Broadcast in 1968 and wiped from the BBC Archive in one of its infamous ‘purges’ in the early 1970s, the classic six-part serial The Web of Fear, pitting second Doctor Patrick Troughton against the formless Great Intelligence and its robotic Yeti foot-soldiers in the depths of the London underground was for years presumed lost forever, only its first episode surviving the ill-advised cull. In 2013 the five remaining episodes (and all six episodes from another largely missing Troughton serial) were located in a remote TV relay station in Nigeria but unfortunately, the third episode went astray again before the tapes could be returned to the UK. The recovered serial was cleaned up and made available for fans digitally in time for Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary in 2013 and was released on a barebones DVD a few months later with the missing episode represented by screengrab photographic images. Years later and the BBC have now been embarking on an ambitious programme of animating many of the 97 missing episodes of the classic series – with sometimes mixed results – and Web of Fear‘s missing instalment – considered important in the series canon as it marked the first screen appearance of the legendary Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, as played by the late Nicholas Courtney – has now been brought back to life courtesy of a revolutionary motion-capture animation technique. So now the whole serial gets the ‘special edition’ treatment with the full complement of additional supporting material alongside the episodes themselves.
Let’s get the animated elephant in the room out of the way first. Episode three just looks… weird. Attempts to give the animation a greater fluidity than the 2D techniques used on previous releases have resulted in an episode full of characters who resemble Captain Pugwash caricatures twitching and spasming irrationally, their unnaturally-long limbs waving like wet shirts on a washing line, their faces twisting and contorting as if they’ve been electrocuted. We’re not minded to come down too hard on this first attempt as clearly a lot of time and effort has been spent trying to do something a bit different so whilst watching Web of Fear part three is likely to be strictly a one-watch affair and we can only hope that any future attempts at this animation style will be better-funded to allow for a more fluid and less jarring and visually-unappealing experience.
The serial itself – the five live-action episodes look quite stunning on Blu-ray despite the SD nature of the original recordings – is supported by a forty-odd minute ‘making of’ documentary which sees actor Frazer Hines (Jamie) venture into an abandoned London Underground station to recount his memories of the serial with additional contributions from actors Tina Packer, John Levene, and Ralph Watson (who passed away only recently). It’s a more traditional ‘talking heads’ piece than some of the more inventive features the Doctor Who releases have specialised in recently but it’s nicely paced and consistently interesting. Elsewhere we have the usual commentaries and photo gallery, the animated episode presented in colour, the episode 3 telesnap reconstruction, and a curious audio section in which actor Jack Woolgar (Sergeant Arnold) practices an array of vocal options for his performance in later episodes of the serial. Possibly the most niche special feature ever released on physical media? Discuss…
Despite the disappointing animation for the missing third episode, this special edition of The Web of Fear is another top-class release from the Doctor Who archive – the serial itself of course is a stone-cold classic of the Troughton era – and a reminder how lucky Who fans are that their show receives this level of care and attention at a time when the presentation of physical media in general is in a slow state of decline.
