Animation Domination: The Moonbase Animated Episodes Review

Although The Moonbase is 47 years old, I appreciate not everyone has seen it and is waiting for the DVD to come out.  Please note that this article reveals some plot points and spoilers that may ruin the enjoyment of the episode/story. If you do not want to be spoiled please do not read further or read at your own risk.

I have been watching an evolution of an animation studio over the last year. It seems like it should be longer but it has just been about a year since The Reign of Terror had been released. When The Reign of Terror was released by Thetamation, which then became Planet 55, I thought the animation overall was inconsistent. There were a lot of good things going on with it but so many of the production decisions made left me baffled, I was quite disappointed by the effort. As we begin 2014 with the buzz of missing episodes possibly being found hanging over everything, I watched something really remarkable.

The Moonbase is the second time we have seen the Cybermen in the series and the first occurrence where they meet Patrick Troughton’s incarnation of the Doctor. Troughton would meet the Cybermen a total of 4 times during his era. I have always thought this story was cool but now I feel that I see this story differently. Perhaps now, this sort of reaction is becoming a bit clichéd. I mean, it is becoming clear that episodes make a lot more sense when we are able to see a fluid visual presentation. Take The Enemy of the World for example. Many of us thought it was an oddball story in a season of monsters. Now that this gem had been found in its entirety, a lot of us feel quite differently about it. For me, it has become an instant favorite. It’s the same with The Web of Fear. I always knew it was a classic but there is so much more to be taken from the story once you are able to see the visuals the way they were meant to be seen.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Moonbase takes place on the moon. The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie land on the moon trying to get to Mars. After romping around on the surface of the moon, Jamie makes one large jump for man a little too far and ends up knocking himself out. He lands near the entrance of the Moonbase and is taken inside. The Doctor and his other companions go to the Moonbase to collect the fallen Jamie.

Once inside they realize they are at a weather control station set on the moon which I think is a pretty cool concept. Jamie is in the sick bay but we find out that there is something really odd going on at the base. There are strange drops in the air pressure that is unexplained, there is evidence to suggest that communication with the Moonbase personnel and the Earth are being monitored, and finally there is a strange virus that is taking crew members down. Dr. Evans is one of the first to go. The base no longer has a doctor until the Doctor arrives. It is clear from the start that the Doctor is convinced that this virus has more to it.

Soon, whatever attack is happening has been escalated. It is now turned into crew members disappearing. This includes people who have been taken ill or even have died. Jamie, who is still delirious from his fall, is terrified of the Phantom Piper to take him away. It’s worse than the Phantom Piper. It’s a Cyberman.

Obviously, the story here is that the two missing episodes of The Moonbase have been animated by Planet 55. They animated the two missing episodes to The Reign of Terror and Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet. There is a progression of skill that is very obvious from these three animations. I feel The Moonbase is really a triumph of quality that is almost perfect. My biggest gripe of the animations have been a lack of cohesiveness through the episode. It’s still a slight issue here but greatly reduced. The main problem that I see is when there is any sort of moving character action that is created by rotoscoping from real footage, the detail of character is severely lacking. The good news is that these two episodes don’t have a ton of action to them so this isn’t as big of a problem as it could have been. The detail is in the character designs and backgrounds otherwise are excellent.

Another area that frustrated me with Planet 55’s animation in the past has been how inconsistent Hartnell looked from shot to shot. It was a pretty annoying to me. I am pleased to say this is absolutely not a problem with Troughton. I think Troughton is realized better here than he has been in any of the other animated episodes he appears in from the DVD range. He looks like Patrick Troughton which is always a plus. He looks great. That was one thing that really was obvious from the start of the episode. The others Ben, Polly and Jamie look good too. I think Ben is the poorest of the three but that really is a poor choice of words on my part. They are all pretty close with Polly looking really spot on. The characters in the story such as Hobson, Benoit, Nils and the others are pretty good too. Once in a while there are shots where Hobson that may look a little off but generally they look really good.

The animated Cybermen are absolutely excellent in this. That is what truly sticks out for me. This is one of my favourite designs for the Cybermen and they are refined enough in this animation that make them stand out. Don’t get me wrong, when I say refined, I don’t mean anyone changed anything from how they look from the episodes, the designs are just cleaned up a bit. They look solid. I guess what I like is how they have almost a chrome finish to them in the animation. They are metallic and menacing. In The Tenth Planet, it was harder to get them to look as good in animation because of the cloth faces, etc but with them being solid, the design is a triumph. Easily a highlight of these episodes for me.

The other highlight for me is realizing that this story is more than the “base under siege” story that we have been told this was for years. There is actually a horror element attached to this story that I didn’t either pick up on or respect before now. There are some tense and creepy moments. We are treated to fleeting shadows of Cybermen when we least expect it. Scenes in the other areas of the base where the food supply is located is suitably creepy. The animation sets the tone for this well. There are other scenes in Episode 1 that has almost an atmosphere of terror. Moments set in the sick bay where Polly’s nerves are frazzled by seeing shadows or when the lights darken to simulate “night”. The soundtrack also adds to this as the sound is just of the moonbase background sounds which somehow add to the tension.

While watching the episodes, I was mistaken about a couple of things. I thought Planet 55 took liberties with the animation that didn’t appear on screen in the real episode but found out I was wrong. In Episode 3 when Ben, Polly, and Jamie use the “Pollycocktail” on the Cybermen, they start spewing foam from their chest units. I thought this was wrong but I double checked the telesnaps. It’s how it happens in the episodes. There is a shot of battered Cybermen in the Weather Control room which is accurate too. It’s funny how these telesnaps have been around for a long time and I have never noticed this. Now, in the animated Episode 3 foam comes out of the Cybermen mouths after getting the “Pollycocktail” too but I am not convinced that is accurate. Maybe one day we will know for sure.

Finally, the sets and the backgrounds are superb. They have been superb for all of the productions. I think the characters and the backgrounds combine well together. Planet 55’s animation makes a lot of these 60s props and costumes look cool. For example, the scene with the Doctor and companions on the moon in their space suits are great where they look kind of hokey in the actual episodes. The space suits are very cool in a 60s retro kind of way.

I think this is the best animated presentation of missing episodes so far but what is the future of such animation? A couple of interesting things are going on right now. On the DVD for The Moonbase, there was the Coming Soon trailer for The Underwater Menace which was supposed to include more animation from Planet 55, this is said to be cancelled now. There is also the large omni-rumour regarding missing episodes that have been around for a while. Pretty much every episode has been named as being found in one of the various scenarios of this rumour. Has the animation for The Underwater Menace been cancelled because episodes have been found or are they just putting it on hold waiting to see what Philip Morris has recovered in his large find of film prints? This animation for The Moonbase has been in the works before the rumours of missing episodes started to take traction. Is it possible that one day we will be able to watch the recovered episodes of The Moonbase and compare it to the animation to see how close it looks to the real thing? Speaking of comparisons, here are comparisons between the animation and telesnaps.

Here are some other screen grabs from the episodes:

Speaking of animation, in a couple of weeks I will be publishing an article that details my involvement with Ian Levine’s Shada and some other cool animation projects.

Next week: I have pushed back my article for Only Fools and Horses so I could publish this one as soon as I could. Next week I look at the Only Fools and Horses episode Modern Men.

Have a great week!
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com

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50WHO: A Story of Firsts and Lasts

This is the ninth part of a series of articles celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Doctor Who. Over the years there are certain stories that mean a lot to me either from personal memories or involvement I had in fandom through the years. These articles are not meant to be close examinations of the plot or production but more about what these stories mean to me on a personal level. Enjoy.

When I tell people one of my favourite stories is The Tenth Planet, I often get the response, “Really?” Yes, really. It might be odd that I am doing my September 50WHO article in October but it might be even odder that I am choosing the final story of the original Doctor William Hartnell for my article celebrating his era. Unlike final Doctor stories like The Caves of Androzani or The End of Time, The Tenth Planet does little to celebrate the original Doctor for his final adventure. He is not really heroic in it or is he even present for most of it. In fact, behind the scenes, most of the cast couldn’t wait for him to leave. I admit out of all the stories of his era that ushers in “firsts”, this may be an odd one.

This is the third of 4 times I have written about this story this year. Yep, this year alone. I wrote an article about it in You and Who arguing why you should love it. I wrote a review just on the animation for Episode 4 when it came out with the Regenerations set. Obviously I am writing this mind-blowing expose and finally I will be writing the R1 review when the story comes out in November. Not bad for a story that doesn’t have the legion of fans like it should.

When I had the opportunity to write the article for You and Who, I came pretty late to the party. It’s not like anyone asked the writer for the amazing blog From the Archive to grace them with his gift of storytelling to write for their humble publication. The reality of it was I stumbled across the web site and saw they were still looking for submission in December of 2012 while all submissions were due at the end of January 2013. There must have been some mistake. Just a few stories were available to write about and one of them was The Tenth Planet. Perhaps everyone assumed it was taken. So, I sent an e-mail to JR Southall who was editing this wonderful piece that had proceeds going to Children in Need. I carefully crafted an e-mail outlining my resume, if you will, of what I have done for my blog. I even included a few links for him to sample; delicious morsels of my skill. I got a response back that basically said “sure”. So, I set off to work.

While setting out to write the article, I thought about what made The Tenth Planet great for me. I looked back at my childhood. When I started to really get into the series, themes would develop. There were things that I loved and every time they would appear I was fascinated by them. One of those themes were the Cybermen. I loved them in The Five Doctors. I love the design and I love how they spoke. I loved the story behind them. As I started to get into the books and seeing older pictures, I realized I loved the design.

The Cybermen is one of the few monsters that have radically changed over the years but because they kept certain simple design aspects, once you see a Cyberman you know it’s a Cybermen. I was fascinated by their design. I was fascinated by their history. They always changed but were recognizable. Yet one design always stuck out. Guess which one I am going to talk about?

The Tenth Planet Cybermen is like nothing we have ever seen in a design before. It is almost ridiculous to see how bold it is. The original concept that Kit Pedler came up with was too complex, even for a feature film. Sandra Reid came up with something that was iconic.

When I started to get into the series more as a young kid, I started to get books and DWM which often referenced pictures from past stories. One I saw the original Cybermen with their cloth faces and blank dark holes for eyes; I was transfixed by those images. They almost looked like ghosts. I couldn’t wait to see these stories. As I mentioned other places, when KTCA started to show the Hartnell package of episodes, reality struck. So many stories were skipped over because parts of these stories were missing. It was hugely disappointing because these were the stories I wanted to see. So all I had (and everyone else) were these wonderfully mysterious images of these unique and creepy Cybermen.

It wasn’t until I went to Time Festival in 1988 at the St. Paul Radisson that I was finally able to see what I have always wanted…..well, almost! I remember it vividly, it was Sunday morning and not much was going on in the hotel and I wandered down to the video room. I hadn’t spent too much time in there because I was so amped up at being at my first 3-day convention. I peeked my head into the video room and something wonderful occurred.

On the large screen in the room was a black and white image of Polly talking with Ben in a room with what appeared to be an unconscious Doctor. It appeared they were under siege and when they spoke with Barclay an alarm started to sound. Barclay exclaims, “Cybermen!”. My heart skipped a beat as I knew this was The Tenth Planet. The story I have wanted to see for the longest time. One of the next shots was of these gorgeous Cybermen being attacked by their own weapons. I was watching The Tenth Planet but I was late! It was near the end of Episode 3. I wanted to see more and once we got to Episode 4, it was a reconstruction with images from the first 3 episodes but the audio was a couple of Australians doing the voices. Remember, this was before the telesnaps for this episode had been found.

Have I ever written about tape trading? Only about 50 times? OK. So not too much. After seeing Episode 3 at Time Festival, I knew that these episodes were available; they were out there…somewhere. That was exciting and that became a priority for me to find people who had these episodes. I wanted to see them….badly.

I didn’t have too long to wait as I got involved with the local Doctor Who fanclub the Whoniversity and became part of the group who put on the parties. At the first party, some kind soul, lent me his tapes of the orphan episodes. Back then, we called them archive episodes. They were camera copies. They flickered. This is where I got a crash course in what the difference between PAL and NTSC were. Up to that point, I thought a TV was a TV. Why would anything be different?

I wanted more than just camera copies. I wanted something better. As I go into ad nauseum here and here. I set out to get a respectable collection together of the material that wasn’t commercially available. I would always judge how good the quality of the person I was trading with by the quality of their copy of The Tenth Planet.

Over the years, my collection of copies of The Tenth Planet grew. Some better and some worse. I got a copy from historian Eric Hoffman who got his copy directly from Gerry Davis. It was quite nice looking. I remember a friend stopped over and I showed it to him. He exclaimed, “Wow! That’s broadcast quality!” No, it isn’t. It is impossible to have broadcast quality 2 generations down on VHS tape. I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

Of course my friend Robert had the best copy. He has always been kind enough to share cool things with me. I never asked; I would just get wonderful little parcels of awesome delivered to my house every once in a while. Sometimes he would tell me what he was sending, others he would tell me it was a surprise and sometimes they would just show up. One day, after getting 2 teeth extracted, I went home in pain. When I got there, a package was sitting on the table for me from OH. My mood improved immediately. I opened the package and inside was a SVHS tape of The Tenth Planet. Getting something from Robert in SVHS meant that I had no PAL equipment yet. I can’t conceive of such a time. It’s like still being in the dark ages before the dawning of the Renaissance period or B.C. vs A.D. Anyway, it was perfect timing.

I laid down and put the tape on. The quality was simply the best I had ever seen it. The quality was so clear, it was the first time I saw the sticky tape wrapped around the top of the Cybermen’s helmets to keep it together. I could see the actor’s eyes looking out underneath their cloth covered faces. I ended up watching it 3 times that night. It was incredible!

I think the question still is, why do I like this story so much? I think it is atmospheric. Even the bit where Ben is crawling through those oversized tunnels is really cool. The set for Snowcap is believable. It highlights that sometimes technology doesn’t change that much over time. If you ever look at the sidebar of this blog or see me on any forums, you will always see a Tenth Planet Cybermen. I am absolutely mystified by this photo. As you see below, I have included the photo but next to it in another photo taken in succession to it. This is on The Tenth Planet DVD’s Photo Gallery and I have never seen it before.

I always thought the smoke was part of the atmosphere to the story. We see the Cybermen looking at an almost profile angle but the other picture shows the smoke was actually from that Cyberman’s chest unit exploding. Very interesting. It must be from filming for Episode 4. It’s nice to learn new things about a favourite story. Also, is it an alternative angle of the same action happening in this pic:

I think the story would have been thought of more highly if we had Hartnell for Episode 3. It is very obvious how lines had been moved around even to the point where Ben mentions something the Doctor had told him in a conversation we never saw. That’s because that line was meant to be in that episode said by the Doctor. They did the best they could with a major change in the production of the story with very little time to get it done. Of course Episode 4 being missing doesn’t help matters.

Arguably Episode 4 is one of the most sought after episode of missing Doctor Who. Now, there are many who may not agree with this and that is fine. I think Episode 4 is the best of the 4 episodes  of the story because we get the real intent of the Cybermen. They always had bad intentions but suddenly it becomes obvious how tricky they are in trying to achieve their mission. It is a great piece for the final act of this story. We get a lot of Cybermen and they are creepy in this episode. Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to see this someday?   I feel like anything is possible now. Like I mentioned in my article about the animated Tenth Planet 4, having the episode animated really puts a lot of pieces together. I never thought I would say that about animation but I feel like the story is whole.

Of course the one thing I haven’t really mentioned is that this is the final William Hartnell story. The man who created this wonderful character was stepping down. Alright but not by choice. For whatever reason, he had been difficult to work with and he needed to go. Health issues are often cited as the main reason. Producer John Wiles was looking to replace him as far back as early in the third recording block and a real plan was in place to replace him at the end of The Celestial Toymaker. When the Doctor became visible again he would do so as a different actor playing him. Thankfully that didn’t happen that way because that’s not good enough.

Are we missing the biggest part of the 50^th anniversary celebration? We can celebrate the beginning of the series or the first Dalek story but we can pinpoint the longevity of the series on a concept called regeneration. If Hartnell was replaced at the end of The Celestial Toymaker, it presumably would be the same character but played by someone else. It possibly could have just been a clone. Regeneration is a reason and story builder. Now there is a conceivable reason why we have a new actor playing this role. It also gives a wonderful reason why this is not a re-hash of the same character but a new one. It is the single most important element to the series and without it, we would not be celebrating it now.

It is exciting to see the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time being made that focuses on the time of William Hartnell while he played the Doctor. David Bradley looks quite good in the role and it will be nice to see all the recreations of many of those stories and get an idea of what it was like while making the series. I can only imagine what William Hartnell would think to see the show he was so instrumental in celebrating its 50^th anniversary with new episodes currently being made. I won’t try to guess what he thinks about the quality of it, but the fact it is still being made today.

“I think that if I live to be 90, a little of the magic of Doctor Who will still cling to me.”

-William Hartnell

Next 50WHO article: The Tenth Doctor brings us the tenth article. I had a hard time picking one but finally I decided that there is one story that I could write about. The Waters of Mars and the controversial Time Lord Victorious.

Have a great week.
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com

I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive

Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.

Animation Domination: The Tenth Planet Animated Episode 4 Review!

Although The Tenth Planet is 47 years old, I appreciate not everyone has seen it and is waiting for the DVD to come out.  Please note that this article reveals some plot points and spoilers that may ruin the enjoyment of the episode/story. If you do not want to be spoiled please do not read further or read at your own risk.

It is a well-established fact that The Tenth Planet is one of my favourite stories of Doctor Who. I am a massive fan of the Cybermen and I am a massive fan of the Innes Lloyd/Gerry Davis era of Doctor Who. When I get around to writing a 50WHO article on the first Doctor, I will focus that article on The Tenth Planet and why I love it. This article is to look at something different; something I never expected to see in my lifetime, an animated Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet.

Purchasing this title from the link above directly helps my site!

The full bells & whistle release of The Tenth Planet will be released as a 2-Disc DVD set in November. Not only will we get all four episodes but a host of other extras. It is a release I am really excited to get in my hands. On June 24^th, the BBC in the UK will release a 6 DVD boxset simply titled Doctor Who: Regeneration. This boxset has the final story of each Doctor. To be more accurate, it will focus on the story the Doctor regenerates in. This is unfortunate for the likes of Colin Baker who shows up at the very end of The Caves of Androzani and is played by Sylvester McCoy at the very beginning of Time and the Rani. In fact, Sylvester McCoy basically regenerates into himself. What I am going to focus on are the four (out of nine) episodes of Disc 1. To be more accurate, I am just focusing on one of the episodes.

As fans of Doctor Who on DVD, we have simply been blessed and this year in particular has been pretty sweet. We have seen a steady release of stories re-released as Special Editions. The picture on these have been vastly improved which is very important to me. Inferno is a great example of this. One of the most amazing releases I could ever hope for was a full colour version of The Mind of Evil. I dreamed of such things as a child but that truly was fantasy and now it is a reality. I have probably watched it about 10 times since it was released. Why? Maybe I am afraid I will wake up and it was all just a dream after all. Something else we got was a dream for many fans….missing episode animations.

In 2006, we got the release of The Invasion with the animation work for Episodes 1 & 4 going to Cosgrove Hall. It was really good and was a lot of fun to watch these episodes “move”. I think my favourite part of these animations were the backgrounds. They looked great. Often they were photos from the actual sets and given a treatment so they could blend better with the animated characters. After The Invasion, animated versions of missing episodes seemed to have died. Slowly word started to spread that more episodes would come on the horizon and I think the choice that was made to restart this was perhaps a little surprising.

In January of 2013 the BBC released The Reign of Terror with The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity animated by Thetamation which is now Planet 55. I was not a huge fan of the animation for various reasons. To see my reaction, please check out my review. To sum it up, the pacing and energy of the story did not match the episodes around it. I thought that was a problem. There were too many extreme close-ups that are anachronistic to how the episodes were originally made. I felt that the character designs were inconsistent and varied greatly from shot to shot. To find out that Planet 55 was going to animate the final episode of my favourite story worried me.

The Tenth Planet on the Regeneration set has been fully restored. I had thought about jumping straight to the animated episode but the clarity of the other 3 episodes caught my eye. The films always looked in rough shape but here a lot of work had gone into it. Remember, for Episodes 1 & 2 16mm negatives exist and for Episode 3 only a 16mm positive print exists which, according to Wiped!, a 16mm duplicate film negative was made from this print. The funny thing is I could tell that Episode 3 was lesser quality than the previous 2 episodes. That being said, it all looks good. I could see it before, but the VIDfire on the episodes really shows up the eyes in the Cybermen costumes. It is a fantastic feature of this earliest version of the Cybermen. I love all Cybermen but what they are here is really true to their concept. They really are corpses being kept alive through artificial means and their planet Mondas.

I will go into more detail of the first 3 episodes at a later date but the real question is, how did Planet 55 do on animating Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet? I think there is a significant improvement over the two episodes of The Reign of Terror. Is it perfect? No but it’s good enough to actually complete the story for me.

As I mentioned above, there are 9 episodes on Disc 1. Yes, 9 Episodes. That is a lot of content. Episodes 1-3 look great but Episode 4 starts off with a very compressed opening credits. There are a lot of artifact gradients in it. I was wondering if it was going to affect the rest of the episode but it didn’t. To me, it looks like Episode 4 was given the lowest bit-rate on the disc because it is animation.

Unlike the two episodes of The Reign of Terror, I feel that this animation is more sympathetic to the flow of the rest of the story. I love the direction of Derek Martinus. All you need to do is see some of the crane shots he employs in Galaxy Four: Airlock and it is easy to see how imaginative of a director he was for the series. The animation employs shots like those too. There are shots looking down on the Cybermen and other characters of the Snowcap control room. Perhaps it was a little high up of a shot for a 1960s television production but I don’t care because it looks great. It’s a shot that Derek Martinus would try and achieve. It never feels out of place for me.

I have read one comment from someone who says that Planet 55 doesn’t know how to direct an episode because character’s faces get cut-off on screen. I disagree. There are some great half face shots of the Cybermen that are chilling and look really atmospheric. No, shots like that were not originally done on The Tenth Planet with the Cybermen but it still does not look out of place here. There is a shot of Hartnell where he takes up the whole screen but we know that is exactly how it looked from the actual episode as we see it in the 8mm clips. Even in The Tomb of the Cybermen, the cliffhanger for Episode 2 is an extreme close-up of the Cybercontroller. It takes up most of the screen and it looks great so there is precedent for that. This is a very stark turnaround from The Reign of Terror as the close-ups in those episodes were just bizarre. I can also report there are no crotch shots in Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet unlike The Reign of Terror.

The animation helps explains the story for me better than ever before when I watched it. It just goes to show how visual of a person I am. I watched this with my friend Robert who was part of a team who did brilliant reconstructions and even he felt some plot points were made clearer from this animated version. I thought the scene at the beginning of the episode with Cutler threatening to kill the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Barclay was very tense. While he is threatening to kill them, his technicians are warning him that the Cybermen have returned in their spaceship and are approaching the base. Cutler ignores them and up until they return, the action continues to escalate resulting in Cutler’s death. I really thought that was well-done. I love the scene with Geneva calling Snowcap with the Doctor answering. The episode is bleak and tense yet we have this wonderful scene proving to us all, once again, that William Hartnell could do brilliant comedy one last time for the series. Finally, when the Cybermen make one final push to get Ben, Barclay and Dyson out of the chamber where they are working on the Z bomb, the Cybermen are going to gas them. I have seen the reconstruction many times plus listened to the audio but it never hit me that they were going to gas them. It is great and the scene before with the Cybermen in the control room planning their strategy, one has a gas container attached to its back. It’s really brilliant stuff.

This is a very straight forward presentation of the episode which is what I wanted to see. Maybe a little too straight forward since every off-hand sound has a visual such as a wrench being nudged. That’s hardly a big deal at all. It’s really nice to see movement to scenes I have always wanted to experience. This includes when the Doctor leaves the Cybership to go back to the TARDIS. Before he leaves, he softly tells his two companions to “keep warm”. There is no music or sounds to accompany this scene. It is just a sweet moment and I feel like William Hartnell is telling all of us that. It’s his final goodbye to us the viewer. There are a lot of visual questions answered or at least addressed in this episode that I will let you see for yourself such as how they deal with the destruction of Mondas.

Here are some comparison shots between the telesnaps and how Planet 55 realised those shots:

The improvement between The Reign of Terror and The Tenth Planet is immense. After I saw the animation for The Reign of Terror, I didn’t want these guys to touch Doctor Who again. Now, with the Tenth Planet Episode 4, the character designs are great. The way they handled the clothed-faced Cybermen is perfect and I am not disappointed at all. I am a fan and I look forward to what they have for us next! To paraphrase a wonderful character in this episode, in terms of Planet 55 animating more Doctor Who, I really hope it is “far from being all over!” OK, that was cheesy.
Here are some more cool pics from the episode:

Next week: Did you like this article? If so, please let more people know about it and this site. If you like missing episodes, my next article talks more about them.  I look at one of the most incredible and improbable missing episode finds of all time. Many fans dreams came true when it was announced all of The Tomb of the Cybermen had been found. It was announced to the world in January of 1992. How did I know about it in November of 1991?

Have a great week!
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com

I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive

Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.