Doctor Who‘s Latest Classic Colorization Made Some Wild Additions

When the BBC aired a special, colorized edit of “The Daleks” to celebrate Doctor Who‘s 60th day past year, speech from the existent edit down to a shortened runtime, the serial was mostly near as-is, speech from a cute trailer astatine the extremity to tease the adjacent 60 years of adventures successful clip and space. With its 2nd take—this clip connected Patrick Troughton’s iconic exit arsenic the Second Doctor successful “The War Games”—things got precise different. Very different.

Airing connected BBC 4 successful the UK earlier this week, the peculiar colorized TV movie instrumentality on Doctor Who‘s last black-and-white story—taking a four-hour saga and trimming it down to conscionable 90 minutes—took the accidental to weave successful answers to questions Who fans person had for years astatine this point, creating thing of an insane checklist of pointed references and acknowledgements to the show’s aboriginal that are now, successful immoderate ways, definitive parts of Doctor Who‘s ever-evolving continuity. Here’s 3 of the biggest tweaks and changes added to the proceedings.

The War Chief and the Master

© BBC

Arguably the biggest mentation played with, “The War Games” successful colour made successful peculiar 1 transportation betwixt the archetypal communicative and Doctor Who‘s contiguous aboriginal overmuch much explicit: that 1 of the serial’s large antagonists, the War Chief, was nary different than an incarnation of the Master himself. Throughout the War Chief’s appearances successful the colorization, the recently updated soundtrack incorporated modern Who composer Murray Gold’s iconic “Master Vainglorious” theme—and erstwhile the War Chief is executed by the Time Lords upon their accomplishment successful the climax of “The War Games,” you tin adjacent concisely perceive the telltale dependable of Doctor Who‘s modern regeneration SFX arsenic his assemblage is being dragged away.

While it was ever established successful the archetypal communicative that the War Chief was a renegade Time Lord, for years ancillary worldly and novelizations person bandied backmost and distant implicit the thought that helium is an aboriginal incarnation of the Time Lord that would yet instrumentality connected the mantle of Master (the accusation present being that helium did truthful initially with Roger Delgado’s incarnation of the character). Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, who wrote “The War Games,” went connected to enactment successful their ain Doctor Who Target occurrence novelizations that the Master and the Doctor were the lone renegade Time Lords to ever fly Gallifrey with their ain TARDIS, implying that the War Chief and the Master were, indeed, 1 and the same. But aboriginal archetypal novels arsenic portion of the Virgin New Adventures books would besides dainty the War Chief arsenic a chiseled character, 1 who survived the events of “The War Games” and would yet regenerate into antithetic incarnations, arsenic would Big Finish audio dramas that established earlier incarnations of the Master abstracted from the War Chief.

The Trial and the Faces of the Doctor

© BBC

Once peculiarly random alteration successful the climax of the communicative comes during the Time Lords’ proceedings of the Doctor. After concluding successful statement with the Doctor that determination were galore perils crossed the beingness worthy confronting successful spite of their non-intervention policies (embellished present from the archetypal with other clips from different Doctor Who stories), the Time Lords inactive take to punish the Doctor with exile connected Earth and a forced regeneration, offering the Doctor respective choices of imaginable visages. However, successful the colorization, these faces—all of which the Doctor inactive refuses for assorted reasons—are nary longer conscionable random chartless identities. Instead, the Doctor is offered the accidental to regenerate into the faces of respective of their aboriginal incarnations beyond the 3rd Doctor, arsenic the Time Lords task images that we cognize are successful information the Twelfth (rejected arsenic “too old”), Tenth (“too skinny”), Thirteenth (“too young”), and Eleventh (simply described arsenic “that won’t bash astatine all!”) Doctors.

This 1 is simply a peculiarly weird addition, considering determination wasn’t truly immoderate peculiarly theorization oregon tendency that these faces had a peculiar transportation to the Doctor beyond the Time Lords offering them up to him successful the moment. It’s not like Doctor Who hasn’t explored the thought of the Doctor having incarnations beyond ones we were already acquainted with—we’ve had plentifulness of examples from the infamous faces glimpsed successful “The Brains of Morbius” to modern Who‘s summation of incarnations similar John Hurt’s “War Doctor” betwixt the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, oregon Jo Martin’s “Fugitive Doctor” and different incarnations anterior to William Hartnell’s Doctor. But it’s a comic gag successful the infinitesimal that the Doctor has small tendency to person immoderate of respective faces we cognize they yet extremity up with aboriginal connected successful life.

The Second Doctor’s Regeneration (and UNIT Dating)

© BBC

“The War Games” colorization climaxes with an astir wholly caller addition, utilizing rotoscoped footage of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee’s Doctors to found the existent infinitesimal of the 2nd Doctor’s regeneration. Here, aft the trippy series of the Doctor’s look contorting crossed a shadowy void from the archetypal serial, the enactment cuts to wrong the TARDIS, where, sitting successful a seat arsenic helium hears flashes of his departed companions, the Doctor braces himself arsenic helium glows with regenerative energy, transforming into his adjacent incarnation. As we precocious covered, the 2nd Doctor’s off-screen regeneration has been covered successful different ancillary worldly extracurricular of the amusement itself (no Time Lord-sanctioned scarecrow execution squads this time, alas), but present the infinitesimal itself has been brought successful enactment with depictions of regeneration arsenic seen successful Doctor Who‘s modern era, for amended oregon worse.

But that canonization isn’t the lone fannish motion the caller country makes. As the recently regenerated Doctor checks to see when precisely he’s landed—before we chopped to Pertwee’s archetypal country from “Spearhead From Space,” collapsing retired of the TARDIS into the Oxley Woods—the TARDIS’ displays concisely flicker backmost and distant betwixt the years 1970 and 1980. This successful and of itself is simply a motion towards different long-running Doctor Who instrumentality theory, the alleged “UNIT Dating Controversy.” Although galore of the Third Doctor’s adventures look to beryllium modern to their broadcast successful the aboriginal 1970s, 2 mentions of dates surrounding the vocation of 1 of his closest allies, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart—the 1968 Second Doctor communicative “The Invasion,” which establishes the beingness of UNIT and promoted Lethbridge-Stewart to his celebrated fertile of Brigadier, which is acceptable astir 1979; and the 1983 Fifth Doctor communicative “Mawdryn Undead,” which states that Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT successful 1976—throw continuity into disarray.

There’s been respective attempts to astatine slightest acknowledge, if not precisely fix, the perceived continuity mistake implicit the years crossed some the TV amusement itself arsenic good arsenic different tie-in media (Doctor Who astatine the time, for the astir part, mostly treated the Third Doctor’s clip connected Earth arsenic taking spot successful a akin timeframe to its broadcast), truthful portion this isn’t the archetypal clip there’s been nods on-screen to the controversy, it’s the archetypal clip successful a portion we’ve seen it explicitly addressed, adjacent if the reply is, hilariously, to person the TARDIS propulsion its metaphorical hands up successful confusion.

What Do These Changes Mean for Doctor Who?

At slightest successful the lawsuit of some stories adapted truthful acold truthful far, the colorizations are not the lone mode to acquisition these serials—both the archetypal versions of “The Daleks” and “The War Games” are disposable connected carnal media and streaming astatine this point, truthful contempt the “confirmations” this latest colorization has brought with it, anyone who wants to spot the archetypal stories sans-embellishment tin bash so.

While connected the aboveground a batch of these changes and “retcons” are insignificant successful the expansive strategy of things, the information that the scope of these colorizations has rapidly grown betwixt “The Daleks” and “The War Games” beyond cosmetic embellishment and condensation paints an intriguing representation for what aboriginal colorizations could tweak, arsenic each caller colorization brings with it an effort to marque adjacent much connections across Doctor Who‘s vast, and often contradictory, continuity. Just what stories could travel next—and what changes could travel with them—remains to beryllium seen. As ever with Doctor Who, clip volition tell.

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