The Crusade, like many stories from the 1960s, is incomplete
in the BBC's archives. This four-episode adventure, first broadcast in 1965, is
a victim of the BBC's junking of many Doctor Who episodes in the 60s and 70s -
which has left 106 still missing.
Luckily, audio recordings were made by a handful of fans at
the time of transmission, so while the original moving pictures of episodes two
and four of The Crusade are gone, the soundtracks survive.
If you're a collector of the BBC's classic Who DVDs, you
will have noticed a few stories with animated episodes springing up. The latest
is The Ice Warriors, which has been released in the UK this week.
Some fans have launched a social media campaign to support a
DVD of The Crusade, with its two missing episodes completed with the same
technique. But why single out this story? Ian Redman, one of the fans behind
these efforts, explained to The Doctor Who Bar:
Over recent months, we've heard that the budget for a
classic Doctor Who DVD release can accommodate two animated episodes to fill
the gaps of an incomplete story. (It would be great if that one day becomes
three, but time will tell!) We're at the point now where almost all of the
stories with one or two episodes missing have either been released, or
announced for release, with animation used to complete them.
The only two stories which have not yet had such an
announcement made are The Underwater Menace and The Crusade - both of these are
four-part stories with two episodes missing. We know that The Underwater Menace
will be receiving its own DVD release, but there has been no official word on
plans for the two missing instalments. My gut feeling is that they will be
animated, though - it seems very likely.
The Crusade, on the other hand, is looking like it might
be running out of luck. The Doctor Who Restoration Team have said that they
have not been commissioned to do any work for that story. This doesn't
necessarily make it impossible for animation plans to be getting into motion in
other quarters, but it's really not looking good. This is sad, because we are
facing the very real possibility that The Crusade might end up being the one
and only story with two episodes missing, that does not receive a DVD release
with animation.
That brings us to the campaign. I'm really hesitant to
call it a 'petition', and I would probably reject that description if anyone
tried to apply it! What we are doing is attempting to politely demonstrate that
there is support for the idea of animating The Crusade's two missing episodes.
The Restoration Team themselves have recently encouraged people to write to BBC
Worldwide to express support of further classic DVD releases.
But at the end of the day, I think this is one of those
things that might just do some good, but it can't really do any harm. (Or a DVD
might come out, but with this campaign having had nothing to do with it... but
we wouldn't complain!) We're not standing outside the BBC's headquarters with
pitchforks (not a petition, remember!), but if it gets thoughts ticking over in
the mind of someone in the commissioning loop (and Worldwide do know about the
campaign), then you never know! Of course, in the event that all this has no effect
(and I'm not going to sugarcoat it - that's the most likely outcome!), we have
done nobody any harm. We shall see!
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