Dr. Who

By: Anton Massopust III

Doctor Who is one of the longest running science fiction series ever. The Doctor has had many actors who have played him/her, including one woman (Jodie Whittaker). While the BBC continues to broadcast The Doctor’s adventures with Jodie Whittaker (the latest Doctor), the Doctor continues his/her adventures on DVD and on audio CD’s and the missing episodes on DVD.

You might ask why there are missing episodes of several William Hartnell’s (the First Doctor) and Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor) are still missing. It’s because the BBC threw out (in the garbage) many of the original copies. The BBC never checked other parts of the world to see if anyone had an extra copy. This is the way the Doctor Who classic episodes are being saved.

We are looking at two of Patrick Troughton’s Adventures, first: The Macro Terror. The Doctor and his companions: Jamie (Frazer Hines), Ben (Michael Craze), and Polly (Anneke Wills) journey to an earth colony far into the future. The colony is not what it seems and who is really running it. Humans are distracted by fun and games, but they are being deceived by giant crab creatures who enslave people by using mind control to make them docile in order to mine the gas they need for survival. It’s up to The Doctor and his friends stop this.

The Faceless Ones is written by Malcolm Hulke, one of Doctor Who’s best writers. The Doctor arrives in the 60s (the time period when Polly and Ben came from). In an airport, there is a group of mysterious aliens whose planet has been damaged. These aliens are replacing humans by these aliens in order to take over earth. Because of The Chameleon Tours (the name of their group). What does the Doctor try to do? His friends try to inform the authorities. When Polly mysteriously disappears, The Doctor eventually convinces the Commandant (Colin Gordon) the head of security in the airport that indeed there’s aliens working out of Chameleon Tours.

Alien intrigue going on here. There is an alien spaceship in orbit around the earth that is taking airplanes and miniaturizing humans and putting them into storage. It is up to The Doctor to impersonate one of them, make his way to the ship, rescue his companions and everyone his abducted and stop the aliens from taking over the earth.

The Faceless Ones only has as bits of the original episodes (video portion), but because of fans who wanted to re-experience Doctor Who back when there was no such thing as a DVD, many fans would audiotape them. That is why we have the original soundtrack to many of many of the lost episodes over the years. These fans gave the tapes to the BBC which would stay stored away many years. Eventually, the BBC used these tapes for animated story. Both The Macro Terror and The Faceless Ones are now fully animated with the original audio.

The Macro Terror has two versions: both black and white and color and there is plenty of extras.

There are a couple more episodes on the way to being restored by animation including Fury from the Deep (Patrick Troughton Episode).Doctor Who adventures continue in a giant story called: Time Lord: Victorious which include multiple Doctors throughout the years. It is available on Big Finish Audio and comic books from Titan Comics and Doctor Who Magazine.

There will be a new special out for this holiday season called Revolution of the Daleks (starring Jodie Whittaker). Enjoy.