Power of the Daleks to get Twitter Premiere

BBC Worldwide has announced that first three minutes of the animated Power of the Daleks will be premiered live on twitter via Periscope this Saturday.

The original transmission of the episode took place on BBC 1 at 5.50pm on Saturday 5th November 1966. The animated reconstruction will be live streamed exactly 50 years after that first broadcast at 5.50pm on Saturday 5th November 2016. The twitter feed will be available globally.

Fans in the UK will then be able to access the entire first episode on BBC Store from 5.50pm on Saturday, with the remaining five episodes being released 1 per day over the following five days. The DVD will be released in the UK on Monday 21st November.

Jonathan Green, Director of BBC Store says
Rhidian Bragg Head of Sales, Consumer Products, BBC Worldwide added
Georgina Parnell, Head of Entertainment Partnerships, Twitter said
The Power of the Daleks has been lost since its one broadcast on BBC One. The animated reconstruction has been masterminded by Charles Norton, working with Martin Geraghly and Adrian Salmon who did the character designs. The team was responsible for the successful animation of a lost Dad's Army episode A Stripe for Frazer, which was released on BBC Store earlier this year.

The work has been intense for Norton, with work on the final two episodes completed earlier this week. The project was helped by the existence of a complete set of Studio camera scripts, which detail the exact framing for each shot used in the original recording. He described the project as challenging, with instructions such as The Doctor does a little jig, being very difficult to recreate in animation, particularly with a character wearing checked trousers. For sequences pre-filmed at Ealing studios there was no camera script available and the animation team had to improvise far more.

The sound has been restored by Mark Ayres, who had access to the original music sessions and sound effect recordings which still exist on quarter inch tape, and was able to create both a stereo and a 5.1 mix for the animated version.

One of the stars of the story, Anneke Wills who played Polly, saw the first two episodes for the first time at a press screening on Thursday. Although Wills has recorded a commentary for the story, it was done viewing an incomplete print. On viewing the completed episodes she declared herself thrilled with the result. She particularly relished Patrick Troughton's vocal performance which she said shines through from the very start.

The BBC have also announced that a colour version of the story will be available on BBC Store in the UK from 31st December 2016 and also on a Special Edition Bluray available from 6th February 2017.

Although the BBC Store is not available in the US, the story will be screened weekly on BBC America starting on November 19. This is in addition to a number of movie theatre screenings on November 14. BBC America will make the colour version available exclusively on their digital platforms towards the end of November. and from January 24, 2017 the story will be available on DVD exclusively at Barnes & Noble, this includes the colour version.

The story will also be screened at selected theatres in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

BBC Worldwide said today that there are no current plans to animate any other missing Doctor Who stories, but, if Power of the Daleks sells well, it is an option they would certanly consider.