"The Underwater Menace" gets animated.

[Rich Watson]

To be honest it wouldn't have been high on my priorities to get done, but here we are. This had been rumoured as coming, along with "The Smugglers", so that's looking likely now too.

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1689958852056203265

And can anyone with more technical knowledge then me explain why these animations always have terrible aliasing on what should be smooth lines, which I never see in any other sort of animation?

 

[Rich Watson]

Also, should the console be green? They painted it light green as that showed as white better than actual white would but within the fiction of the series shouldn't it be white?

Edit: Just for a laugh I asked Google Bard why it was green and this is some of what it came back with. I don't think we have to worry about the AI takeover just yet.

"The green console became a signature element of the Doctor Who show, and it has been featured in every version of the TARDIS since the first episode."

"The TARDIS is a time machine, and the color green is often associated with time and space. In many cultures, green is also associated with magic and mystery, which are both qualities that are associated with the TARDIS."

 

[Richard S. Ta]

To be honest it wouldn't have been high on my priorities to get done, but here we are. This had been rumoured as coming, along with "The Smugglers", so that's looking likely now too.

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1689958852056203265

And can anyone with more technical knowledge then me explain why these animations always have terrible aliasing on what should be smooth lines, which I never see in any other sort of animation?

Nice! I’d rather it was done than not and The Smugglers would be great too.

As to the console it’s just one of those things. Canonically white? I recall when Pertwee is working on it in Season 7 that it’s green… though I know it was painted green to show as ‘white’ in monochrome… I guess either approach is legit.

Thanks for sharing, Rich! Aside from The Highlanders, that’s Season 4 all done with (assuming they are doing The Smugglers as well).

 

[zarkon]

I'm most curious about how Jamie suddenly has tartan in what looks like 2D animation. Wonder how they're doing this, and if it bodes well for Highlanders.

Excited for this.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

A curious choice to be sure but I'm willing to give it shot despite my low opinion, solely based on a fan construction (probably Loose Cannon) more than a decade and a half ago. If my opinion could change so significantly with Enemy of the World, why not here?

That said, the animation doesn't look all that great. So we'll see.

 

[Mr Awe]

Looking forward to this!

Hopefully they'll do all the remaining missing stories at some point. If so, we're bound to get some of the lesser stories.

I, too, wondered about Jamie's tartan. We'll see how well it's done here. It could be a good sign for The Highlanders.

 

[diankra]

IIRC Jamie swaps his kilt for a wetsuit fairly soon. So not much to do compared with some.

 

[Turbo]

I was also wondering about Jamie's tartan. Maybe it's partly a test to see how easy or hard it is to animate to see whether it makes The Highlanders more feasible.

A curious choice to be sure but I'm willing to give it shot despite my low opinion, solely based on a fan construction (probably Loose Cannon) more than a decade and a half ago. If my opinion could change so significantly with Enemy of the World, why not here?

That said, the animation doesn't look all that great. So we'll see.

Did you ever watched the recovered episode 2? It made the story *so much better* in my opinion. Especially Troughton's performance; there's a lot of sight gags and expressions that don't come across in a recon. (The recons on that disc, on the other hand, are godawful slideshows of the telesnaps by the mandate of someone at the BBC who didn't want them to do an enhanced recon for reasons passing understanding - the RT even offered to do it basically for free.)

 

[Elder Knight]

It really looks as though his pants just fell down. He's embarrassed, and the others are quietly amused.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Did you ever watched the recovered episode 2? It made the story *so much better* in my opinion. Especially Troughton's performance; there's a lot of sight gags and expressions that don't come across in a recon. (The recons on that disc, on the other hand, are godawful slideshows of the telesnaps by the mandate of someone at the BBC who didn't want them to do an enhanced recon for reasons passing understanding - the RT even offered to do it basically for free.)

No, I haven't seen it. I had forgotten it had been recovered and that occurred well after my marathon of fan reconstructions.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I've been doing a Troughton marathon this year, in light of all the recently released animations and its an interesting perspective to have that this era is probably the weakest of the first three Doctors, for me. I mean, besides Patrick Troughton, who undeniably gives 200% to the show and then some, the show itself rarely fires at all cylinders, and more often than not the guest stars themselves are at a loss and overact ceaselessly. There are exceptions of course, and there are gems like thhe Great Intelligence stories and what not, but the overall feel I have is one of repetition. Its the same kind of storyline over and over. I get it, of course, but it still makes for an impression and, frankly, the production quality is amazingly underwhelming even for these serials. I remember the Hartnell years weren't incredible, but you can definitely feel the pathos and intensity behind them. Here, I don't. Maybe my mood isn't proper, but I think animations like Macra Terror actually elevate an otherwise mediocre story. It does mean no live-action Troughton though, which is an immense shame, so it's definitely a double-edged sword there.

Anyway. Still looking forward for more animations.

 

[Rich Watson]

I've decided I'm going to skip this one and wait for the Season 4 collection. (Which will already be bad value for money given that I already have half the stories that will on it in blu-ray format.)

 

[Chaos Descending]

I'm underwhelmed by the quality of the animation.

I mean, on the one hand, it's nice to have the episode in some form, but on the other hand, if you're going to do it, why not do it to the best quality available?

I guess it's all down to cost.

 

[Mr Awe]

The animation quality isn't always great. But I find that they're sufficient to bring the story to life. I feel like I know what it was like watching the actual episode--and that's all I need from these animations. I never got that feeling watching the reconstructions.

I know some love and even prefer the recons, but I'll gladly take a lower quality animation. So, I'm definitely looking forward to this one regardless of the animation quality.

I'm also looking forward to, someday, the chance to rewatch the Troughton era in its entirety. To get a real feel for it from start to finish. It was impossible to do that before with his era having the most missing episodes. But now we're close to the point where it's possible!

 

[Qonundrum]

There's something fishy about the story not being animated earlier.

Well, I wanted to find any excuse to make an excruciatingly bad pun.

Episode 2 really shows the story isn't as lazycobblers as episode 3 made it out to be.

 

[Qonundrum]

It really looks as though his pants just fell down. He's embarrassed, and the others are quietly amused.

LOL, that really is what it looks like and now I'm trying to think unsexy thoughts. Thankfully, the console's shade of green is more bold than pastel so it's easy to get distracted like the hamster that I am, but anyway...

It's never been received as an A-level story, "The Underwater Menace", mostly because of the reputation accorded episode 3 - sans surrounding visual material to get more of a feel for the style. "The Enemy of the World" would look just as basic as it wasn't well-received until the actual episodes came back as well, what with Davy Jones in a kilt and Dudley Moore in the black coat next to Davison's hat stand, and not to mention how John Denver there wearing his contact lenses and standing next to a young and placidly rebellious Betty White.

That said, I will be ordering this on day one. Worse animations do exist and even those are exponentially better than telesnaps. Definitely do not get me wrong.

Also,

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[Elder Knight]

... what with Davy Jones in a kilt ...

I've often wondered: when he died, to whose locker did he go?

 

[Mr Awe]

Also, should the console be green? They painted it light green as that showed as white better than actual white would but within the fiction of the series shouldn't it be white?

In Pertwee's The Time Monster, the console was a light green. So, I'd take that as the color is was supposed to be in the B&W days but it just looked white. (But I do understand the real-world reasons for the light green color in those days.)

 

[Turbo]

In Pertwee's The Time Monster, the console was a light green. So, I'd take that as the color is was supposed to be in the B&W days but it just looked white. (But I do understand the real-world reasons for the light green color in those days.)

It's green in Death to the Daleks, too. I don't think it gets tinted grey until we see it in Season 13.

 

[26138]

Troughton is my favorite Doctor. A shocking statistic is that after this gets released, there are only 3 Troughton stories left to animate: The Highlanders, The Wheel in Space, and The Space Pirates. Pretty crazy considering how many episodes were missing.