[Susan Foreman]

Nowt to do with me! This was posted by someone named Robert McGhin on a FB Dr Who group:

"Okay, so with the information I've gathered from Josh Snares and since The Faceless Ones has just been released with The Fury From The Deep following it, I think it's time we looked at the likelihood of which lost Doctor Who episodes will be animated in the future. So let's narrow down the criteria. Three very important things must be taken into account to determine which are the hardest stories to animate and which are the easiest. These factors are the amount of episodes to animate, the number of characters to represent and the quality of the audio. Also remember that anything recorded before The Daleks' Master Plan is low quality because Graham Strong, who recorded from The Daleks' Master Plan to The Dominators wired his audio tape recorder to the television speakers themselves to take out background noise. Other people known to record audio are David Holman, James Russell, Allen Wilson, David Butler, Richard Landen and an anonymous Australian fan who recorded with the same method as Graham Strong. Another thing we have to consider is how much of John Cura's telesnaps survive. Above all, in order to get American backing, the BBC have to now animate all the episodes, even if some of them survive in the archives. And they also have to animate them in colour as well as black and white. With all of that narrowed down, let's begin with the hardest and go down to the easiest. So here we go.

The Daleks' Master Plan has 12 episodes to animate, 42 characters to represent and high audio quality. Clearly, this serial is a beast. The amount of episodes and characters are unreasonable for a team with a small budget to make. Add to that, the amount of sets and locations. Now, BBC America do help BBC Worldwide to animate episodes, but unfortunately, unless they could get an increase in budget, I don't think it will happen any time soon. Though in fairness, the audio quality is high and the Daleks are in it, so that might be a good enough selling point to increase the backing.

The Crusade has four episodes to animate, 31 characters to represent and low audio quality. This amount of characters don't even include the extras. It's also infamously racist for some actors wearing blackface and it's a tougher sell due to being purely historical. This is troubling since most of the animations are of present or futuristic settings. On the bright side, it's the only missing serial from Season Two and would fit on the Blu Ray box set. Unfortunately, due to the amount of characters and poor audio quality, I find it difficult to believe that it will be animated any time soon.

The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve has four episodes to animate, 24 characters to represent, and high audio quality. Once again, this is a historical story, so it might be more difficult to sell. But for fans, it's a great spotlight for Steven Taylor and we also see a different character of the First Doctor. And it also features the introduction of Dodo and it meets many of the criteria required. So I'm not saying that it won't be animated, but it's not likely to be soon.

Marco Polo has seven episodes to animate, 20 characters to represent and low audio quality. Regardless, many people discuss this as an obvious choice to animate due to the Blu Ray collection box sets as it's the only missing story of Season One not to be animated, and it's the oldest missing serial as well. So it would make sense to animate it for the box set. Chris Chapman has said that these projects are completely separate though and will be included on the box sets if the animations are made, but they have no say over what gets animated.

The Savages has four episodes to animate, 18 characters to represent and high audio quality. This is Steven Taylor's swansong. It has a few sets, but not too much. It does have a costume change for the Doctor, which would also effect animation time. Still this serial meets the criteria fairly well, so it's possible that it will be animated in the future.

The Wheel In Space has six episodes to animate, 17 characters to represent and high audio quality. Strangely, Episode One of this serial was turned into a cutdown reconstruction for the Missing Believed Wiped Event. This supposedly is to show how all episodes can be animated, including orphaned ones. The Wheel In Space has a good chance of being animated since it meets the criteria and the Cybermen are good selling villains.

The Highlanders has four episodes to animate, 17 characters to represent and high audio quality. This serial also contains a scene with the Second Doctor in drag, adding extra costumes. Rumours had it that it was to be animated after The Power Of The Daleks, but a poll chose The Macra Terror instead. Since it meets all the criteria, I think The Highlanders could be animated sometime soon.

The Myth Makers has four episodes to animate, 15 characters to represent and low audio quality. The fact that this story is a comedy makes it harder to animate. Not to mention the lack of surviving telesnaps is also a major problem. Sadly, taking all of these into account, I don't see this serial getting animated any time soon.

The Underwater Menace has four episodes to animate, 15 characters to represent and high audio quality. Since the animation team are focused on Season Four, it would make sense to animate this serial also. Unfortunately, this story suffers from poor fan reception and is considered one of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time. Incidentally, Planet 55 Studies offered to animate this story in 2011, but the BBC turned them down and only wanted a telesnap reconstruction. But who knows? We could get an animation one day.

The Celestial Toymaker has four episodes to animate, 15 characters to represent and high audio quality. It sounds reasonably fitting to the criteria required at first, but it's a really awkward story because the guest cast constantly change costumes and new sets are prominent in every episode. Even worse, it contains a lot of action due to the characters playing games. But to due meeting the criteria and the prestige between fans, I think it's possible that The Celestial Toymaker could be animated.

The Space Pirates has six episodes to animate, 14 characters to represent and high audio quality. This serial is a space opera that visits a few locations, hence the magnitude of sets. Like The Underwater Menace, fan opinion is heavily mixed, but if it were animated, I think it could receive a reappraisal, just like The Enemy Of The World when it was returned. This is the only Season Six story not to be animated, so if there's any linking to the Blu Ray box sets, it would make sense to animate this one also, even if it doesn't happen soon.

The Web Of Fear has six episodes to animate, 14 characters to represent and high audio quality. The backing contract has really engineered the BBC into an awkward problem. Five of the six episodes survive, which would be silly to animate. So Episode Three would probably be its own standalone animation. Hopefully in the vain of animations before The Power Of The Daleks, it would make more sense to be a black in white 4:3 animation to match the surviving episode. Still, it's possible that this will be animated to fit the Blu Ray box set. And either way, as recently as 2011, it's been confirmed that a copy of Episode Three exists in private hands.

The Smugglers has four episodes to animate, 13 characters to represent and high audio quality. This is the debut for Ben and Polly Jackson, and is a strictly historical story. Out of all of the First Doctor serials, this one fits the required criteria the best. So if they decide the animate a First Doctor story next, this would most likely be it and will happen hopefully very soon.

The Abominable Snowmen has six episodes to animate, 12 characters to represent and and high audio quality. The story also boasts a limited amount of sets, but a large amount of location filming. So so how easy it would be to replicate is unknown. Personally, I think this story could be animated since it meets the criteria perfectly and it also features the Yeti, which are popular villains.

The Evil Of The Daleks has seven episodes to animate, 11 characters to represent and high audio quality. It would make sense for the next animation to be this one since it carries right on from The Faceless Ones and the animation team really seem to favour the Second Doctor over the First Doctor. Due to meeting the criteria and of course, the Daleks are highly rated and profitable, this story has a very good chance of being animated, and if we're lucky, it could be up next.

Galaxy Four has four episodes to animate, nine characters to represent and low audio quality. However, it might be easy to animate since it has only four sets, including the Tardis interior itself and if they wanted to approach a cheaper First Doctor story, this could be a safe bet. Yet, due to the low audio quality, it might stop that from happening.

Finally, The Mission To The Unknown has one episode to animate, nine characters to represent and low audio quality. It's easy to think that this episode will be animated due to it's simplistic nature, which was why Ian Levine commissioned David Bush to animate the episode to use as a pitch for the BBC who didn't ask for it in the first place. Yet with the UCLAN recreation, it makes more sense for that to be the version that's represented on the home media release, alongside a telesnap reconstruction. But don't say never. Due to the singular episode, the small cast the low audio quality recordings, it's possibly is really a guessing game. It really depends on the BBC's intentions with the UCALN recreation and how they'd want to represent the original production alongside it.

I'll end this post on a final note. Another question which I brought on The Web Of Fear is this. Are these episodes going to have to all be animated, or could somebody still hold copies of the original prints? This question is extremely difficult to answer. A strange contradiction is that nine copies of Marco Polo circled the globe, but none of them exist in the archives. But only one copy of each of the 12 The Daleks' Master Plan episodes were shipped to Australia, but somehow, Episodes Two, Five and Ten still exist. So hypothetically, the more prints that exist, the likelihood of that serial existing should increase. So why don't we have any episodes of Marco Polo in the archive? Paul Vanezis said in the Radio Free Skaro Podcast that there are missing missing episodes in private film collections. Film collectors are tricky in the way preserve lost media when it could've been junked. So we should be thankful. But of course, as obsessive Doctor Who fans, we just want to see them return the episodes. But considering the alternative being a pile of cinder, isn't it better that they're in safe hands and one day might grace the public again? Paul Vanezis also said that he knows of only one or two episodes that are in private hands. Yet, it's interesting to speculate just which episodes these could be. Most likely, they're episodes of Marco Polo, The Daleks' Master Plan Episode Four of The Tenth Planet Episode Four. After all, these episodes were borrowed by Blue Peter and not returned. But returning the oddities, you can't really guess. It's truly an unknown."