Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
This is the story that I first came in on as a regular viewer. My memories of the time are largely about Tegan's entry to the TARDIS. Most of the rest of the story didn't really stay with me (except for the ending of course) until later viewings.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Very simplistic fare, half the word count again. This money-grabbing idea didn't get beyond BRAIN and THE GIANT ROBOT.


 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Lost DOCTOR WHO Classic SHADA to be BBC Worldwide’s Next Animation Project


doctor-who-shada.jpg


News has emerged that following 2016’s animation of the missing 1966 Doctor Who story The Power of the Daleks, BBC Worldwide’s next animated project will be the legendary lost Tom Baker story Shada.

As fans will know, Shada was set to be the final story in the Fourth Doctor’s sixth season in early 1980, but was abandoned partway through recording due to strike action in the TV studio. With only the exteriors and one of three studio sessions completed, the story was only around 50% finished, and a number of attempts to remount the final studio sessions failed.

One of the reasons Shada is still held in such high regard is that it was then-script editor Douglas Adams’ final work on the series. As a six-part story, it would also have been his longest Doctor Who serial.

Shada has since appeared on VHS and DVD in an incomplete version, and as a novel, an audiobook, an online animation (with the Doctor recast as Paul McGann), and in an unofficial animated version from Ian Levine, completing the story utilising animated segments and voice recordings from most of the extant cast but – significantly – a voice artist’s impression of Tom Baker rather than an appearance from the actor himself. Levine’s version was offered to BBC Worldwide some years ago but declined.

All that could be about to change, with BBC Worldwide set to release their latest version this November.

According to actor Daniel Hill’s Spotlight account, he is credited with an appearance in “Doctor Who – Shada”for “television”, under the joint directorship of Pennant Roberts (the serial’s original television director) and Charles Norton – the director in charge of Worldwide’s Power of the Daleks project. The reference to “television” might be an indication of another North American TV broadcast for the serial.

Indeed, Hill himself tweeted on June 27th of this year: “fantastic time recording for SHADA 2017”, following this up on July 3rd with “v exciting ready in November apparently”. Hill was, of course, cast as the character Chris Parsons in the original production.

All of which pretty much confirms this as the follow-up to The Power of the Daleks. And although fans of the missing 1960s episodes will no doubt be disappointed at the news, the audio track for this new version will effectively comprise brand new “old” Doctor Who, whereas the soundtrack recordings for the missing black and white serials have already been released often several times over. With Tom Baker’s involvement an almost certainty since he’s finally become one of the “Big Finish Doctors”, the key question that now remains is, will this be a full animation of the entire story (perhaps the most likely option if a broadcast is indeed the intention), or a part animation of only the missing segments? Time, as they say, will tell.
 

michaellevenson

Member: Rank 8
Lost DOCTOR WHO Classic SHADA to be BBC Worldwide’s Next Animation Project


View attachment 2727


News has emerged that following 2016’s animation of the missing 1966 Doctor Who story The Power of the Daleks, BBC Worldwide’s next animated project will be the legendary lost Tom Baker story Shada.

As fans will know, Shada was set to be the final story in the Fourth Doctor’s sixth season in early 1980, but was abandoned partway through recording due to strike action in the TV studio. With only the exteriors and one of three studio sessions completed, the story was only around 50% finished, and a number of attempts to remount the final studio sessions failed.

One of the reasons Shada is still held in such high regard is that it was then-script editor Douglas Adams’ final work on the series. As a six-part story, it would also have been his longest Doctor Who serial.

Shada has since appeared on VHS and DVD in an incomplete version, and as a novel, an audiobook, an online animation (with the Doctor recast as Paul McGann), and in an unofficial animated version from Ian Levine, completing the story utilising animated segments and voice recordings from most of the extant cast but – significantly – a voice artist’s impression of Tom Baker rather than an appearance from the actor himself. Levine’s version was offered to BBC Worldwide some years ago but declined.

All that could be about to change, with BBC Worldwide set to release their latest version this November.

According to actor Daniel Hill’s Spotlight account, he is credited with an appearance in “Doctor Who – Shada”for “television”, under the joint directorship of Pennant Roberts (the serial’s original television director) and Charles Norton – the director in charge of Worldwide’s Power of the Daleks project. The reference to “television” might be an indication of another North American TV broadcast for the serial.

Indeed, Hill himself tweeted on June 27th of this year: “fantastic time recording for SHADA 2017”, following this up on July 3rd with “v exciting ready in November apparently”. Hill was, of course, cast as the character Chris Parsons in the original production.

All of which pretty much confirms this as the follow-up to The Power of the Daleks. And although fans of the missing 1960s episodes will no doubt be disappointed at the news, the audio track for this new version will effectively comprise brand new “old” Doctor Who, whereas the soundtrack recordings for the missing black and white serials have already been released often several times over. With Tom Baker’s involvement an almost certainty since he’s finally become one of the “Big Finish Doctors”, the key question that now remains is, will this be a full animation of the entire story (perhaps the most likely option if a broadcast is indeed the intention), or a part animation of only the missing segments? Time, as they say, will tell.
I wonder what'll they do with the Dr Chronotis character as Dennis Carey is no more. Get someone else to do the animated bits or re-dub the original voice, or have it as total animation and re do everything. I hope not the latter, I'd like to see animation and recorded scenes from 1979 seamlessly merged.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
Years ago, this would have excited me. But from a partial episode, we have the Baker narrated video from the 80s, an animated version with Richard E. Grant, an animated version with Paul McGann, and I believe a novelization. At some point, just find a new story to tell.

And yet, I will still end up buying it.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
dr_who_shada_2.jpg

Amazon have already inadvertently confirmed it.....


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who...8&qid=1507586320&sr=8-1&keywords=shada+dr+who


"Delicate matter, slightly. It's about a book..."
Chris Parsons is happily engrossed in studying post-graduate physics at Cambridge, when one day he finds an old book, sitting on a dusty shelf in an ageing professor's library. Written in a language nobody can read and made of a paper that can't be torn, this is no ordinary book. And when it enters his life, everything changes for young Chris Parsons.
Soon finding himself aboard an invisible space-ship, chased by monsters made of molten rock; aboard an alien prison on a distant planet and attacked by a horde of mind-control zombies. Chris also meets a strange man with a very long scarf who claims he can travel through time and space... in a police box.
It's going to be a busy day for Chris Parsons.
An abandoned Doctor Who classic is brought to life. Starring Tom Baker and written by Douglas Adams, this is “Shada” for a modern audience, with footage upscaled to high definition, and incomplete footage now completed using high-quality animation.



And there is this tweet too.....


https://twitter.com/eddie_at_skaro/status/917473186819829760
 

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
I'll be interested to see it. I'd seen the Tom Baker narration with the filmed parts and hadn't thought much of the story but when I read the novelisation that was released a couple of years ago I discovered how good a story it was. The novelisation was a fairly big expansion of the script but was a joy to read.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
And now, after the JNT condensed version, the scriptbook with the vhs, the bits Adams used in one of his other books, the Paul McGann audio and the (admittedly good) novelisation - at least this new dvd/bluray will be the final time they can sell some version or other of it to us....

Surely? :emoji_grin:
 
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