Doctor Who’s Latest Classic Colorization Made Some Wild Additions

When the BBC broadcasts a Special, colorful editing of “The Daleks” to celebrate Who is the doctor?Until its 60th anniversary last year, from actual edits to a shortened runtime, the serial was left largely as is. A cute trailer To ultimately fuel the next 60 years of adventure through time and space. With its second take – this time around Patrick Troughton’s iconic departure as the Second Doctor “War Games”– Things are very different. very different

Broadcasting on BBC 4 in the UK earlier this week, the special color TV movie debuts Who is the doctor?Its final black-and-white story—taking a four-hour story and cutting it down to just 90 minutes—took the opportunity to weave in answers to questions. WHO Fans at this point create an insane checklist of specific references and acknowledgments of the show’s future over the years that are now, in some ways, definitive. Who is the doctor?Its ever-evolving continuum. Here are three major tweaks and changes added to the proceedings

War chief and master

Arguably the biggest theory game in “The War Games,” color specifically made a connection between the original story and Who is the doctor?Its immediate future is far more obvious: that one of the series’ main antagonists, War Chief, was none other than an incarnation of the Master himself. Along with War Chief’s appearance in Colorization, the newly updated soundtrack incorporates contemporary WHO Iconic of composer Murray Gould “Master Vanglorious” theme—and when the war chief is executed by the Time Lords during their arrival at the climax of “The War Games,” you’ll even briefly hear Who is the doctor?His body is being dragged as SFX in its modern revival.

While it was always established in the original story that War Chief was a rebel Time Lord, over the years spin-off material and novels repeatedly hit on the idea that he was an early incarnation of the Time Lord that would eventually take up the mantle. of Master (meaning that he did this primarily with Roger Delgado’s incarnation of the character). Terrence Dicks and Malcolm Hulk, who wrote “The War Games,” note among themselves Who is the doctor? The target episode novelizes that the Master and the Doctor were the only rebel Time Lords to escape Gallifrey with their own TARDIS, implying that the Warlord and the Master are indeed one and the same. But later as part of Virgin’s original novel New adventure The books would also treat the War Chief as a distinct character, who survived the events of “The War Games” and would eventually be resurrected in various incarnations, such as the Big Finish audio dramas that established previous incarnations of the Master separate from the War Chief.

The trial and the doctor’s face

The story’s climax takes a particularly random twist during the Doctor’s trial of the Time Lords. After agreeing with the Doctor that despite their policy of non-intervention there are many dangers to be faced across the universe (embellished here from the original with additional clips from others). Who is the doctor? story), the Time Lords still choose to punish the Doctor with banishment to Earth and forced regeneration, offering the Doctor several choices of possible forms. However, in colorization, these faces—all of which the Doctor still rejects for various reasons—are no longer just random unknown identities. Instead, the Doctor is given the opportunity to regenerate into the mouths of their future incarnations outside of the Third Doctor, as depicted in the Time Lords project. we are In fact the Twelfth (rejected as “too old”), Tenth (“too skinny”), Thirteenth (“too young”), and Eleventh (simply described as “won’t do it at all!”) Doctors.

This is a particularly odd addition, considering that the Time Lords with these faces had no particular theory or desire beyond what they had to offer him at the moment. don’t like it Who is the doctor? Didn’t explore the concept of the Doctor’s avatar beyond something we were already familiar with—we have plenty of examples of contemporary to infamous faces from “The Brain of Morbius.” WHOThe addition of incarnations between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors such as John Hart’s “War Doctor” or Joe Martin’s “Runaway Doctor” and other incarnations before William Hartnell’s Doctor. But at this point it’s a funny joke that the Doctor has little desire to have any of the many faces that we know they eventually end up with in the afterlife.

The Rebirth of the Second Doctor (and dating UNIT)

“The War Games” colorization climaxes with an almost entirely new addition, using rotoscoped footage of Patrick Troughton and John Pertwee’s Doctors to set up the actual moment of the Second Doctor’s regeneration. Here, after the trippy sequence of the Doctor’s face straying across a shadowy void from the original serial, the action moves inside the TARDIS, where, sitting in a chair, he hears the flashes of his late companions, the Doctor treating himself with regenerative powers, transforming into his next incarnation. As we recently coveredThe Second Doctor’s off-screen resurrection has been covered in other ancillary material outside of the show (no Time Lord-sanctioned scarecrow execution squad this time, alas), but now that moment has been brought into line with the regeneration image seen in Who is the doctor?Its modern era, for better or worse.

But that canonization isn’t the only fannish nod that creates new scenes. Look at the newly revived Doctor when Just as he lands—before we cut to Pertwee’s first scene in “Spearhead from Space,” Oxley crashes out of the TARDIS into the woods—the TARDIS’s displays flash briefly between the 1970s and 1980s. A nod to another long-running direction Who is the doctor? Fan theory, the so-called “UNIT dating controversy.” Although many of the Third Doctor’s adventures appear to be contemporary with their broadcasts in the early 1970s, two references date around the career of his closest ally Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart – the 1968 Second Doctor story “The Invasion”, which established the existence of UNIT , and promoted Lethbridge-Stewart to his famous rank of brigadier, which in 1979 is set around; And the 1983 Fifth Doctor story “Maudrin Undead,” which states that Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT in 1976—throws continuity into disarray.

Several attempts have been made to at least acknowledge, if not fix, the perceived continuity errors over the years both across the TV show and other tie-in media (Who is the doctor? (at the time, for the most part, considered the Third Doctor’s time on Earth to take place in a similar timeframe to his broadcast), so while this isn’t the first time this debate has been given an on-screen nod, it’s the first time in a while that we’ve seen it explicitly addressed, even if the answer Either, hilariously, the TARDIS throws up its metaphorical hands in confusion

What these changes mean Who is the doctor??

Colorization isn’t the only way to experience these serials, at least for both stories adapted so far — the original versions of both “The Daleks” and “The War Games” are available on physical media. And this time streamingSo despite the “confirmation” this latest colorization brings with it, anyone who wants to see the original stories without embellishment.

While many changes on the surface and “retcons” are minor in the grand scheme of things, the fact that the scope of this colorization has grown rapidly beyond the cosmetic embellishments and concentrated colors between “The Daleks” and “The War Games” A curious picture of what future colorization might change, as each new colorization brings with it an effort to create more connections. Who is the doctor?Its vast, and often contradictory, continuum. What stories may come next—and what changes may come with them—remain to be seen. As always Who is the doctor?Time will tell.

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