Doctor Who is set to celebrate its big 60th birthday in a few weeks—but it wouldn’t be a party without a few friends, nor a few enemies: because the Daleks are showing up to menace the proceedings in glorious color!
The BBC has announced that “The Daleks,” Doctor Who’s second story—the seven-part serial that made the show a smash hit and transformed its goals from an intentionally educational program into a sci-fi family adventure—has been remastered in color for a special broadcast on Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary on November 23.
Airing on BBC Four in the UK—and also as part of “The Whoniverse,” the BBC’s newly launched streaming home for Doctor Who on its iPlayer platform—the serial has been edited into a new 75-minute cut, updated in color and with a brand new score and sound design created by composer Mark Ayres.
“It’s been my absolute pleasure to spend this past 12 months working with such a talented team to breathe new life into this classic adventure—a story that is literally the foundation stone of all that Doctor Who has become,” Doctor Who executive producer Phil Collins said in a press release. “The original is a masterpiece of 1960’s television drama and this new version stands on the shoulders of the pioneering spirit of 1960’s Doctor Who.”
Although as Collins notes work on the colorization has been happening over the last year, the news of the broadcast comes in the wake of the BBC facing rights issues about access to the very first Doctor Who story, “An Unearthly Child,” due to a dispute with the son of its writer, Anthony Coburn. If audiences can’t see the Doctor’s very first televized adventure, this—the debut of their most iconic villain, a fundamental and immediate evolution of the show—is perhaps the next best thing.
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