EXCLUSIVE: BBC Doctor Who fans could see entire back catalogue given modern overhaul
Showrunner Russell T Davies says he intends to revisit as many old episodes as possible and give them a tech refresh as special version of 1963 episode airs next week
Patrick Troughton’s final Doctor Who story is the latest to get a new lease of life by being colourised.
After 1963’s
The Daleks
was given the colour treatment – to be screened next week on BBC4 – 1969 epic The War Games is to be tarted up too. In the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, showrunner Russell T Davies says he intends to colourise every story he can.
He explained: “Many years ago, I worked with a very astute producer who absolutely drilled into me that children will not watch black-and-white television. I’m absolutely determined that the back catalogue of Doctor Who should be colourised” The War Games features a young Rudolph Walker, later Patrick Trueman in EastEnders.
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Other notable cast members include Edward Brayshaw, known to a generation of mid-lifers as Harold Meaker in Rentaghost, and Leslie Schofield, who played Jeff Healy in EastEnders. In the original story, an alien race led by the War Lord (Philip Madoc) kidnap and brainwash soldiers from battles throughout Earth’s history to fight in war games on another planet. It’s all part of the aliens’ sinister plot to conquer the galaxy.
The Doctor and his companions Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury) form a resistance army to stop them and get the soldiers home.