, who keeps the Doctor's intelligence keen and clear, even when the script demands he behave like a fool. He often underplays his scenes, keeping the Doctor calm, quiet, and observant even in the midst of this silliness. I can't really say that he and Joseph Furst play well opposite each other; their scene together at the start of Episode Three sees both actors missing cues and leaving dead space in between lines. But he's terrific overall, and his performance goes a long way toward keeping this mess halfway watchable.

It's still bad, though. Almost certainly Troughton's worst story, and a strong contender for the worst serial of Doctor Who's entire black-and-white era.


Rating: 2/10.

The Underwater Menace Missing Episode Notes

Previous Story: The Highlanders
Next Story: The Moonbase


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#2-b: The Highlanders Missing Episode Notes

The Highlanders is a truly missing story. A couple of censor clips from Episode One, totalling less than a minute's total screentime, are all that survive, leaving this story only a little better off than Marco Polo in terms of existing footage. Barring a miracle find, The Highlanders is... gone.

Which leaves two main ways to enjoy this story:

1. The BBC Audio: The surviving soundtrack, cleaned up with some linking narration by Frazer Hines.  As it's not a particularly visual story, bar the climactic fight scene at the end, this is a good way to experience the serial. Sound quality is clear and easy to understand, and the story itself is very dialogue-driven.

2. The Loose Cannon Reconstruction: If the original Loose Cannon recon was the only one, I'd recommend the audio over the recon with no hesitation. Fortunately, Loose Cannon upgraded their reconstruction just a year or so before their current hiatus. With much clearer telesnaps and audio, the upgraded reconstruction is quite easy to view and enjoy. The fight scene remains a bit static, impossible to adequately cover in either recon form or audio. The original recon tried - imaginatively, but somewhat jarringly - to cover by using a clip from Mutiny on the Bounty. The newer one tries to cut between telesnaps and composite photos, which is less jarring but also less dynamic.

Given the dialogue-driven nature of the story, there's no clear winner for me between audio and recon. The official CD has clearer audio; the recon has the advantage of the visuals, albeit in stills, as well as a brief prologue detailing the historical Battle of Culloden, thus placing the story in a bit of context. Individual preference of narrated audio versus telesnap reconstruction is probably the best guide for which to choose in this case.


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#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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