Doctor Who: The Animations - What's Next?

With the release of 'The Faceless Ones' this week and the upcoming animation of 'Fury From The Deep' later in the year. It begs the question, what could we see next from the animation range?

Not counting 'Fury From The Deep', there are currently only sixteen either fully missing or partially missing stories left to be animated. Below is a list of the stories with the amount of episodes missing from that particular serial:

• 'Marco Polo' (7 episodes)
• 'The Crusade' (2 episodes)
• 'Galaxy 4' (3 episodes)
• 'The Myth Makers' (4 episodes)
• 'Mission To The Unknown'
• 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (9 episodes)
• 'The Massacre' (4 episodes)
• 'The Celestial Toymaker' (3 episodes)
• 'The Savages' (4 episodes)
• 'The Smugglers' (4 episodes)
• 'The Highlanders' (4 episodes)
• 'The Underwater Menace (2 episodes)
• 'The Evil Of The Daleks' (6 episodes)
• 'The Abomniable Snowmen' (5 episodes)
• 'The Wheel In Space' (4 episodes)
• 'The Space Pirates' (6 episodes) 

(in the case of 'The Underwater Menace', that story was released back in 2014 with telesnap reconstructions for the two missing episodes)

But which stories are we likely to see next and in what order? Here are my predictions (word of warning, this is purely my opinion and isn't backed by any rumour). With that bit of clarification out of the way let's dive in...

1. 'The Evil Of The Daleks' 

Personally I think Evil will be the next one to be animated for release early next year. I think this because of a few reasons; the animation teams so far have strived to make season 4 as complete as possible (especially with the release of 'The Macra Terror' last year and 'The Faceless Ones' this month), Evil seems like the next logical way to go.

Also, it's a fan favourite story and one I think the vast majority of fans would be thrilled to see animated (plus - there are Daleks in it and thats bound the be a draw!)

2. 'The Wheel In Space' 

Now i'll be the first to admit that i'm not a fan of Wheel, two episodes remain of this tale and yep, the results are far from stellar. Nevertheless this is the last Cyberman story to not have it's own DVD release to that would bound to be an incentive. Plus last year for a BFI event in London, the first ten minutes of Wheel part one was animated (which was included as a bonus feature on the Macra Terror release) and personally I thought it looked great! and I found myself really wanting to watch the rest of this story so fingers crossed its sooner rather than later!

3. 'The Abombiable Snowmen'

Another classic tale, on par with Evil, and quite an iconic one as this was the story to introduce us to the Yeti and the Great Intelligence. What's why I could imagine this one being quite high on the list.

4. 'The Celestial Toymaker'

Personally this is one of my favourite Hartnell adventures and it's a real shame that not much of it still exists. Especially with the reference to the Toymaker in 'Can You Hear Me?' I feel like animating this story soon would give it certain relevance. Also, this story would lend itself perfectly to the animation format and the team could do so much with it, especially with their creative deviation from the original multi camera shoot from back in the 60s. 

5. 'The Crusade'

'The Crusade' is one of them that fans have clamoured after for many years, and given that only two episodes need to be animated it does strike as odd that we haven't already seen this. However the animation team have said that the sheer amount of costumes, sets and characters are the reasons why we haven't seen this story animated. But I could see that, especially if 'The Collection - Season 2' boxset is coming, we could eventually see this tale animated. 

6. 'The Massacre' 

This, to me, is a particular underrated story. It is the first to use William Hartnell in a duel role and it's a story that nobody knows much about considering all four episodes are missing and we only have the audio soundtrack (+ Target book)

7. 'Galaxy 4' 

'Galaxy 4' is one of Who's more obscure stories and one that I think, if done right, could lend itself perfectly to animation. We already have episode 3 so three more episodes isn't that far out of the realms of possibility - even if the story isn't that fondly remembered.

8. 'The Savages'

9. 'The Smugglers'

I've grouped these two together solely because all episodes are missing from both of these stories and we don't know a great deal about either of these so I think it would be really nice to see these as 'new'. That's why I put these higher than some other more recognisable tales such as Master Plan. 

10. 'The Myth Makers'

I don't know much about Myth Makers, but what I can say from listening to the audio soundtrack, is that it appears to be a fun tale and one which I think could suit animation well (especially with the Trojan Horse) and I'm sure it would be better received than what's next on my list...

11. 'The Space Pirates'

The last of the 'easily doable' stories is 'The Space Pirates'. I've put this one so low down because let's face it, it isn't very good. All six episodes are missing from this story so the animation team would have their hands full and I don't think there would be a great number of people clamouring for this story anyway so alas it is here. Would be nice for completest reasons though.

12. 'Marco Polo'

13. 'The Highlanders'

These next two are really low down on the list despite me wanting them animated ASAP for the sole reason that it's been confirmed by the animation team that these two stories will be low down on the list regardless because of the settings, the amount of characters and the costumes. While this is sad to hear we can only hope that we see these two stories down the line - and especially in the case of 'Marco Polo' it'd be great to see a complete first season on the shelf finally!

Plus Highlanders is the first story to feature Jamie so I think we need that story for historic reasons given how important Jamie is in the Second Doctor's era.

14. 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (+ 'Mission To The Unknown')

Finally we've got Master Plan. To me this would have to be the last story to be animated purely down to the sheer size of the story. It's twelve episodes set across a dozen locations and including an enormous cast. All of these elements would drive the budget right up to it possibly being the only release of that year as it would effectively be taking up two stories worth of animation. I've seen many people suggest releasing this story in two parts - something i'd actually not be opposed to.

They could include 'Mission To The Unknown' as a bonus but in all honesty i'm very happy with the UCLAN reconstruction we saw last year. If there was a way for the BBC to release that production in official packaging then that would be lovely. 

So there we are. There is what's left to be animated and in what order I think these stories will be released. Let me know if you agree, if you disagree and what you think of these stories.