DOCTOR WHO RECONSTRUCTIONS – RECLAIMING THE LOST EPISODES

BY STEVE HATCHER

You know, as Doctor Who fans we are really rather lucky. OK, so a huge number of classic episodes made in the 1960s, the first Golden Age of the series, were junked by the BBC. OK, so many of those “missing” episodes (currently 109) have still not been uncovered, despite extensive searches. OK, so the chances of us ever being able to sit down and watch Marco Polo or The Power Of The Daleks or The Daleks’ Master Plan are in all likelihood somewhat remote. Nonetheless we are considerably lucky. What has made these losses a little more bearable has been the series of quite remarkable discoveries that have been made in the last decade, of surviving material from these episodes.

When you come to think about it, the idea that a small number of keen viewers with good quality tape recording equipment would week-by-week record the soundtrack of their favourite show, and that 25 to 30 years later those recordings would emerge is absolutely extraordinary. Without the work of the sound recordists – in particular David Holman, Richard Landen, David Butler and Graham Strong, the reconstruction projects would have been impossible. It was the same Richard Landen who, in the late 1980s first began to explore the idea of putting those soundtracks together with the newly discovered John Cura telesnaps to create a sort of video slide show. However, Landen’s attempt at reconstructing The Power Of The Daleks was only partially successful – in large part due to the limitations of the technology available to him.

The emergence onto the scene of the Australian Bruce Robinson and the British Richard Develyn and Michael Palmer, signals the point at which reconstructions began to reach a high standard and to be distributed widely through the ever spreading internet. Robinson, who created the first of his Change Of Identity (COI) reconstructions, The Savages in 1996 went on to reconstruct five further stories – Marco Polo, The Power Of the Daleks, The Moonbase, The Abominable Snowmen and The Enemy Of the World, combining telesnaps and other on-set photographs with the newly discovered Australian censor clips, the Australian cine clips and material from existing episodes, together with excellent quality audio tracks. To overcome the problem of sometimes indistinct audio tracks, Bruce took an early decision that COI recons would carry on-screen text captions of the full script of each episode, which makes his productions instantly recognisable.

At around the same time that Bruce Robinson was beginning his COI project, two UK fans Richard Develyn (aided by Robert Franks) and Michael Palmer, working independently, also took up the challenge of producing good quality reconstructions. Although by modern standards, Michael’s The Reign Of Terror, Mission To The Unknown and The Invasion and Richard’s The Smugglers, The Power Of the Daleks, The Highlanders and The Abominable Snowmen are perhaps a little basic, suffering in particular from poor picture quality, they represent brave and worthy attempts, which they were later to surpass.

Two productions are of particular note from this period of recon making. Michael Palmer’s ingenious The Tenth Planet episode 4 mainly uses footage taken from the three surviving episodes of the story, chosen with meticulous care to match the soundtrack. So as to be seen not to be in competition with the announced BBC release of this story, episodes 1-3 are presented edited together into a 20-minute compilation. It is extraordinary how little of the narrative is lost in this process. The only part of The Daleks’ Master Plan to have been reconstructed is Harold Achatz’s unique take on episode 1 The Nightmare Begins, in which he succeeds in animating several stills – Daleks, mouths, eyes etc. Some viewers have found this approach a little off-putting and the results bizarre at best, sinister at worst.

In 1997, Develyn, Palmer and Franks armed with new higher quality scans of the telesnaps decided to pool their talents in order to produce the highest quality reconstructions that might be possible. Quite naturally they named their new joint venture “Joint Venture” (JV). JV1 The Web Of Fear was followed by The Evil Of The Daleks, The Faceless Ones, The Wheel In Space, The Underwater Menace, The Ice Warriors, The Moonbase, and Fury From The Deep. From the outset, the JV approach was to be as authentic to the original lost episode as they could. With each successive release improving on the last, the JV recons are renowned for high quality sound and images, including composite pictures, and for a series of impressive extras, ranging from celebrity introductions, to a “reconstruction” of the BBC Radio Exploration Earth programme, to a Jimmy Young interview with Tom Baker. “Fury…” was accompanied by Richard Bignell’s superb “making of…” documentary. In late 1999, the JV Team and Bruce Robinson’s COI announced that they were to merge to form Master Plan Productions. An updated version of Marco Polo was announced as the first MP release and over the next few months a great deal of work went towards completing this. However, these plans came to nothing and “Marco…” now looks unlikely to be finished. In October 2000, the JV / COI website announced the immediate cessation of official distribution of recon tapes, citing the wish to support BBC releases and hinting at a fear of legal action. Two further JV recons have subsequently been released, the excellent The Macra Terror and The Highlanders. The tragically early death of Michael Palmer in June 2002 seems to have brought an end to the Joint Venture project. The surviving members of the team have yet to indicate whether they intend to continue in reconstruction work. Bruce Robinson appears to have retired from all involvement in reconstructions.

Although JV / COI recons continue to be very readily available, the end of their official distribution has left the Loose Cannon Team as the most prominent producers of reconstructions. American Rick Brindell began Loose Cannon (LC) in 1998, reconstructing the only story for which he had telesnaps, The Macra Terror. He was joined later that year by Dean Rose and Derek Handley from the UK and together they have produced a series of increasingly ambitious reconstructions of a very high quality, with Dean and Derek taking a leading role in the more recent LC releases. Macra was followed by The Faceless Ones, The Myth Makers, The Tenth Planet (subsequently withdrawn to avoid problems with the BBC), The Space Pirates, The Savages, The Smugglers, The Celestial Toymaker, The Highlanders, The Power Of the Daleks, Galaxy 4, The Reign Of Terror, Mission To The Unknown, The Crusade, The Enemy Of the World and The Massacre. By the time this article is read, their most ambitious project yet, a full colour recon of Marco Polo will be available. The Loose Cannon team have pioneered a more creative approach to reconstructing, using techniques such as re-shooting model footage and creating a wealth of composite photos. This latter technique is showcased to great effect in the stunning The Massacre – a story from which very little original photographic material survives. Many of the LC recons are prefaced with specially filmed introductions featuring the likes of Peter Purves, Carole Ann Ford, Edward de Souza, Julian Glover and Donald Tosh.

So, we Doctor Who fans are a lucky lot. Not only has so much material miraculously survived from the last 38 years, but also there exists a group of dedicated and talented people who have been prepared to work many hours to produce reconstructions of that which has been lost. If that were not enough, the tapes are distributed free of charge, via a wide network of dub-sites. If you have not yet discovered the wealth of reconstruction tapes available, then why not have a look at the Loose Cannon website www.recons.com from where you can obtain all LC titles, and at the Disused Yeti newsletter at www.telesnaps.com/dy/dy.htm for further information on COI / JV. You should be able to obtain their titles from the LC dubbers as well, or via the excellent LC message board.

My thanks to Dominic Jackson, Robert Franks and Derek Handley for their helpful comments and corrections in writing this article.

This is an updated version of an article, which first appeared in Shockeye’s Snack, Bite 4, February 2002.