At this week’s British Film Institute showing of Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace, news broke that there are more animations on the way
The premiere of the latest Doctor Who animation, The Underwater Menace took place last week. During the following Q&A the team were able to confirm that there are more animations of lost 1960s stories on the way. The assembled fans were told “there is more coming.” But hopes of plans to complete the entire missing back catalogue were tempered. “We do them one at a time,” it was explained, each new production being commissioned based on the sales of the previous one. The good news is that pre-orders of Underwater Menace appear to have been strong enough to justify the next commission. But with 12 remaining stories with one or more missing episodes not yet replaced by animation, there’s obviously some way to go yet.
BBC Studios aren’t ready to unveil the title of the next story, though, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer for that. Blogtor Who does understand, however, that the plan will again be to animate a complete story, even if some episodes are still surviving. That’s been the pattern for several releases now and seems set to continue.
First comes next month’s release of Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace
Since its original announcement, there’s also been an update on The Underwater Menace. Its final release date is the 13th of November, and the cover art for the DVD, Blu-ray and Steelbook editions are out now too.
As previously reported, the four part story which sees the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie battle the obsessed Professor Zaroff for the fate of Atlantis, features:
Disc One
- The Underwater Menace – Colour Animation of all four episodes
- The Underwater Menace – Black and White Animation of all four episodes
Disc Two
- The Underwater Menace – with surviving Episodes 2 and 3, and reconstructed 1 and 4
- A Fishy Tale – Making of Documentary
- Australian Censor Clips
- The Man from Miditz
- Frazer Hines Introduction for Episode 2 from the original VHS release
- BBC News Report (South Today)
- BBC Radio Solent Piece (audio only)
- Photo Gallery
- Animation Gallery
- PDF material including camera script
Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace
The Doctor and his friends find themselves in the lost city of Atlantis, where the crazed Professor Zaroff has convinced the people of Atlantis that he can raise their sunken city from beneath the sea. However, the Doctor discovers a terrible secret behind Zaroff’s plan – a secret that could destroy all life on Earth. As the countdown commences to the end of the world, can the Doctor defeat the underwater menace?
