Missing episodes of Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors animated for DVD

Qurios character designs

Less than two weeks after it was announced that the missing fourth instalment of The Tenth Planet, William Hartnell's final episode of Doctor Who, will be animated by Planet 55 Studios for DVD (as with the two missing episodes of The Reign of Terror, released last month), it has been confirmed that the missing second and third episodes of the 1967 Patrick Troughton serial The Ice Warriors will also be animated for a DVD release later this year, using the surviving off-air soundtrack.

The announcement was made via BBC Worldwide's Doctor Who website, doctorwho.tv. This time, however, the studio behind the project is Qurios, as commissioning editor and Pup Ltd managing director Dan Hall explains: “We’ve been discussing the various ways Qurios could reconstruct these episodes for over three years, so it’s really, really satisfying to finally see them animated. Qurios have a great track record in excellent and innovative animations.” Specifically referring to using Qurios rather than Planet 55 for this release, “Doctor Who has had many different visual styles thanks to changing directors, designers and production methods. We wanted to mirror this in our choice of animation partners.”

Chris Chapman (producer/director of many Doctor Who DVD extras) is co-producing the animated episodes with Niel Bushnell, and Chris Chatterton is the animation director. Some disliked the faster-paced editing style of The Reign of Terror's animated episodes, but as Chapman explains, that should not be as much of an issue here: "The animation is very much based on the camera scripts – we're going for as much accuracy as we humanly can!"

The Ice Warriors are set to return in the forthcoming second part of Doctor Who Series Seven, which returns to BBC One on 30 March. The DVD of The Ice Warriors is due to be released on 26 August, with the condensed photographic reconstruction of the missing episodes that was first seen on the 1998 VHS also included.

doctorwho.tv has made a work-in-progress preview clip available:

Source and image: doctorwho.tv / Chris Chapman