The cover art and special features of the animated version of the missing Doctor Who adventure The Macra Terror, releasing on DVD, Blu-ray, special edition Steelbook and digital download on 25th March 2019, have been revealed.

Originally broadcast in four weekly parts from 11th March to 1st April 1967, and starring Patrick Troughton, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze and Frazer Hines, no full episodes of this serial are known to have survived on film. Fortunately for fans, a complete audio recording of all four parts still exists. Now, 52 years later, the four episodes will be brought back to life through the power of animation, available on disc and digital download, in both colour and black and white, from 25th March 2019.

Anneke Wills says, The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companions arrive on a human colony in the far flung future. The colony appears to be a giant recreational complex - a holiday camp for rest and relaxation. Everyone looks happy and carefree but all is not as it seems. The colony has been infiltrated and brainwashed by a race of giant parasitic crab creatures called the Macra.

The Macra have only returned once since, 40 years later, coming face to face with the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) in the 2007 episode Gridlock.

Paul Hembury, Executive Producer, BBC Studios says, Special features for the DVD and Blu-ray release include:

• Audio Commentary: Toby Hadoke presents an audio commentary track on all four episodes of ‘The Macra Terror’, featuring cast and crew from the original 1967 production - Frazer Hines (Jamie), Terence Lodge (Medok), Anthony Gardner (Alvis), Maureen Lane (Majorette) and director, John Davies. Commentary produced by John Kelly and recorded in London on 4th January 2019.
• Episode Reconstructions: Surviving film frames, fragments of existing footage and set photographs are brought together with the original unedited audio to reconstruct a presentation of the original now lost live-action production of ‘The Macra Terror’, as seen by viewers of BBC 1 in 1967. Produced by Derek Handley. Available to watch with or without an optional narration track read by Anneke Wills.
• Bonus Mini-Episode: A ten-minute animated short, built around an otherwise lost Doctor Who episode from 1968 starring Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines. Directed by AnneMarie Walsh.
• Animation Test: Prior to the project being formally commissioned, this short animation test (of a scene from episode 3 of ‘The Macra Terror’) was produced in March 2018, to investigate the feasibility of mounting the production in full.
• Animatics: A selection of scenes showing how the new animated production of ‘The Macra Terror’ went from initial storyboards to final animation. Storyboard art by Adrian Salmon.
• Animation Gallery: A gallery of artwork from the development, pre-production and animation of the new animated version of ‘The Macra Terror’, including character art from Martin Geraghty and background paintings from Graham Bleathman, Colin Howard and Lydia Butz.
• Teaser Trailer: A short teaser trailer animated by Rob Ritchie, produced to promote the announcement of a new production of ‘The Macra Terror’ in December 2018.
• Alternative Black and White presentation: The full four-part animation is also available to view in an alternative black and white format on disc 2.
• 1992 Audio Presentation: In 1992, the BBC Audio Collection released ‘The Macra Terror’ on audio cassette, in a special release narrated by Colin Baker. It was the first time that the story had been made commercially available by the BBC and that audio-only release is included here in full. Surviving Footage: Less than two minutes of original footage still exist from the 1967 production of ‘The Macra Terror’. These film fragments have been painstakingly restored and digitally remastered for this release, with considerable improvements made to the overall picture quality and resolution of this unique footage. Film restoration by Peter Crocker.
• Behind the scenes film: In 1967, during pre-production of ‘The Macra Terror’, film cameras visited the visual effects workshop in Uxbridge where work was underway on construction of the Macra props. Special effects props and models from other Doctor Who stories can also be seen in the workshop, including parts of a Cyberman from ‘The Tenth Planet’ (1966) and an aeroplane from ‘The Faceless Ones’ (1967). This footage is accompanied by a new audio commentary track from Doctor Who visual effects designer and BBC visual effects historian, Mike Tucker, explaining some of the effects techniques and props featured in the film.
• Censored Scene: A reconstruction of a scene from episode 2 of ‘The Macra Terror’ that was heavily re-edited by censors for the episode’s Australian television transmission in November 1967.
• Title sequences: ‘The Macra Terror’ saw the debut of a new title sequence for Doctor Who - the first time the programme had made such a change. The title sequence is presented here in full, remastered in HD and in a number of alternative versions.
• Photo gallery: A collection of 36 photographs taken during the production of ‘The Macra Terror’ in 1967, featuring original design department set photographs and Radio Times publicity images. All presented in HD.
• Production Paperwork: A full set of original camera scripts, studio schedules, floor plans and other materials are available to view by accessing disc 2 via your computer’s DVD or Blu Ray ROM drive.

Additional extras exclusive to Steelbook:

• Gridlock: The Macra returned to Doctor Who in 2007, in this episode starring David Tennant and written by Russell T. Davies
• Audio commentary: Julie Gardner, Travis Oliver and Marie Jones discuss the making of 'Gridlock' in this audio commentary track from 2007.
• Doctor Who Confidential – Are we there yet?: A documentary looking at the making of the 2007 story, 'Gridlock'.

The BBC has revealed that an animated version of the 1967 story The Macra Terror will be released in March 2019

The four part Patrick Troughton story has been missing from the BBC Archives for many years, although a copy of the soundtrack exists.

Rumours of an animated version of the story were confirmed by the BBC today releasing a trailer for the story on their YouTube channel.

As well as the Second Doctor, the story features Ben, played by Michael Craze, Polly played by Anneke Wills and Jamie played by Frazer Hines

Coming Soon: The Macra Terror | Doctor Who

Readers in the United Kingdom have a chance to win of a copy of the latest DVD release from the Reeltime Pictures archive, The Doctors: Villains, courtesy of Koch Media UK:

BBC Studios have announced the next Blu-ray release in their 'classic' season boxed sets will be Tom Baker's final year as the Doctor, the 1980/81 Season Eighteen.

As well as the seven stories from the season, the set will also include the Christmas spin-off special, K9 & Company.

As with the previous release of Season Twelve and the imminent release of Season Nineteen, this new collection will feature a host of new features to supplement the remastered high-definition upscaled episodes themselves:

• revealing new 2019 commentaries moderated by Matthew Sweet (Tom Baker on The Leisure Hive, Lalla Ward and Rachel Davies on State Of Decay)
• rare behind-the-scenes footage from The Leisure Hive, Full Circle and Logopolis
• surround sound mix for Warriors’ Gate
• new special effects for Logopolis, including new especially shot footage at the originally planned but ultimately unused University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory for the Pharos Project location
• a new Making-Of documentary for Logopolis
• eight more editions of Behind The Sofa
• brand new documentaries The Writers Room and Weekend With Waterhouse
• a new interview with K9 & Company’s Ian Sears
• another dip into the Panopticon convention archives with Tom Baker
• HD photo galleries plus scripts, production files and rare documentation provided as PDFs
• plus extensive features previously released on DVD

The material has been remastered by Peter Crocker and Mark Ayres, with packaging/artwork by Lee Binding; the set will also feature a booklet by new series writer and content consultant Pete McTighe.

Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 18 is currently scheduled for the UK on 25th February 2019, though as with the previous volumes the date may change before its intended release.

You can pre-order the set from our Amazon Shop.

Koch Media UK has released the latest in its series of interviews with the stars of Doctor Who - The Doctors: Villains!

This is described as the definitive set of interviews with a group of actors who brought the villains in Doctor Who to life and sent you “behind the sofa”!

This special release contains five in-depth interviews with Ian Collier (Omega - Arc of Infinity), Bernard Archard (Marcus Scarman - Pyramids of Mars), David Gooderson (Davros - Destiny of the Daleks), Peter Miles (Nyder - Genesis of the Daleks), Julian Glover (Scaroth - City of Death), plus a fascinating tribute to Roger Delgado (The Master) by the cast and production staff he worked with.

For all Doctor Who fans, this 2-disc special collector’s edition is 5 hours of pure nostalgia, which will give you a whole new insight into the making of Doctor Who.

With an introduction by Nicholas Briggs and Producer/Director Keith Barnfather. The DVD is out on region free 2-disc now.

Order on Amazon

A new animated sequence from the 1968 Doctor Who story, The Wheel In Space, is to get its debut at the British Film Institute's Southbank Centre this December.

The 10-minute sequence is from Episode 1 of the six-part story. The episode has been missing from the BBC archives since it was junked in the early 1970's. Only two of the six episodes from the story still exist in the archives.

This newly announced mini-episode is produced by Charles Norton, who produced the animated versions of Power of the Daleks and Shada. It is directed by Anne Marie Walsh who will introduce the BFI Southbank screening and will be included on a future BBC DVD.

The screening is part of the annual Missing Believed Wiped event at the BFI, marking its 25th Anniversary this year. The screening, Session One on 15 December, will also feature previously lost episodes of Vince Hill at The Talk of the Town.

Session 2, later the same day will feature an interview with Philip Morris, the man responsible for returning a number of missing Doctor Who episodes to the archives. Among the clips and shows featured in this session are appearances from Morecambe and Wise and the earliest surviving episode from the first series of The Basil Brush Show.

Tickets for both Missing Believed Wiped sessions on 15 December go on sale to BFI members on 6 November and the general public from 13 November, with joint ticket option available for both sessions.

BBC Worldwide have provided clarification on how to get replacements for the faulty discs within the recently released Season Twelve Collection can be requested.


Owing to an administrative issue, some customers erroneously did not receive the correct replacement of Revenge of the Cybermen; DVD Support have apologised for the error, and advise:

BBC Studios have announced Doctor Who Season 19 will be the next release in the Doctor Who: The Collection range.

Season 19 is Peter Davison’s first series as the Fifth Doctor and this edition follows the success of Tom Baker’s first season on Blu-ray which sold out within days of release.

The set will be released on the 19th November 2018, as a collector’s edition limited run.

The title will be available to pre-order from HMV and Amazon from tomorrow.

The Limited Edition Blu-ray includes brand new ‘Special Features’ exclusive to this set include: Five new ‘Making-Of’ documentaries for Castrovalva, Four To Doomsday, Black Orchid, Earthshock and Time-Flight, surround sound mixes for Kinda and Earthshock, an Extended Version of Black Orchid Part One, rare studio footage from Castrovalva, Four To Doomsday, Earthshock and Time-Flight, updated special effects for Castrovalva, seven more editions of Behind The Sofa and a newly-shot one-hour interview Peter Davison In Conversation with Matthew Sweet, and much more.

The eight-disc box set also includes the Peter Davison/David Tennant mini-episode Time Crash, plus hours of extensive special features previously released on DVD.

All 26 episodes are being remastered from scratch by Peter Crocker and Mark Ayres. With this season’s original 16mm film elements still in existence, the location material can be presented in true HD, with studio material upscaled. Lee Binding is again providing stunning packaging design and Pete McTighe has written extensive booklet notes and is the content consultant for the title.

Doctor Who: The Collection is executively produced for BBC Studios by Russell Minton.

Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 19 is available in the UK from November 19, 2018 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon

Details of the international release will be available soon.

The Season 19 Safety Video with Tegan Jovanka

Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 12, the Blu-ray set of stories from Tom Baker's first series of Doctor Who, has entered the charts as the UK's second best selling Blu-ray for the week.

The Blu-ray features the first five stories of the fourth Doctor, including The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor is accompanied by Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) and was first broadcast between December 1974 and May 1975. The set included a new interview with Tom Baker as well as several brand new features.

The charts are compiled by Official Charts based on sales across the seven day period from 1st - 7th July 2018. Doctor Who was only beaten in sales by the Marvel Film Black Panther.

The latest edition of the podcast From the Archive: A British Television, produced in association with Kaleidoscope, the nonprofit organisation that recovers and stores classic television programmes, focuses on the new Doctor Who Season 12 Blu-ray set.

Doctor Who has an established history of DVD sets full of extras and documentaries about the series’ past. Now, as classic Doctor Who enters the realm of Blu-ray sets by season, how do they top themselves?

In this episode of From the Archive: A British Television Podcast, Greg Bakun takes a look at how the team led by Russell Minton decided to evolve the range to not only make it more appealing to fans but unleash the floodgates of archive material never made available to the public before now.

Bakun talks to Russell Minton about his vision for these sets, Richard Bignell about the research and work that went into providing the loads of archive material to this set that has never been available to fans before now, Ed Stradling about updating old documentaries and making new ones for this set, and Derek Handley who not only talks about the work that goes into the photo galleries but also the BBC Photographic Library and his work tracking down photos we have not seen before for the sets.

The podcast also includes Stephen Cranford who was a close friend to Graham Strong who recently passed away. Graham gave fans the gift of crystal clear audio recordings to many missing Doctor Who episodes and the podcast pays tribute to his legacy and finds out more about who Graham was.

The Podcast can be found here.

Feedback or questions on the podcast or general inquiries can be sent to feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk.