Good point ! I was wondering if there was any muttering about a release for Underwater Menace episode three as an 'extra' on, well, anything...
I thought the BBC were holding on to that for their online store, whenever that launches. Episode two that is. Episode three can be easily found on the "Lost in Time" set.
There's an article in the new DWM about the cancellation of the TUM DVD. Apparently the basic issue is that BBC Worldwide can't find a company that's willing to do animation for the still-missing episodes. The animators from earlier releases have either gone out of business or have lost so much money on previous Who projects that they don't want to do this one. And Worldwide is reluctant to release the story without animation, so instead it's been cancelled altogether. There's been a lot of fan chatter about the BBC's online store as a potential home for future missing episode returns, but that's all just speculation so far. At this point some kind of download/streaming service might be the only way TUM 2 ever gets a release, though.
Honestly, I'd take a telesnap recreation at this point of the missing episodes. I like those recreations personally.
Even among fans who could get them basically for free they were always a niche taste, though. And for a commercial organisation trying to sell an incomplete release of one of the worst stories in the Original Series, I can understand them wanting the selling point that animation would bring.
Yeah, slip of the brain, sorry ! Episode's three's got to get a physical release - everything else has ! At least stick it on the nexrt NuWho season boxset as a bonus...
Someone posted not along ago, that they are going to start to experiment with Torrents, so, that's another possibility, that wouldn't really cost any kind of investment, in order to release the single episode
An release of Underwater Menace 2 as an extra seems unlikely, as there's no old series releases coming that it could be put on, so it would have to be on the Capaldi II release, and 'brand management' might be iffy about putting an episode from a fairly weak black-and-white story on that, even as an easter egg. Best bet might be a themed rerelease collection (like the recent Daleks, Cyberman, etc sets), but UM2 doesn't theme well with any of those either.
Hmm... It just occurred to me to wonder if the producers of Doctor Who have ever considered remaking some of the missing stories with the current cast. Other TV series, mainly older ones from the '60s and '70s (and even older radio series), have sometimes remade their own old scripts, on the theory that the originals would be lost and forgotten, or that the original audience had moved on. I'm surprised Doctor Who never did this in the '70s or '80s. Imagine the time and money it would've saved them just to remake a storyline that had already been written. They could've gotten half a season out of "The Dalek Masterplan" alone. Of course, if that had been done -- let alone if it were done today -- it would raise all sorts of continuity questions among the fans. But it would be a similar situation to the adaptation of the novel Human Nature, or the partial adaptation of a couple of the Big Finish audios into episodes, given that many fans consider all DW productions equally canonical. (There was also the time that Big Finish did an audio/Flash-animated adaptation of Shada with the Eighth Doctor replacing the Fourth.) If it were done today, of course, the stories would have to be rewritten substantially to fit the modern format, characters, and storytelling style. But it'd be a way to make the stories available onscreen in some form.
I like to think that the two Cushing movies took place in the prallel world where the Doctor grown from the severed hand ended up with Rose. Somewhere along the line that Doctor died and the 'hand clone' filled the gap. Especially if he had that piece of Tardis 'coral' Captain Jack was growing in Torchwood. After seeing the Doctors Daughter regenerate, I'm not convinced the half human one couldn't either...
If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I'd go through all the old stories to try to align them into a continuity as much as possible (figure out when the different human colonization of space stories happen, maybe shift some to make them fit better, unify the costumes a bit, etc), "fix" some of the things that bother me in the stories, and reshoot all the stories a bit the way people do "Star Trek" fan series'.
There's been a few attempts to explain away the show's multiple versions of the future (and the Doctor meeting people in the past multiple times, such as Shakesphere). The novels have tried this a bit but kind of also muddle things up as well, especially since the new series arrived, and in some cases, remade some of the novels (Human Nature) or had similar storylines (Gallifrey destroyed). Technically, when you think of it, Victory of the Daleks is sort of a remake of "Power", with the Daleks disgusing themselves as servant robots despite the Doctor warning people to the contrary but in fact building a new Dalek race. Sure, there's many differences but the basic concept is largely the same.
The whole Time War arc in the new series, with the combatants changing history over and over again, seemed like an excuse for explaining the continuity changes from the old series. Then Moffat took it even further with the Cracks in Time and the whole "time can be rewritten" thing. The original series always occupied a mutable reality, but the new series has codified that mutability as an explicit part of the cosmology. The history of the universe is changing all the time, largely under the influence of time travelers like the Doctor, and only the time travelers are aware of the changes.
This was Tom Spilsbury's full post on the subject recently: "The problem, as far as I can tell, is that since the departure of Sue Kerr (who was a strong supporter of the Doctor Who range, despite personally not being a fan), there is no-one senior left at BBC DVD who has any interest in 'classic' Doctor Who, and certainly any interest in one black-and-white story that's missing its first and last episodes. The problem here is one of indifference – they simply have no interest in doing anything with it, and have probably spent less time thinking about it than I have just spent typing this last sentence. From their point of view – such as it's even crossed their minds at all – the situation is this: They have one Patrick Troughton Doctor Who story sitting on the shelf, which is 50% missing – with neither the start or the end of the story existing. If it were to be released, it would still require some sort of bridging material to make it 'whole' and releasable. Whether that's soundtracks, narration, reconstructions or animations, it would require some thought and money, neither of which they want to give it. Simply put, they have bigger fish to fry. The money already spent on the release (bonus features, commentary, cover artwork) can just be written off as part of a previous financial year. Basically, that money is already spent – let's not waste any more. The petition is a lovely gesture, and I completely support it, but I'd be surprised if it will make any difference, unless you can magic up another 30,000 signatures, which might make someone sit up and take a bit of notice. Maybe. Frankly, the only way I can see to change their view is if they get so fed up with having to answer letters about it that they release the DVD just to shut people up. And I'm not sure even that would work, to be honest, as they'd just keep sending out the standard response that you've already seen. That's just my opinion, but it's the situation as I understand it. A great shame."
The Dalek Masterplan is itself a reworking of The Chase. Adn really there's several modern stories with elements from older stories. Victory of The Daleks from The Power Of The Daleks, Daleks In Mahattan from The Evil Of The Daleks, The Hungry Earth is a retelling of the original Silurian storyline. Realy ther should try to be more inventive on the new show instead of trying to retell the older stories.
Just when you thought this was all over... "We're hoping to release more Classic Doctor Who and we'll let you know when we have news." - BBC Worldwide, Twitter, 5:46 am 26 Jun 2015 So now Auntie Beeb herself is stirring the pot. Big Finish already dropped their bombshell this morning, so that's not connected to this tweet.
^ That would be cool for people who haven't completed their sets of Classic Who. I'm hoping they're referring to newly found stories. But, it's more likely that you're correct. What's interesting about the tweet is the "we're hoping" part. Usually PR is more definite when they know they'll do something. This almost sounds speculative. I don't know if it means anything, but it caught my eye. Mr Awe