Doctor Who Producer Addresses Concerns Over New Remastered Episodes

Doctor Who has started to colorize some of its classic episodes. However, some fans raised concerns that the process would affect the originals, but one of the producers assured them that was not happening.

Doctor Who has started to colorize some of the classic episodes. This is still a new move from the franchise, with the first fully colored episode, “The Daleks’ Invasion of Earth: Episode 2,” released to mark the franchise’s 60th anniversary in 2024. The episode was originally black and white and colorized to appeal to younger and modern audiences. However, some fans raised concerns after another remastered version seemingly cut the original episode short.

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Among the serials being remastered was The War Games, with a screen time of four hours and 10 minutes. The remaster version cut it to a 90-minute feature-length episode, which was much shorter than the original. The move sparked concerns among fans that the remasters would replace the originals and they feared it would lose most of the story since what used to be over four hours was condensed to a 1-hour and 30-minute film. Doctor Who producer Phil Collinson dispelled the fears and assured fans that the remasters won’t in any way affect the original episodes. “I love those stories. I grew up with them. We would never take them away. They are all there for people to watch,” Collinson told Doctor Who Magazine before explaining why they decided to colorize some of the original episodes. “It’s just that some viewers, especially younger ones, find it difficult to sit down and watch hours and hours of black-and-white material. I love it, and lots of people do. These stories are great. They are as good as anything we’re transmitting now. It’s just that sometimes they need a bit of help to sing to people. That’s what we are doing, and we’re doing it with so much love.”

Richard Tipple, who led the colorization of The War Games, added that what they did with the serial was to make it more appealing to the younger audience. The War Games is the seventh and final serial of season 6 of Doctor Who, which aired from August 10, 1969 to June 21, 1969. The War Games has 10 episodes, each episode being over 20 minutes long. “A casual fan might be daunted by the thought of taking on 10 black-and-white episodes, but a 90-minute movie, in colour – that’s something they can get on board with,” Tipple explained. “It might open this whole era up to someone, how cool would that be?” He added that what they did was to give the serial a “2024 refit” and they did it with “a huge amount of love for the original.”

The concern about cutting short the original Doctor Who serial was understandable. Ardent fans who want to revisit the classic episodes do not want to miss any of the scenes they love. Reducing a four-hour-long serial to a 90-minute-long film is actually too much. However, what Tipple did was also reasonable. If they want to reach out to the modern audience, they have to make changes to the classic episodes and alter them so they appeal to the younger generation and the remastered version is one way to do so. Also, if the remaster is too long, the targeted audience might not give it a chance, but if the length is similar to most films they watch, they might give it a try. As for the traditional Doctor Who fans, there is nothing to worry about because the originals are still accessible.

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Source: Doctor Who Magazine