Power Of The Daleks - Special Edition

Okay... In the words of Ralph Wiggum... "I'm happy AND angry!"

Well, it looks like the animated "Power Of The Daleks" is getting a Special Edition, with a slew of additional new extras, and updated animation.

What?!

I don't get it. While I'm happy that the classic series gets love and support, there are SO many other stories yet to be animated (including Evil of the Daleks, if they wanted to do another Dalek story). Further, "Power Of The Daleks" was relatively recent. There are other, older versions of animated stories that I would have thought they might have chosen to redo.

Most bothersome of all, these 'special editions' take SO long to get to us here in R1... IF we even get them. I doubt we'll see the Power of the Daleks SE over here.
We never did get the SE of Enemy of the World, and I'm still waiting on any announcement of an R1 edition of "The Faceless Ones". I loved the Macra Terror release, even with the little changes. I hope BBC America /Worldwide (or whatever the company calls itself now) gets these classic Who releases out a better rate!

I can't believe there's not a demand for these... I mean, those Doctor Who full-season blu-rays seem to sell pretty well, as they seem to fluctuate in availability.

As someone who finally broke down and got the Blu Ray from Australia four weeks ago (and finally got a new cable to get my USB Blu Ray drive working again today) I gotta say this release looks exciting.  All kinds of new bonus features and it looks like a massive re-working of the original animation.  

Plus I've now got the colour version on Blu Ray and they say this new release is in glorious black & white only as that's how the original animation was intended.  Now that they've redone massive amounts of B&W animation, they didn't bother to let the Americans go back an color it all in like the original release.  So in the end I'm not too upset about this Special Edition.

Now if only they'd release the Blu Ray here in the USA.  I can't understand why these animations have been DVD only.  Being stuck at home finally prompted me to go back and order all the UK Blu Rays (waiting for The Faceless Ones to arrive now).  Maybe if BBC America didn't have any input on this new special edition, then there won't be a big delay in getting a North American release?

Oh, Jeezy Creezy....another Special Edition double-dip.  

...nice features though...dammit...

Includes exciting new special features:
• Two new documentaries about Power of the Daleks
• 1993 BBC audio version of The Power of the Daleks narrated by Tom Baker
• Raw incidental music
• Photogrammetry Featurette
• Whicker’s World – I Don’t Like My Monsters to Have Oedipus Complexes
• Daleks – The Early Years: A 1992 documentary presented by Peter Davison
• Robin Hood – 1953 Episode: Patrick Troughton’s earliest surviving TV appearance
• BBC archive footage from BBC regional news, BBC Breakfast, Blue Peter and Newsnight
• Previously unreleased animation trailers and animatics

Additional bonus material:
• Audio commentaries by Anneke Wills on each episode
• Animation test footage
• Photo Gallery, including previously unreleased and rediscovered full colour on-set photos from 1966.
• Servants & Masters – The Making of The Power of the Daleks
• Doctor Who – The Highlanders - removed from the release

Highlights:
1. Episode 1 is drastically changed, lots done from scratch
2. Lesterson going mad has been re-animated from scratch
3. The old extras are ported over but they also have bits added to them (For example, the photo gallery is considerably longer)
4. The Daleks - The Early years includes all of the then newly recorded material, such as episode introductions, however, instead of the full episodes, clips of the episodes are played now.
5. The new "behind-the-scene" feature follows the animation of a particular scene from start to finish
6. the new script to screen feature is meant to supplement the existing feature by looking at the smaller details of the production
7. Highlanders telesnap is not coming with it... Unfortunately, it was taken off because there wasn't room on the disc and they had to take something off. It wasn't supposed to be in the press release. Charles says that it will be moved to a later release, but this is not elaborated on.
8. The surviving footage has been remastered considerably, including the newly recovered bits
9. No color version this time around. Original release only had it because BBC America wanted one and ended up having it done themselves by a studio in Canada.

I have to admit, it sounds like a really cool set, the more I hear about it. It makes the 'double-dip' pill much easier to swallow.

I just hope we actually get it (and Macra Terror, and the SE of Enemy of the World) in Region 1 in the not-too-distant future.