“Shada,” the latest lost or incomplete Doctor Who serial to be restored, will soon be available electronically or on Blu-ray or DVD.
Today we got our first full trailer for the release (above), which stars Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana.
We got a brief look at the animated side of things in a 30-second hype teaser last month, but this new and longer trailer illustrates how the new full-color animation will mesh with the original location and studio recording, which also has been re-cut from original material collected before industrial action halted production on the 1980 Douglas Adams story.
Much like other recent reconstructions, such as “The Power of the Daleks,” the facial animation isn’t the greatest out there, but it does the job of completing the picture — and K9, the Doctor’s robot dog, seems to shine in this format anyway. (And it’s arguably a more dynamic way to reconstruct these treasures than with still photos, as has also been done.) Beyond the animation, there’s a special surprise for viewers who stick around until the restored Shada‘s closing scene.
No stranger to resurrection, “Shada” has also been reformatted as VHS compilation, full-cast audio drama and novelization.
The newest take on “Shada” will be available this Friday, Nov. 24, 2017, as a digital release in the U.K. iTunes store and on region-free DVD and Blu-ray Dec. 4; if you Yanks don’t want to order the import version and can wait just a bit longer, a U.S. DVD also goes on sale Jan. 9, Sept. 14, 2018, according to Amazon.
